from Emerson's topical notebook RT -

{115} I bade Miss Bacon rush to her proofs, & told Alcott, to write only that which cannot be omitted. every sentence a cube, standing on its bottom, like a die, essential & immortal. leave out all the words, & put in only the things.

{117} The labial speech instead of the stomachic afflicts me in all the poetry I read, even [though] of a gay or trifling subject.

{121} Criticism misleads, like Bonapartes quartermaster; if we listen to him, we shall never stir a step. The part you have to take none but you must know. The critic can never tell you.
___________

Criticism should be poetic.

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from notebook Orientalist (retranslations of Hafiz):

Of my {proper head} brows and brain
I have never a just feeling
Till the wine & I can
Toss my head up to the ceiling (Orientalist 42)