’On its first appearance, the book was greeted by a volley of coarse and outrageous abuse, and the nine days’ wonder was followed by a nine days’ hue-and-cry.  It was garbled, misrepresented, scandalously ill-treated.  This was all of no consequence.  The opinion of the majority you will find expressed in a late number of the North American Review.  I should think the article, though ungenerous, not more so than great part of the critiques upon your book.

’The minority may be divided into two classes:  The one, consisting of those who knew you but slightly, either personally, or in your writings.  These have now read your book; and, seeing in it your high ideal standard, genuine independence, noble tone of sentiment, vigor of mind and powers of picturesque description, they value your book very much, and rate you higher for it.

’The other comprises those who were previously aware of these high qualities,—­and who, seeing in a book to which they had looked for a lasting monument to your fame, a degree of presumptuousness, irreverence, inaccuracy, hasty generalization, and ultraism on many points, which they did not expect, lament the haste in which you have written, and the injustice which you have consequently done to so important a task, and to your own powers of being and doing.  To this class I belong.

’I got the book as soon as it came out,—­long before I received the copy endeared by your handwriting,—­and devoted myself to reading it.  I gave myself up to my natural impressions, without seeking to ascertain those of others.  Frequently I felt pleasure and admiration, but more frequently disappointment, sometimes positive distaste.

’There are many topics treated of in this book of which I am not a judge; but I do pretend, even where I cannot criticize in detail, to have an opinion as to the general tone of thought.  When Herschel writes his Introduction to Natural Philosophy, I cannot test all he says, but I cannot err about his fairness, his manliness, and wide range of knowledge.  When Jouffroy writes his lectures, I am not conversant with all his topics of thought, but I can appreciate his lucid style and admirable method.  When Webster speaks on the currency, I do not understand the subject, but I do understand his mode of treating it, and can see what a blaze of light streams from his torch.  When Harriet Martineau writes about America, I often cannot test that rashness and inaccuracy of which I hear so much, but I can feel that they exist.  A want of soundness, of habits of patient investigation, of completeness, of arrangement, are felt throughout the book; and, for all its fine descriptions of scenery, breadth of reasoning, and generous daring, I cannot be happy in it, because it is not worthy of my friend, and I think a few months given to ripen it, to balance, compare, and mellow, would have made it so. * *