The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II.

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Title: The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II.

Author: Thomas Carlyle

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Editor: Charles Eliot Norton

Release date: October 6, 2004 [eBook #13660]

Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13660

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THOMAS CARLYLE AND RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 1834-1872, VOL II. ***

THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THOMAS CARLYLE AND RALPH WALDO EMERSON

1834-1872

VOLUME II

"To my friend I write a letter, and from him I receive a letter. It is a spiritual gift, worthy of him to give, and of me to receive."—Emerson

"What the writer did actually mean, the thing he then thought of, the thing he then was."—Carlyle

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II

LXXVI. Emerson. Concord, 1 July, 1842. Remittance of L51.—

Alcott.—Editorship of the Dial.—Projected essay on Poetry.—

Stearns Wheeler.

LXXVII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 19 July, 1842. Acknowledgment of remittance.—Change of publishers.—Work on Cromwell.— Sterling.—Alcott.

LXXVIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 29 August, 1842. Impotence of speech.—Heart-sick for his own generation.—Transcendentalism of the Dial.

LXXIX. Emerson. Concord, 15 October, 1842. The coming book on Cromwell.—Alcott.—The Dial and its sins.—Booksellers' accounts.

LXXX. Carlyle. Chelsea, 17 November, 1842. Accounts.—Alcott.—

Sect-founders.—Man the Reformer.—James Stephen.—Gambardella.

LXXXI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 11 March, 1843. Past and Present.—

How to prevent pirated republication.—The Dial.—Alcott's

English Tail.

LXXXII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 1 April, 1843. Copy of Past and

Present forwarded.—Prospect of pirated edition.

LXXXIII. Emerson. Concord, 29 April, 1843. Carlyle's star.— Lectures on "New England" at Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York.—Politics in Washington.—Past and Present.—Effect of cheap press in America.—Reprint of the book.—The Dial does not pay expenses.

Extract from Emerson's Diary concerning Past and Present.

LXXXIV. Carlyle. 27 August, 1843. Introduction of Mr. Macready.

LXXXV. Emerson. Concord, 30 October, 1843. Remittance of L25.—

Piratical reprint of Past and Present.—E.P. Clark, a

Carlylese, to be asked to take charge of accounts.—Henry James.

—Ellery Channing's Poems.

LXXXVI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 31 October, 1843. Summer wanderings. —The Dial at the London Library.—Growth of Emerson's public in England.—Piratical reprint of his Essays in London.—of Past and Present in America.—Criticism of Carlyle in the Dial.—Dr. Russell.—Theodore Parker.—Book about Cromwell.— Commons Journals.

LXXXVII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 17 November, 1843. Receipt of L25.—

E.P. Clark.—Henry James.—Channing's Poems.—Reverend W.H.

Channing.—"Progress of the Species."—Emerson.—The Cromwell

business.

LXXXVIII. Emerson. Concord, 31 December, 1843. Macready.—

Railroad to Concord.—Margaret Fuller's Review of Sterling's

Poems in the Dial.—Remittance of L32.

LXXXIX. Carlyle. Chelsea, 31 January, 1844. Remittance received and made.—Criticism of Emerson by Gilfillan.—John Sterling.— Cromwell book.—Hexameters from Voss.

XC. Emerson. Concord, 29 February, 1844. Acknowledgment of remittance.—A new collection of Essays.—Faith in Writers as a class.—Remittance of L36.—Proposal concerning publication in America of Cromwell.

XCI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 3 April, 1844. Acknowledgment of remittance.—Piratical reprints.—Professor Ferrier.

XCII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 5 August, 1844. Fear for Sterling.—

Tennyson.—Work on Cromwell frightful.

XCIII. Emerson. Concord, 1 September, 1844. Sends proof sheets of new book of Essays.—Sterling.

XCIV. Carlyle. Chelsea, 29 September, 1844. Death of Sterling.

XCV. Emerson. Concord, 30 September, 1844. Remittance of L30—

Sterling.—Tennyson.—Regrets having troubled Carlyle about

proof-sheets.—Birth of Edward Emerson.—Purchase of land on

Walden Pond.

XCVI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 3 November, 1844. Thanks for remittance.—London edition of Essays, Second Series.— Criticism on them.

XCVII. Emerson. Concord, 31 December, 1844. Sterling's death.—

London edition of Essays.—Carlyle's Preface and strictures.

XCVIII. Emerson. Concord, 31 January, 1845. Bargain about Miscellanies with Carey and Hart.—Portrait of Carlyle desired.—E.P. Clark's "Illustrations of Carlyle".

XCIX. Carlyle. Chelsea, 16 February, 1845. Bargain with Carey &

Co.—Portrait.—Emerson's public in England.—Work on Cromwell.

C. Emerson. Concord, 29 June, 1845. Death of Mr. Carey.—

Portrait.—His own occupations.—Preparing to print Poems.—

Lectures in prospect.

CI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 29 August, 1845. Cromwell's Letters and Speeches finished.—Nature of the book.—New book from Emerson welcome.—Imperfection of all modes of utterance.—Forbids further plague with booksellers.

CII. Emerson. Concord, 15 September, 1845. Payment sure from

Carey and Hart.—Lectures on "Representative Men".

CIII. Emerson. Concord, 30 September, 1845. Congratulations on completion of Cromwell book.—Clark.

CIV. Carlyle. Chelsea, 11 November, 1845. Cromwell book sent.—

Visit to Scotland.—Changes there.—His mother.—Impatience with

the times.—Weariness with the Cromwell book.—Visit to the

Ashburtons.

CV. Carlyle. Chelsea, 3 January, 1846. Thanks to Mr. Hart, Mr.

Furness, and others.—_Cromwell proves popular.—New letters of

Cromwell.

CVI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 3 February, 1846. Second edition of

Cromwell.—Emerson to do what he will concerning republication.—

Anti-Corn-Law.—Aristocracy and Millocracy.

CVII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 3 March, 1846. Cromwell lumber.—Sheets of new edition sent.-Essay on Emerson in an Edinburgh Magazine.— Mr. Everett.—Jargon in Newspapers and Parliament.

CVIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 18 April, 1846. Arrangements concerning reprint of Cromwell.—Promise of Daguerrotype likeness.—Fifty years old.—Rides.—Emerson's voice wholly human.—Blessedness in work.

CIX. Carlyle. Chelsea, 30 April, 1846. Photograph sent.—

Arrangements with Wiley and Putnam for republication of

Cromwell and other books.—Photographs of Emerson and himself.

—Remembrance of Craigenputtock.

CX. Emerson. Concord, 14 May, 1846. Daguerrotype likeness.—

Wood-lot on Walden Pond.

CXI. Emerson. Concord, 31 May, 1846. Photograph of Carlyle received.—One of himself sent in return.—Bargain with Wiley and Putnam.

CXII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 18 June, 1846. Bargain with Wiley and

Putnam.—Emerson's photograph expected.

CXIII. Emerson. Concord, 15 July, 1846. Wiley and Putnam.—

Dealings with booksellers.—Accounts.—E.P. Clark and his

Illustrations of Carlyle's Writings.—Margaret Fuller going to

Europe.

CXIV. Carlyle. Chelsea, 17 July, 1846. Photograph of Emerson unsatisfactory.—Revision of his own books.—Spleen against books.—Going to Scotland.—Reading in American history.— Marshall and Sparks.—Michelet.—Beriah Green.

CXV. Emerson. Concord, 31 July, 1846. Thanks for copy of new edition of Cromwell.—Margaret Fuller.—Desires Carlyle to see her.

