PBA Galleries

4 pp., comprising 51 lines, in brown ink, on 4-page conjugate lettersheet. 20.3x13 cm. (8x5¼").

Leter from Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American essayist, lecturer, and poet, leader of the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century, to radical abolitionist and Unitarian minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who during the Civil War was to serve as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized black regiment, from 1862–1864. The letter is a somewhat lengthy response to a request to speak at Higginson's church in Worcenster, Massachusetts, and gives an indication of Emerson's busy schedule as the conflicts of a nation divided by the issue of slavery were coming to a head. In part: "My dear Sir, Your kind note of Feb. 4 has just reached me here, having been forwarded to he from home to New Jersey and hence hither. I have been and shall be a traveller, thru all this month... I owe you an apology for this very brief answer I make to a telegraphic note, which came to me, as I was getting into a carriage to begin my journey to New York, in such haste as to permit no explanation... R.W. Emerson."  Higginson, to whom the letter is addressed, is also remembered as a correspondent and literary mentor to the poet Emily Dickinson, offering her early encouragement but warning her against publishing her poetry because of its unconventional form and style. After Dickinson died, Higginson collaborated with Mabel Loomis Todd in publishing volumes of her poetry – heavily edited in favor of conventional punctuation, diction, and rhyme.