爱默生致惠特曼
拉尔夫?沃尔多?爱默生（1803—1882），19世纪美国著名的思想家、散文家、演说家、诗人，超验主义者。他崇尚自然，强调个人价值，代表作有《论自然》、《美国学者》等。
瓦尔特?惠特曼（1819—1892），美国历史上最伟大的诗人之一。1855年，惠特曼自费出版了他的《草叶集》，其思想自由奔放，鼓舞人心，从变化无常的世事中阐述生命的真谛。《草叶集》出版后，遭受的非议和恶评不断，爱默生是第一个公开赞扬《草叶集》的人。
亲爱的先生：
对于卓越超群的《草叶集》，我对它的价值并非视而不见。我认为它是美国迄今为止所出版的最杰出最具才智的作品。我在读它的时候，心情十分愉快，伟大的力量总会让我们感到愉快。我一直都认为，我们似乎处于贫瘠枯竭的状态，似乎太多的精雕细琢，或者过度的迂缓气质正使我们西方的智慧变得迟钝而平庸，而《草叶集》正是我们所需要的。我很高兴您拥有这样自由而勇敢的思想，对此我十分兴奋。我发现，很多事物都应该表现出它本身应具有的美妙，我也十分乐意看到其中那种大胆的记述，也许只有具有深刻理解力的人才能够把它挖掘出来。
一项伟大的事业有这样良好的开端，我为此向你表示祝贺，这个开端将来一定会有广阔的前景。我揉揉眼睛，想看看这道阳光是不是幻觉，但是这本书给我的感觉又是确定无疑的。它最大的优点就是能够增强和鼓舞人们的信心。直到昨天晚上，我在一家报纸上看见这本书的广告时，我才相信真有此书，而且在邮局就能买到它。
我很希望能与您这样一位良师益友见一面，很想抛开手中的工作去纽约拜访您。
爱默生
1855年7月21日
于马萨诸塞州康科德
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To
Concord
Massachusetts
21 July 1855
Dear Sir,
I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of “Leaves of Grass”. I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seems the sterile and stingy Nature, as if too much handiwork or too much lymph in the temperament were making our Western wits fat and mean. I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment, which so delights us, and which Comrge perception only can inspire.
I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which must yet have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion, but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging. I did not know until I, Comst night, saw the book advertised in a newspaper, that I could trust the name as real and avaiComble for a post?office.
I wish to see my benefactor, and have felt much like striking my tasks, and visiting New York to pay you my respects.
R.W. EmersonT.xt.小..说...天.堂