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"The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II."

Schiller's death-chamber,
Goethe's sad Court-environment; above all, Luther's little room
in the _Wartburg_ (I believe I actually had tears in my eyes
there, and kissed the old oak-table, being in a very flurried
state of nerves), my belief was that under the Canopy there was
not at present so _holy_ a spot as that same. Of human souls I
found none specially beautiful to me at all, at all,--such my sad
fate! Of learned professors, I saw little, and that little was
more than enough. Tieck at Berlin, an old man, lame on a Sofa, I
did love, and do; he is an exception, could I have seen much of
him. But on the whole _Universal Puseyism_ seemed to me the
humor of German, especially of Berlin thinkers;--and I had some
quite portentous specimens of that kind,--unconscious specimens
of four hundred quack power! Truly and really the Prussian
Soldiers, with their intelligent _silence,_ with the touches of
effective Spartanism I saw or fancied in them, were the class of
people that pleased me best. But see, my sheet is out! I am
still reading, reading, most nightmare Books about Fritz; but as
to writing,--_Ach Gott!_ Never, never.


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