CXVI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 18 December, 1846. Long silence.— Disconsolate two months in Scotland.—Visit to Ireland.—A country cast into the melting-pot.—O'Connell.—Young Ireland.— Returned home sad.—Miss Fuller; estimate of her.—What she thought of Carlyle.—Emerson's Poems.

CXVII. Emerson. Concord, 31 January, 1847. Margaret Fuller's visit to Chelsea.—Speculates on going to England to lecture.— His Poems.

CXVIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 2 March, 1847. Visit to Hampshire.—

Emerson's Poems.—Prospect of Emerson's Lectures in England.—

Miss Fuller.

CXIX. Carlyle. Chelsea, 18 March, 1847. Remittance received.—

Alexander Ireland.—Advice concerning lectures.

CXX. Emerson. Concord, 30 April, 1847. Prospect of lecturing in

England.—Works in garden and orchard.

CXXI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 18 May, 1847. Thoreau's Lecture on

Carlyle.—Visit from E.R. Hoar.—Emerson's visit to England.

CXXII. Emerson. Concord, 4 June, 1847. Prospect of visit to

England.—F.H. Hedge.

CXXIII. Emerson. Concord, 31 July, 1847. Visit to England decided upon.—Portrait of Sterling.

CXXIV. Carlyle. Rawdon, Yorkshire, 31 August, 1847.

Journeyings.—Emerson's expected visit.—Hedge.—Dr. Jacobson.—

Quaker hosts.

CXXV. Emerson. Concord, 30 September, 1847. Plans for England.

CXXVI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 15 October, 1847. Delay of Emerson's letter announcing his coming.—Welcome to Chelsea.

Emerson—Extracts from his Diary concerning Carlyle.

CXXVIl. Emerson. Manchester, 5 November, 1847. His reception and occupations.

CXXVIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 13 November, 1847. Messages.—

Occupations.—Bancroft.

CXXIX. Carlyle. Chelsea., 30 November, 1847. Messages.—Mr.

Forster, &c.

CXXX. Emerson. Manchester, 28 December, 1847. Message from Miss

Fuller.—Hospitality shown him.—The English.

CXXXI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 30 December, 1847. The Pepolis.—

Milnes.—Tennyson.—Idleness.—Visit to Hampshire.—Massachusetts

Review.

CXXXII. Emerson. Ambleside, 26 February, 1848. At Miss

Martineau's.—Wordsworth.—Proposed return to Chelsea.

CXXXIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 28 February, 1848. Welcome ready at

Chelsea.—His own conditions.—The new French Republic.

CXXXIV. Emerson. Manchester, 2 March, 1848. Return to London.

CXXXV. Emerson. [London,] 19 June, 1848. Proposed call with

Mrs. Crowe.

CXXXVI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 20 June, 1848. Mrs. Crowe.—Luncheon with the Duchess.

CXXXVII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 23 June, 1848. Invitation to dinner.

CXXXVIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 6 December, 1848. Long silence.— Questions concerning Indian meal.—Death of Charles Buller, and of Lord Ashburton's mother.—Neuberg and others.

CXXXIX. Emerson. Boston, 23 January, 1849. John Carlyle's translation of the Inferno.—Indian corn.—Clough's Bothie.

CXL. Carlyle. Chelsea, 19 April, 1849. Indian corn from

Concord; trial of it, reflections upon it.—No writing at

present.—Macaulay's History.—Political outlook.—Clough.—

Sterling Club.

CXLI. Carlyle. Scotsbrig, 13 August, 1849. Indian corn again.—

Tour in Ireland.—Letter from Miss Fuller.—Message to Thoreau.

CXLII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 19 July, 1850. A year's silence.—

Latter Day Pamphlets.—Divergence from Emerson.—Representative

Men.—Prescott lionized.

CXLIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 14 November, 1850. "Eighteen million bores."—Emerson on Latter Day Pamphlets.—Autumn Journey.— Disordered nerves.

CXLIV. Carlyle. Chelsea, 8 July, 1851. Appeal for news.—Life of Sterling.—Crystal Palace.—Bossu's Journal, Bartram's Travels.—Margaret Fuller.—Mazzini.—Dr. Carlyle.

CXLV. Emerson. Concord, 28 July, 1851. Story of the year.—

Journey in the West.—Memoir of Margaret Fuller.—Life of

Sterling.—English friends.

CXLVI. Carlyle. Great Malvern, 25 August, 1851. Life of Sterling.—Bossu's Journal.—Water-cure.—Twisleton.—Milnes married.—Tennyson.—Browning on Miss Fuller.

CXLVII. Emerson. Concord, 14 April, 1852. Browning's Reminiscences of Margaret Fuller.—Books on the Indians.—Life of Sterling.

CXLVIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 7 May, 1852. Correspondence must be revived.—Margaret Fuller.—Memoirs of her.

CXLIX. Emerson. Concord, May, 1852. Relations with Carlyle.—

Carlyle's genius and his own.—Margaret Fuller.

CL. Carlyle. Chelsea, 25 June, 1852. Emerson and himself.—

Reading about Frederick the Great.

CLI. Emerson. Concord, 19 April, 1853. Excuses for not writing.—Chapter on Fate.—Visit to the West.—Conditions of American life.—Clough.

CLII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 13 May, 1853. Blessing of letters from

Emerson.—Coming on of old age.—Modern democracy.—Visit to

Germany.—Still reading about Fritz.

CLIIa. Emerson. Concord, 10 August, 1853. Slowness to write.— Regret at Clough's return to England.—Miss Bacon.—Carlyle's visit to Germany.—Thackeray in America.—New York and its society.

CLIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 9 September, 1853. Regrets for old days.—Not left town.—A new top story.—Miss Bacon, her Quixotic enterprise.—Clough.—Thackeray.—To Concord?

CLIV. Emerson. Concord, 11 March, 1854. Laurence, the artist.—

Reading Latter Day Pamphlets.—Death of Carlyle's, and of

Emerson's mother.—Miss Bacon.—His English Notes.—Lecturing

tour in the West.—Speed Frederick!

CLV. Carlyle. Chelsea, 8 April, 1854. Thankful for Emerson's letter.—Death of his mother.—Makes no way in Prussian History. —The insuperable difficulty with Frederick.—Literature in these days.—Emerson's picture of America.—Battle of Freedom and Slavery.—Emerson's book on England desired.—Miss Bacon.

CLVI. Emerson. Concord, 17 April, 1855. Excuses for not writing.—Unchanged feeling for Carlyle.—The American.—True measure of life.—Musings of indolence.

CLVII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 13 May, 1855. Emerson's letters indispensable; his complete understanding of Carlyle.—A grim and lonely year.—Never had such a business as Frederick.— Frederick himself.—"Balaklava."—Persistence of the English.— Urges Emerson to print his book on England.

CLVIII. Emerson. Concord, 6 May, 1856. Letter-writing.—Leaves of Grass.—Mrs. —-.

CLIX. Carlyle. Chelsea, 20 July, 1856. Emerson's letter welcome.—Life a burden.—Going to Scotland.—Life of Frederick to go to press.—Mrs. —-.—Miss Bacon.—Browning.

CLX. Carlyle. The Gill, Cummertrees, Annan, 28 August, 1856. The debt of America to Emerson.—English Traits will be welcome.—Grateful for whatever Emerson may have said of himself.—In retreat in Annan.

CLXI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 2 December, 1856. Close of negotiations for printing a complete edition of his Works in America.— English Traits.—Its excellence.

CLXII. Emerson. Concord, 17 May, 1858. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Longworth.—Inquires for the Frederick.—Desires a liber veritatis.—Friendship of old gentlemen.

CLXIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 2 June, 1858. Emerson's letter and

friends welcome.—First two volumes of Frederick just ready.—

Ugliness of the job.—Occasional tone of Emerson in the

Magazines.—Health.—Separation of Dickens from his wife.

CLXIII.* Carlyle. Chelsea, 9 April, 1859. Copy of Frederick sent to Emerson.—Nearly choked by the job.—Self-pity.— Emerson's speech on Burns.

CLXIV. Emerson. Concord, I May, 1859. Arrival of first volumes of Frederick.—Illusion of children.—His own children.—A correspondent of twenty-five years not to be disused.

Extracts from Emerson's Diary respecting the Frederick.

CLXV. Emerson. Concord, 16 April, 1860. Mr. O.W. Wight's new edition of the Miscellanies.—Sight at Toronto of two nephews of Carlyle.—Carlyle commended to the Gods.

CLXVI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 30 April, 1860. Encouragement from

Emerson's words about Frederick.—Message to Mr. Wight.

CLXVII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 29 January, 1861. Emerson's Conduct of Life.—Still twelve months from end of his task; nearly worn out.

CLXVIII. Emerson. Concord, 16 April, 1861. Thanks for last note.—Frederick.

CLXIX. Emerson. Concord, 8 December, 1862. The third volume of Frederick.—The manner of it.—The war in America—Death of Clough.

CLXX. Carlyle. Chelsea, 8 March, 1864. Introduction of the Hon.

Lyulph Stanley.—Mrs. Carlyle's ill-health.

CLXXI. Emerson. Concord, 26 September, 1864. Sympathy.—Fourth volume of Frederick.—Nature of the war in America—Mr. Stanley.

CLXXII. Carlyle. Annandale, Scotland, 14 June, 1865. Completion of Frederick.—Saunterings.—Stay in Annandale.—Mrs. Carlyle. —Photographs.—Mr. M.D. Conway.—The American Peacock.

CLXXIII. Emerson. Concord, 7 January, 1866. The last volumes of

Friedrich.—America.—Conduct of Americans in war and in peace.—

Photographs.—Little to tell of himself.

CLXXIV. Emerson. Concord, 16 May, 1866. Mrs. Carlyle's death.

CLXXV. Carlyle. Mentone, 27 January, 1867. Sad interval since last writing.—His condition.—Mrs. Carlye's death.—Solace in writing reminiscences.—Visit in Kent during summer.—Tennyson's Idyls.—Emerson's English Traits.—Mentone.

CLXXVI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 18 November, 1869. Long abeyance of correspondence.—Plan of bequeathing books to New England.— Emerson's counsel desired.—His own condition.

CLXXVII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 4 January, 1870. Arrangements respecting bequest of books to Harvard College.

CLXXVIII. Emerson. Concord, 23 January, 1870. Apologies for delay.—Writing new book.—Delight in proposed bequest.—Advice concerning.

CLXXIX. Carlyle. Melchet Court, Romsey, 14 February, 1870.

Acknowledgment of letter.

CLXXX. Carlyle. Chelsea, 24 February, 1870. Ending of the

Harvard business.

CLXXXI. Emerson. Concord, 21 March, 1870. Visit to President

Eliot concerning the bequest to Harvard.—Reflections on the

gift.—Speech about it to others.—Must renew correspondence.—

His own children.

CLXXXII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 24 March, 1870. Possible delay of his last letter.—Society and Solitude not received.

CLXXXIII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 6 April, 1870. Emerson's letter received.—Thankful for the conclusion of the little Transaction.—Reflections on it.—Regrets that it has been spoken of.—Society and Solitude.—News from Concord.—The night cometh.

CLXXXIV. Emerson. Concord, 17 June, 1870. Excuses for delay in writing.—Lectures on Philosophy.—Steps taken to secure privacy in regard to bequest.—Chapman's Homer.—Error in address of books.—Report of Carlyle's coming to America.

CLXXXV. Carlyle. Chelsea, 28 September, 1870. Delay in receiving Emerson's last letter.—Correction of error in address of books.—Emerson's lectures.—Philosophies.—Too late for him to come to America.

CLXXXVI. Emerson. Concord, 15 October, 1870. The victim of

miscellany.—Library Edition of Carlyle's Works received.—

Invitation.—The privilege of genius.—E.R. Hoar.—J.M. Forbes.—

The growing youth.—The Lowell race.

CLXXXVIa. Emerson. Concord, 10 April, 1871. Account of himself and his work.—Introduction to Plutarch's Morals.—Oration before the New England Society in New York.—Lectures at Cambridge.—Reprint of early writings.—About to go to California.

CLXXXVII. Carlyle. Chelsea, 4 June, 1871. Gap in correspondence.—Unfriendly winter.—Completion of Library Edition of his Works.—Significance of piracy of Emerson.— Conditions in America.—Anti-Anarchy.—J. Lee Bliss.—Finis of the Copper Captaincy.

CLXXXVIII. Emerson. Concord, 30 June, 1871. Return from

California.—California.—The plains.—Brigham Young.—Lucy

Garbett.—Carlyle's ill-health.

CLXXXIX. Emerson. Concord, 4 September, 1871. Introduction of his son Edward.

CXC. Emerson. Baltimore, 5 January, 1872. Last instalment of Library Edition of Carlyle's Works received.—Felicitations on this completion.—Happiness in having been Carlyle's contemporary and friend.—Carlyle's perversities.—Proposes to "retire and read the authors."—Carlyle's talk.

CXCI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 2 April, 1872. Excuses for silence.— Ill-health.—Emerson's letter about the West.—Aspect and meaning of that Western World.—Ruskin.—Froude.—Write.

—————-

CORRESPONDENCE OF CARLYLE AND EMERSON

LXXVI. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 1 July, 1842

My Dear Carlyle,—I have lately received from our slow friends, James Munroe & Co., $246 on account of their sales of the Miscellanies,—and I enclose a bill of Exchange for L51, which cost $246.50. It is a long time since I sent you any sketch of the account itself, and indeed a long time since it was posted, as the booksellers say; but I will find a time and a clerk also for this.

I have had no word from you for a long space. You wrote me a letter from Scotland after the death of your wife's mother, and full of pity for me also; and since, I have heard nothing. I confide that all has gone well and prosperously with you; that the iron Puritan is emerging from the Past, in shape and stature as he lived; and you are recruited by sympathy and content with your picture; and that the sure repairs of time and love and active duty have brought peace to the orphan daughter's heart. My friend Alcott must also have visited you before this, and you have seen whether any relation could subsist betwixt men so differently excellent. His wife here has heard of his arrival on your coast,—no more.

I submitted to what seemed a necessity of petty literary patriotism,—I know not what else to call it,—and took charge of our thankless little Dial, here, without subscribers enough to pay even a publisher, much less any laborer; it has no penny for editor or contributor, nothing but abuse in the newspapers, or, at best, silence; but it serves as a sort of portfolio, to carry about a few poems or sentences which would otherwise be transcribed and circulated; and always we are waiting when somebody shall come and make it good. But I took it, as I said, and it took me, and a great deal of good time, to a small purpose. I am ashamed to compute how many hours and days these chores consume for me. I had it fully in my heart to write at large leisure in noble mornings opened by prayer or by readings of Plato or whomsoever else is dearest to the Morning Muse, a chapter on Poetry, for which all readings, all studies, are but preparation; but now it is July, and my chapter is rudest beginnings. Yet when I go out of doors in the summer night, and see how high the stars are, I am persuaded that there is time enough, here or somewhere, for all that I must do; and the good world manifests very little impatience.

