Dear Sir:

I am not blind to the worth of this wonderful gift of "Leaves of Grass." I find it the most
extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has contributed. I am very happy in
reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of
what seemed 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 large perception can only inspire.

I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must 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 last night saw the book advertised in a newspaper that I could trust
the name as real and available 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. Emerson