Stearns Wheeler, the Cambridge tutor, a good Grecian, and the editor, you will remember, of your American Editions, is going to London in August probably, and on to Heidelberg, &c. He means, I believe, to spend two years in Germany, and will come to see you on his way; a man whose too facile and good-natured manners do some injustice to his virtues, to his great industry and real knowledge. He has been corresponding with your Tennyson, and editing his Poems here. My mother, my wife, my two little girls, are well; the youngest, Edith, is the comfort of my days. Peace and love be with you, with you both, and all that is yours.

—R. W. Emerson

In our present ignorance of Mr. Alcott's address I advised his wife to write to your care, as he was also charged to keep you informed of his place. You may therefore receive letters for him with this.

LXXVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 19 July, 1842

My Dear Emerson,—Lest Opportunity again escape me, I will take her, this time, by the forelock, and write while the matter is still hot. You have been too long without hearing of me; far longer, at least, than I meant. Here is a second Letter from you, besides various intermediate Notes by the hands of Friends, since that Templand Letter of mine: the Letter arrived yesterday; my answer shall get under way today.

First under the head of business let it be authenticated that the Letter enclosed a Draft for L51; a new, unexpected munificence out of America; which is ever and anon dropping gifts upon me,— to be received, as indeed they partly are, like Manna dropped out of the sky; the gift of unseen Divinities! The last money I got from you changed itself in the usual soft manner from dollars into sovereigns, and was what they call "all right,"—all except the little Bill (of Eight Pounds and odds, I think) drawn on Fraser's Executors by Brown (Little and Brown?); which Bill the said Executors having refused for I know not what reason, I returned it to Brown with note of the dishonor done it, and so the sum still stands on his Books in our favor. Fraser's people are not now my Booksellers, except in the matter of your Essays and a second edition of Sartor; the other Books I got transferred to a certain pair of people named "Chapman and Hall, 186 Strand"; which operation, though (I understand) it was transacted with great and vehement reluctance on the part of the Fraser people, yet produced no quarrel between them and me, and they still forward parcels, &c., and are full of civility when I see them:—so that whether this had any effect or none in their treatment of Brown and his Bill I never knew; nor indeed, having as you explained it no concern with Brown's and their affairs, did I ever happen to inquire. I avoid all Booksellers; see them rarely, the blockheads; study never to think of them at all. Book-sales, reputation, profit, &c., &c.; all this at present is really of the nature of an encumbrance to me; which I study, not without success, to sweep almost altogether out of my head. One good is still possible to me in Life, one only: To screw a little more work out of myself, my miserable, despicable, yet living, acting, and so far imperial and celestial self; and this, God knows, is difficulty enough without any foreign one!

You ask after Cromwell: ask not of him; he is like to drive me mad. There he lies, shining clear enough to me, nay glowing, or painfully burning; but far down; sunk under two hundred years of Cant, Oblivion, Unbelief, and Triviality of every kind: through all which, and to the top of all which, what mortal industry or energy will avail to raise him! A thousand times I have rued that my poor activity ever took that direction. The likelihood still is that I may abandon the task undone. I have bored through the dreariest mountains of rubbish; I have visited Naseby Field, and how many other unintelligible fields and places; I have &c., &c.:—alas, what a talent have I for getting into the Impossible! Meanwhile my studies still proceed; I even take a ghoulish kind of pleasure in raking through these old bone-houses and burial-aisles now; I have the strangest fellowship with that huge Genius of DEATH (universal president there), and catch sometimes, through some chink or other, glimpses into blessed ulterior regions,—blessed, but as yet altogether silent. There is no use of writing of things past, unless they can be made in fact things present: not yesterday at all, but simply today and what it holds of fulfilment and of promises is ours: the dead ought to bury their dead, ought they not? In short, I am very unfortunate, and deserve your prayers,—in a quiet kind of way! If you lose tidings of me altogether, and never hear of me more,—consider simply that I have gone to my natal element, that the Mud Nymphs have sucked me in; as they have done several in their time!

Sterling was here about the time your Letters to him came: your American reprint of his pieces was naturally gratifying him much.* He seems getting yearly more restless; necessitated to find an outlet for himself, unable as yet to do it well. I think he will now write Review articles for a while; which craft is really, perhaps, the one he is fittest for hitherto. I love Sterling: a radiant creature; but very restless;—incapable either of rest or of effectual motion: aurora borealis and sheet lightning; which if it could but concentrate itself, as I [say] always—!—We had much talk; but, on the whole, even his talk is not much better for me than silence at present. Me miserum!

———— * "The Poetical Works of John Sterling," Philadelphia, 1842. ————

Directly about the time of Sterling's departure came Alcott, some two weeks after I had heard of his arrival on these shores. He has been twice here, at considerable length; the second time, all night. He is a genial, innocent, simple-hearted man, of much natural intelligence and goodness, with an air of rusticity, veracity, and dignity withal, which in many ways appeals to one. The good Alcott: with his long, lean face and figure, with his gray worn temples and mild radiant eyes; all bent on saving the world by a return to acorns and the golden age; he comes before one like a kind of venerable Don Quixote, whom nobody can even laugh at without loving!….

My poor Wife is still weak, overshadowed with sorrow: her loss is great, the loss almost as of the widow's mite; for except her good Mother she had almost no kindred left; and as for friends— they are not rife in this world.—God be thanked withal they are not entirely non-extant! Have I not a Friend, and Friends, though they too are in sorrow? Good be with you all.

—T. Carlyle.

By far the valuablest thing that Alcott brought me was the Newspaper report of Emerson's last Lectures in New York. Really a right wholesome thing; radiant, fresh as the morning; a thing worth reading; which accordingly I clipped from the Newspaper, and have in a state of assiduous circulation to the comfort of many.—I cannot bid you quit the Dial, though it, too, alas, is Antinomian somewhat! Perge, perge, nevertheless. —And so now an end.

—T. C.

LXXVIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 29 August, 1842

My Dear. Emerson,—This, morning your new Letter, of the 15th August, has arrived;* exactly one fortnight old: thanks to the gods and steam-demons! I already, perhaps six weeks ago, answered your former Letter,—acknowledging the manna-gift of the L51, and other things; nor do I think the Letter can have been lost, for I remember putting it into the Post-Office myself. Today I am on the eve of an expedition into Suffolk, and full of petty business: however, I will throw you one word, were it only to lighten my own heart a little. You are a kind friend to me, and a precious;—and when I mourn over the impotence of Human Speech, and how each of us, speak or write as he will, has to stand dumb, cased up in his own unutterabilities, before his unutterable Brother, I feel always as if Emerson were the man I could soonest try to speak with,—were I within reach of him! Well; we must be content. A pen is a pen, and worth something; though it expresses about as much of a man's meaning perhaps as the stamping of a hoof will express of a horse's meaning; a very poor expression indeed!

————- * This letter of 15th August is missing. ————-

Your bibliopolic advice about Cromwell or my next Book shall be carefully attended, if I live ever to write another Book! But I have again got down into primeval Night; and live alone and mute with the Manes, as you say; uncertain whether I shall ever more see day. I am partly ashamed of myself; but cannot help it. One of my grand difficulties I suspect to be that I cannot write two Books at once; cannot be in the seventeenth century and in the nineteenth at one and the same moment; a feat which excels even that of the Irishman's bird: "Nobody but a bird can be in two places at once!" For my heart is sick and sore in behalf of my own poor generation; nay, I feel withal as if the one hope of help for it consisted in the possibility of new Cromwells and new Puritans: thus do the two centuries stand related to me, the seventeenth worthless except precisely in so far as it can be made the nineteenth; and yet let anybody try that enterprise! Heaven help me.—I believe at least that I ought to hold my tongue; more especially at present.

Thanks for asking me to write you a word in the Dial. Had such a purpose struck me long ago, there have been many things passing through my head,—march-marching as they ever do, in long drawn, scandalous Falstaff-regiments (a man ashamed to be seen passing through Coventry with such a set!)—some one of which, snatched out of the ragged rank, and dressed and drilled a little, might perhaps fitly have been saved from Chaos, and sent to the Dial. In future we shall be on the outlook. I love your Dial, and yet it is with a kind of shudder. You seem to me in danger of dividing yourselves from the Fact of this present Universe, in which alone, ugly as it is, can I find any anchorage, and soaring away after Ideas, Beliefs, Revelations, and such like,—into perilous altitudes, as I think; beyond the curve of perpetual frost, for one thing! I know not how to utter what impression you give me; take the above as some stamping of the fore-hoof. Surely I could wish you returned into your own poor nineteenth century, its follies and maladies, its blind or half-blind, but gigantic toilings, its laughter and its tears, and trying to evolve in some measure the hidden Godlike that lies in it;—that seems to me the kind of feat for literary men. Alas, it is so easy to screw one's self up into high and ever higher altitudes of Transcendentalism, and see nothing under one but the everlasting snows of Himmalayah, the Earth shrinking to a Planet, and the indigo firmament sowing itself with daylight stars; easy for you, for me: but whither does it lead? I dread always, To inanity and mere injuring of the lungs!—"Stamp, Stamp, Stamp!"— Well, I do believe, for one thing, a man has no right to say to his own generation, turning quite away from it, "Be damned!" It is the whole Past and the whole Future, this same cotton-spinning, dollar-hunting, canting and shrieking, very wretched generation of ours. Come back into it, I tell you;—and so for the present will "stamp" no more….

Adieu, my friend; I must not add a word more. My Wife is out on a visit; it is to bring her back that I am now setting forth for Suffolk. I hope to see Ely too, and St. Ives, and Huntingdon, and various Cromwelliana. My blessings on the Concord Household now and always. Commend me expressly to your Wife and your Mother. Farewell, dear friend.

—T. Carlyle

LXXIX. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 15 October, 1842

My Dear Carlyle,—I am in your debt for at least two letters since I sent you any word. I should be well content to receive one of these stringent epistles of bark and steel and mellow wine with every day's post, but as there is no hope that more will be sent without my writing to signify that these have come, I hereby certify that I love you well and prize all your messages. I read with special interest what you say of these English studies, and I doubt not the Book is in steady progress again. We shall see what change the changed position of the author will make in the book. The first History expected its public; the second is written to an expecting people. The tone of the first was proud,—to defiance; we will see if applauses have mitigated the master's temper. This time he has a hero, and we shall have a sort of standard to try, by the hero who fights, the hero who writes. Well; may grand and friendly spirits assist the work in all hours; may impulses and presences from that profound world which makes and embraces the whole of humanity, keep your feet on the Mount of Vision which commands the Centuries, and the book shall be an indispensable Benefit to men, which is the surest fame. Let me know all that can be told of your progress in it. You shall see in the last Dial a certain shadow or mask of yours, "another Richmond," who has read your lectures and profited thereby.* Alcott sent me the paper from London, but I do not know the name of the writer.

As for Alcott, you have discharged your conscience of him manfully and knightly; I absolve you well… He is a great man and was made for what is greatest, but I now fear that he has already touched what best he can, and through his more than a prophet's egotism, and the absence of all useful reconciling talents, will bring nothing to pass, and be but a voice in the wilderness. As you do not seem to have seen in him his pure and noble intellect, I fear that it lies under some new and denser clouds.

———— * An article on Cromwell, in the Dial for October, 1842. ————

For the Dial and its sins, I have no defence to set up. We write as we can, and we know very little about it. If the direction of these speculations is to be deplored, it is yet a fact for literary history, that all the bright boys and girls in New England, quite ignorant of each other, take the world so, and come and make confession to fathers and mothers,—the boys that they do not wish to go into trade, the girls that they do not like morning calls and evening parties. They are all religious, but hate the churches; they reject all the ways of living of other men, but have none to offer in their stead. Perhaps, one of these days, a great Yankee shall come, who will easily do the unknown deed.

The booksellers have sent me accounts lately, but—I know not why—no money. Little and Brown from January to July had sold very few books. I inquired of them concerning the bill of exchange on Fraser's Estate, which you mention, and they said it had not been returned to them, but only some information, as I think, demanded by Fraser's administrator, which they had sent, and, as they heard nothing again, they suppose that it is allowed and paid to you. Inform me on this matter.

Munroe & Co. allow some credits, but charge more debits for binding, &c., and also allege few sales in the hard times. I have got a good friend of yours, a banking man, to promise that he will sift all the account and see if the booksellers have kept their promises. But I have never yet got all the papers in readiness for him. I am looking to see if I have matter for new lectures, having left behind me last spring some half-promises in New York. If you can remember it, tell me who writes about Loyola and Xavier in the Edinburgh. Sterling's papers—if he is near you—are all in Mr. Russell's hands.* I played my part of Fadladeen with great rigor, and sent my results to Russell, but have not now written to J. S.

Yours,

R.W.E.

—————

* Mr. A.L. Russell, who had been instrumental in procuring the

American edition of Sterling's Poetical Works.

————-

LXXX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 19 November, 1842

My Dear Emerson,—Your Letter finds me here today; busied with many things, but not likely to be soon more at leisure; wherefore I may as well give myself the pleasure of answering it on the spot. The Fraser Bill by Brown and Little has come all right; the Dumfries Banker apprises me lately that he has got the cash into his hands. Pray do not pester yourself with these Bookseller unintelligibilities: I suppose their accounts are all reasonably correct, the cheating, such as it is, done according to rule: what signifies it at any rate? I am no longer in any vital want of money; alas, the want that presses far heavier on me is a want of faculty, a want of sense; and the feeling of that renders one comparatively very indifferent to money! I reflect many times that the wealth of the Indies, the fame of ten Shakespeares or ten Mahomets, would at bottom do me no good at all. Let us leave these poor slaves of the Ingot and slaves of the Lamp to their own courses,—within a certain extent of halter!

What you say of Alcott seems to me altogether just. He is a man who has got into the Highest intellectual region,—if that be the Highest (though in that too there are many stages) wherein a man can believe and discern for himself, without need of help from any other, and even in opposition to all others: but I consider him entirely unlikely to accomplish anything considerable, except some kind of crabbed, semi-perverse, though still manful existence of his own; which indeed is no despicable thing. His "more than prophetic egoism,"—alas, yes! It is of such material that Thebaid Eremites, Sect-founders, and all manner of cross-grained fanatical monstrosities have fashioned themselves, —in very high, and in the highest regions, for that matter. Sect-founders withal are a class I do not like. No truly great man, from Jesus Christ downwards, as I often say, ever founded a Sect,—I mean wilfully intended founding one. What a view must a man have of this Universe, who thinks "he can swallow it all," who is not doubly and trebly happy that he can keep it from swallowing him! On the whole, I sometimes hope we have now done with Fanatics and Agonistic Posture-makers in this poor world: it will be an immense improvement on the Past; and the "New Ideas," as Alcott calls them, will prosper greatly the better on that account! The old gloomy Gothic Cathedrals were good; but the great blue Dome that hangs over all is better than any Cologne one.—On the whole, do not tell the good Alcott a word of all this; but let him love me as he can, and live on vegetables in peace; as I, living partly on vegetables, will continue to love him!

The best thing Alcott did while he staid among us was to circulate some copies of your Man the Reformer.* I did not get a copy; I applied for one, so soon as I knew the right fountain; but Alcott, I think, was already gone. And now mark,—for this I think is a novelty, if you do not already know it: Certain Radicals have reprinted your Essay in Lancashire, and it is freely circulating there, and here, as a cheap pamphlet, with excellent acceptance so far as I discern. Various Newspaper reviews of it have come athwart me: all favorable, but all too shallow for sending to you. I myself consider it a truly excellent utterance; one of the best words you have ever spoken. Speak many more such. And whosoever will distort them into any "vegetable" or other crotchet,—let it be at his own peril; for the word itself is true; and will have to make itself a fact therefore; though not a distracted abortive fact, I hope! Words of that kind are not born into Facts in the seventh month; well if they see the light full-grown (they and their adjuncts) in the second century; for old Time is a most deliberate breeder!—But to speak without figure, I have been very much delighted with the clearness, simplicity, quiet energy and veracity of this discourse; and also with the fact of its spontaneous appearance here among us. The prime mover of the Printing, I find, is one Thomas Ballantyne, editor of a Manchester Newspaper, a very good, cheery little fellow, once a Paisley weaver as he informs me,—a great admirer of all worthy things.

—————

* "A Lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library

Association, Boston, January 25, 1841."

—————

My paper is so fast failing, let me tell you of the writer on Loyola. He is a James Stephen, Head Under-Secretary of the Colonial Office,—that is to say, I believe, real governor of the British Colonies, so far as they have any governing. He is of Wilberforce's creed, of Wilberforce's kin; a man past middle age, yet still in full vigor; reckoned an enormous fellow for "despatch of business," &c., especially by Taylor (van Artevelde) and others who are with him or under him in Downing Street…. I regard the man as standing on the confines of Genius and Dilettantism,—a man of many really good qualities, and excellent at the despatch of business. There we will leave him. —A Mrs. Lee of Brookline near you has made a pleasant Book about Jean Paul, chiefly by excerpting.* I am sorry to find Gunderode & Co. a decided weariness!** Cromwell—Cromwell? Do not mention such a word, if you love me! And yet—Farewell, my Friend, tonight!

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

I will apprise Sterling before long: he is at Falmouth, and well; urging me much to start a Periodical here!

Gambardella promises to become a real Painter; there is a glow of real fire in the wild southern man: next to no articulate intellect or the like, but of inarticulate much, or I mistake. He has tried to paint me for you; but cannot, he says!

————- * "Life of Jean Paul Frederic Richter. Compiled from various Sources. Together with his Autobiography. Translated from the German." In Two Volumes. Boston, 1842. This book, which is one of the best in English concerning Jean Paul, was the work of the late Mrs. Thomas (Eliza Buckminster) Lee.

** In the Dial, for January, 1842, is an article by Miss Fuller on "Bettine Brentano and Gunderode,"—a decided weariness. The Canoness Gunderode was a friend of Bettine's, older and not much wiser than herself. ————-

LXXXI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 11 March, 1848

Dear Emerson,—I know not whose turn it is to write; though a suspicion has long attended me that it was yours, and above all an indisputable wish that you would do it: but this present is a cursory line, all on business,—and as usual all on business of my own.

I have finished a Book, and just set the Printer to it; one solid volume (rather bigger than one of the French Revolution Volumes, as I compute); it is a somewhat fiery and questionable "Tract for the Times," not by a Puseyite, which the terrible aspect of things here has forced from me,—I know not whether as preliminary to Oliver or not; but it had gradually grown to be the preliminary of anything possible for me: so there it is written; and I am a very sick, but withal a comparatively very free man. The Title of the thing is to be Past and Present: it is divided into Four Books, "Book I. Proem," "Book II. The Ancient Monk," "Book III. The Modern Worker," and "Book IV. Horoscope" (or some such thing):—the size of it I guessed at above.

The practical business, accordingly, is: How to cut out that New York scoundrel, who fancies that because there is no gallows it is permitted to steal? I have a distinct desire to do that;— altogether apart from the money to be gained thereby. A friend's goodness ought not to be frustrated by a scoundrel destitute of gallows.—You told me long since how to do the operation; and here, according to the best way I had of fitting your scheme into my materials, is my way of attempting it.

The Book will not be out here for six good weeks from this date; it could be kept back for a week or two longer, if that were indispensable: but I hope it may not. In three weeks, half of it will be printed; I, in the meanwhile, get a correct manuscript Copy of the latter half made ready: joining the printed sheets and this manuscript, your Bookseller will have a three weeks' start of any rival, if I instantly despatch the Parcel to him. Will this do? this with the announcement of the Title as given above? Pray write to me straightway, and say. Your answer will be here before we can publish; and the Packet of Proof-sheets and Manuscript may go off whether there be word from you or none.—And so enough of Past and Present. And indeed enough of all things, for my haste is excessive in these hours.

The last Dial came to me about three weeks ago as a Post-Letter, charged something like a guinea of postage, if I remember; so it had to be rejected, and I have not yet seen that Number; but will when my leeway is once brought up a little again. The two preceding Numbers were, to a marked extent, more like life than anything I had seen before of the Dial. There was not indeed anything, except the Emersonian Papers alone, which I know by the first ring of them on the tympanum of the mind, that I properly speaking liked; but there was much that I did not dislike, and did half like; and I say, "I fausto pede; that will decidedly do better!" By the bye, it were as well if you kept rather a strict outlook on Alcott and his English Tail,—I mean so far as we here have any business with it. Bottomless imbeciles ought not to be seen in company with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who has already men listening to him on this side of the water. The "Tail" has an individual or two of that genus,—and the rest is mainly yet undecided. For example, I knew old —- myself; and can testify, if you will believe me, that few greater blockheads (if "blockhead" may mean "exasperated imbecile" and the ninth part of a thinker) broke the world's bread in his day. Have a care of such! I say always to myself, —and to you, which you forgive me.

Adieu, my dear Emerson. May a good Genius guide you; for you are alone, alone; and have a steep pilgrimage to make,— leading high, if you do not slip or stumble!

Ever your affectionate,

T. Carlyle

LXXXII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 1 April, 1843

My Dear Carlyle,—Along with this Letter there will go from Liverpool, on the 4th instant, the promised Parcel, complete Copy of the Book called Past and Present, of which you already had two simultaneous announcements.* The name of the Steam Packet, I understand, is the "Britannia." I have addressed the Parcel to the care of "Messrs. Little and Brown, Booksellers, Boston," with your name atop: I calculate it will arrive safe enough.

————- * The letter making the second announcement, being very similar to the preceding, is omitted. ————-

About one hundred pages of the Manuscript Copy have proved superfluous, the text being there also in a printed shape; I had misestimated the Printer's velocity; I was anxious too that there should be no failure as to time. The Manuscript is very indifferent in that section of it; the damage therefore is smaller: your press-corrector can acquaint himself with the hand, &c. by means of it. A poor young governess, confined to a horizontal posture, and many sad thoughts, by a disease of the spine, was our artist in that part of the business: her writing is none of the distinctest; but it was a work of Charity to give it her. I hope the thing is all as correct as I could make it. I do not bethink me of anything farther I have to add in the way of explanation.

In fact, my prophecy rather is at present that the gibbetless thief at New York, will beat us after all! Never mind if be do. To say truth, I myself shall almost be glad: there has been a botheration in this anxious arrangement of parts correcting of scrawly manuscript copies of what you never wished to read more, and insane terror withal of having your own Manuscript burnt or lost,—that has exceeded my computation. Not to speak of this trouble in which I involve you, my Friend; which, I truly declare, makes me ashamed! True one is bound to resist the Devil in all shapes; if a man come to steal from you, you will put on what locks and padlocks are at hand, and not on the whole say, "Steal, then!" But if the locks prove insufficient, and the thief do break through,—that side of the alternative also will suit you very well; and, with perhaps a faint prayer for gibbets when they are necessary, you will say to him, next time, "Macte virtute, my man."

All is in a whirl with me here today; no other topic but this very poor one can be entered upon. I hope for a letter from your own hand soon, and some news about still more interesting matters.

Adieu, my Friend; I feel still as if, in several senses, you stood alone with me under the sky at present!*

—————- * The signature to this letter has been cut off. —————-

LXXXIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 29 April, 1843

My Dear Carlyle,—It is a pleasure to set your name once more at the head of a sheet. It signifies how much gladness, how much wealth of being, that the good, wise, man-cheering, man-helping friend, though unseen, lives there yonder, just out of sight. Your star burns there just below our eastern horizon, and fills the lower and upper air with splendid and splendescent auroras. By some refraction which new lenses or else steamships shall operate, shall I not yet one day see again the disk of benign Phosphorus? It is a solid joy to me, that whilst you work for all, you work for me and with me, even if I have little to write, and seldom write your name.

Since I last wrote to you, I found it needful, if only for the household's sake, to set some new lectures in order, and go to new congregations of men. I live so much alone, shrinking almost cowardly from the contact of worldly and public men, that I need more than others to quit home sometimes, and roll with the river of travelers, and live in hotels. I went to Baltimore, where I had an invitation, and read two lectures on New England. On my return, I stopped at Philadelphia, and, my Course being now grown to four lectures, read them there. At New York, my snowball was larger, and I read five lectures on New England. 1. Religion; 2. Trade; 3. Genius, Manners and Customs; 4. Recent literary and spiritual influences from abroad; 5. Domestic spiritual history.—Perhaps I have not quite done with them yet, but may make them the block of a new and somewhat larger structure for Boston, next winter. The newspaper reports of them in New York were such offensive misstatements, that I could not send you, as I wished, a sketch. Between my two speeches at Baltimore, I went to Washington, thirty-seven miles, and spent four days. The two poles of an enormous political battery, galvanic coil on coil, self-increased by series on series of plates from Mexico to Canada, and from the sea westward to the Rocky Mountains, here meet and play, and make the air electric and violent. Yet one feels how little, more than how much, man is represented there. I think, in the higher societies of the Universe, it will turn out that the angels are molecules, as the devils were always Titans, since the dulness of the world needs such mountainous demonstration, and the virtue is so modest and concentrating.

But I must not delay to acknowledge the arrival of your Book. It came ten or eleven days ago, in the "Britannia," with the three letters of different dates announcing it.—I have read the superfluous hundred pages of manuscript, and find it only too popular. Beside its abundance of brilliant points and proverbs, there is a deep, steady tide taking in, either by hope or by fear, all the great classes of society,—and the philosophic minority also, by the powerful lights which are shed on the phenomenon. It is true contemporary history, which other books are not, and you have fairly set solid London city aloft, afloat in bright mirage in the air. I quarrel only with the popular assumption, which is perhaps a condition of the Humor itself, that the state of society is a new state, and was not the same thing in the days of Rabelais and of Aristophanes, as of Carlyle. Orators always allow something to masses, out of love to their own art, whilst austere philosophy will only know the particles. This were of no importance, if the historian did not so come to mix himself in some manner with his erring and grieving nations, and so saddens the picture; for health is always private and original, and its essence is in its unmixableness.—But this Book, with all its affluence of wit, of insight, and of daring hints, is born for a longevity which I will not now compute.—In one respect, as I hinted above, it is only too good, so sure of success, I mean, that you are no longer secure of any respect to your property in our freebooting America.

You must know that the cheap press has, within a few months, made a total change in our book markets. Every English book of any name or credit is instantly converted into a newspaper or coarse pamphlet, and hawked by a hundred boys in the streets of all of our cities for 25, 18, or 12 cents; Dickens's Notes for 12 cents, Blackwood's Magazine for 18 cents, and so on. Three or four great New York and Philadelphia printing-houses do this work, with hot competition. One prints Bulwer's novel yesterday, for 35 cents; and already, in twenty-four hours, another has a coarser edition of it for 18 cents, in all thoroughfares.—What to do with my sealed parcel of manuscripts and proofs? No bookseller would in these perilous circumstances offer a dollar for my precious parcel. I inquired of the lawyers whether I could not by a copyright protect my edition from piracy until an English copy arrived, and so secure a sale of a few weeks. They said, no; yet advised the taking a certificate of copyright, that we might try the case if we wished. After much consulting and balancing for a few hours, I decided to print, as heretofore, on our own account, an edition, but cheap, to make the temptation less, to retail at seventy-five cents. I print fifteen hundred copies, and announce to the public that it is your edition, and all good men must buy this. I have written to the great Reprinters, namely to Park Benjamin, and to the Harpers, of New York, to request their forbearance; and have engaged Little and Brown to publish, because, I think, they have something more of weight with Booksellers, and are a little less likely to be invaded than Munroe. If we sell a thousand copies at seventy-five cents, it will only yield you about two hundred dollars; if we should be invaded, we can then afford to sell the other five hundred copies at twenty-five cents, without loss. In thus doing, I involve you in some risk; but it was the best course that occurred.—Hitherto, the Miscellanies have not been reprinted in the cheap forms; and in the last year, James Munroe & Co. have sold few copies; all books but the cheapest being unsold in the hard times; something has however accrued to your credit there. J.M. & Co. fear that, if the new book is pirated at New York and the pirate prospers, instantly the Miscellanies will be plundered. We will hope better, or at least exult in that which remains, to wit, a Worth unplunderable, yet infinitely communicable.

I have hardly space left to say what I would concerning the Dial. I heartily hoped I had done with it, when lately our poor, good, publishing Miss Peabody,… wrote me that its subscription would not pay its expenses (we all writing for love). But certain friends are very unwilling it should die, and I a little unwilling, though very unwilling to be the life of it, as editor. And now that you are safely through your book, and before the greater Sequel rushes to its conclusion, send me, I pray you, that short chapter which hovers yet in the limbo of contingency, in solid letters and points. Let it be, if that is readiest, a criticism on the Dial, and this too Elysian race, not blood, and yet not ichor.—Let Jane Carlyle be on my part, and, watchful of his hours, urge the poet in the golden one. I think to send you a duplicate of the last number of the Dial by Mr. Mann,* who with his bride (sister of the above-mentioned Miss Peabody) is going to London and so to Prussia. He is little known to me, but greatly valued as a philanthropist in this State. I must go to work a little more methodically this summer, and let something grow to a tree in my wide straggling shrubbery. With your letters came a letter from Sterling, who was too noble to allude to his books and manuscript sent hither, and which Russell all this time has delayed to print; I know not why, but discouraged, I suppose, in these times by booksellers. I must know precisely, and write presently to J.S.

Farewell.

R.W. Emerson**

—————- * The late Horace Mann.

** The following passages from Emerson's Diary relating to Past and Present seem to have been written a few days after the preceding letter:—"How many things this book of Carlyle gives us to think! It is a brave grappling with the problem of the times, no luxurious holding aloof, as is the custom of men of letters, who are usually bachelors and not husbands in the state, but Literature here has thrown off his gown and descended into the open lists. The gods are come among us in the likeness of men. An honest Iliad of English woes. Who is he that can trust himself in the fray? Only such as cannot be familiarized, but nearest seen and touched is not seen and touched, but remains inviolate, inaccessible, because a higher interest, the politics of a higher sphere, bring him here and environ him, as the Ambassador carries his country with him. Love protects him from profanation. What a book this in its relation to English privileged estates! How shall Queen Victoria read this? how the Primate and Bishops of England? how the Lords? how the Colleges? how the rich? and how the poor? Here is a book as full of treason as an egg is full of meat, and every lord and lordship and high form and ceremony of English conservatism tossed like a football into the air, and kept in the air with merciless rebounds and kicks, and yet not a word in the book is punishable by statute. The wit has eluded all official zeal, and yet these dire jokes, these cunning thrusts,—this flaming sword of cherubim waved high in air illuminates the whole horizon and shows to the eyes of the Universe every wound it inflicts. Worst of all for the party attacked, it bereaves them beforehand of all sympathy by anticipating the plea of poetic and humane conservation and impressing the reader with the conviction that Carlyle himself has the truest love for everything old and excellent, and a genuine respect for the basis of truth in those whom he exposes. Gulliver among the Lilliputians…

"Carlyle must write thus or nohow, like a drunken man who can run, but cannot walk. What a man's book is that! no prudences, no compromises, but a thorough independence. A masterly criticism on the times. Fault perhaps the excess of importance given to the circumstance of today. The poet is here for this, to dwarf and destroy all merely temporary circumstance, and to glorify the perpetual circumstance of men, e.g. dwarf British Debt and raise Nature and social life.

"But everything must be done well once; even bulletins and almanacs must have one excellent and immortal bulletin and almanac. So let Carlyle's be the immortal newspaper." —————

LXXXIV. Carlyle to Emerson

27 August, 1843

Dear Emerson,—The bearer of this is Mr. Macready, our celebrated Actor, now on a journey to America, who wishes to know you. In the pauses of a feverish occupation which he strives honestly to make a noble one, this Artist, become once more a man, would like well to meet here and there a true American man. He loves Heroes as few do; and can recognize them, you will find, whether they have on the Cothurnus or not. I recommend him to you; bid you forward him as you have opportunity, in this department of his pilgrimage.

Mr. Macready's deserts to the English Drama are notable here to all the world; but his dignified, generous, and every-way honorable deportment in private life is known fully, I believe, only to a few friends. I have often said, looking at him as a manager of great London theatres, "This Man, presiding over the unstablest, most chaotic province of English things, is the one public man among us who has dared to take his stand on what he understood to be the truth, and expect victory from that: he puts to shame our Bishops and Archbishops." It is literally so.

With continued kind wishes, yours as of old.

T. Carlyle

LXXXV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 October, 1843

My Dear Friend,—I seize the occasion of having this morsel of paper for twenty-five pounds sterling from the booksellers to send you, (and which fail not to find enclosed, as clerks say,) to inquire whether you still exist in Chelsea, London, and what is the reason that my generous correspondent has become dumb for weary months. I must go far back to resume my thread. I think in April last I received your Manuscript, &c. of the Book, which I forthwith proceeded to print, after some perplexing debate with the booksellers, as I fully informed you in my letter of April or beginning of May. Since that time I have had no line or word from you. I must think that my letter did not reach you, or that you have written what has never come to me. I assure myself that no harm has befallen you, not only because you do not live in a corner, and what chances in your dwelling will come at least to my ears, but because I have read with great pleasure the story of Dr. Francia,* which gave the best report of your health and vivacity.

—————

* Carlyle's article on Dr. Francia in the Foreign Quarterly

Review, No. 62. Reprinted in his Miscellanies.

—————

I wrote you in April or May an account of the new state of things which the cheap press has wrought in our book market, and specially what difficulties it put in the way of our edition of Past and Present. For a few weeks I believed that the letters I had written to the principal New York and Philadelphia booksellers, and the Preface, had succeeded in repelling the pirates. But in the fourth or fifth week appeared a mean edition in New York, published by one Collyer (an unknown person and supposed to be a mask of some other bookseller), sold for twelve and one half cents, and of this wretched copy several thousands were sold, whilst our seventy-five cents edition went off slower. There was no remedy, and we must be content that there was no expense from our edition, which before September had paid all its cost, and since that time has been earning a little, I believe. I am not fairly entitled to an account of the book from the publishers until the 1st of January…. I have never yet done what I have thought this other last week seriously to do, namely, to charge the good and faithful E.P. Clark, a man of accounts as he is a cashier in a bank, with the total auditing and analyzing of these accounts of yours. My hesitation has grown from the imperfect materials which I have to offer him to make up so long a story. But he is a good man, and, do you know it? a Carlylese of that intensity that I have often heard he has collected a sort of album of several volumes, containing illustrations of every kind, historical, critical, &c., to the Sartor. I must go to Boston and challenge him. Once when I asked him, he seemed willing to assume it. No more of accounts tonight.

I send you by this ship a volume of translations from Dante, by Doctor Parsons of Boston, a practising dentist and the son of a dentist. It is his gift to you. Lately went Henry James to you with a letter from me. He is a fine companion from his intelligence, valor, and worth, and is and has been a very beneficent person as I learn. He carried a volume of poems from my friend and nearest neighbor, W. Ellery Channing, whereof give me, I pray you, the best opinion you can. I am determined he shall be a poet, and you must find him such.* I have too many things to tell you to begin at the end of this sheet, which after all this waiting I have been compelled to scribble in a corner, with company waiting for me. Send me instant word of yourself if you love me, and of those whom you love, and so God keep you and yours.

—R. Waldo Emerson

————— * In the second number of the Dial, in October, 1840, Emerson had published, under the title of "New Poetry," an article warmly commending Mr. Channing's then unpublished poems. —————

LXXXVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 31 October, 1843

My Dear Emerson,—It is a long weary time since I have had the satisfaction of the smallest dialogue with you. The blame is all my own; the reasons would be difficult to give,—alas, they are properly no-reasons, children not of Something, but of mere Idleness, Confusion, Inaction, Inarticulation, of Nothing in short! Let us leave them there, and profit by the hour which yet is.

I ran away from London into Bristol and, South Wales, when the heats grew violent, at the end of June. South Wales, North Wales, Lancashire, Scotland: I roved about everywhere seeking some Jacob's-pillow on which to lay my head, and dream of things heavenly;—yes, that at bottom was my modest prayer, though I disguised it from myself and the result was, I could find no pillow at all; but sank into ever meaner restlessness, blacker and blacker biliary gloom, and returned in the beginning of September thoroughly eclipsed and worn out, probably the weariest of all men living under the sky. Sure enough I have a fatal talent of converting all Nature into Preternaturalism for myself: a truly horrible Phantasm-Reality it is to me; what of heavenly radiances it has, blended in close neighborhood, in intimate union, with the hideousness of Death and Chaos;—a very ghastly business indeed! On the whole, it is better to hold one's peace about it. I flung myself down on sofas here,—for my little Wife had trimmed up our little dwelling-place into quite glorious order in my absence, and I had only to lie down: there, in reading books, and other make-believe employments, I could at least keep silence, which was an infinite relief. Nay, gradually, as indeed I anticipated, the black vortexes and deluges have subsided; and now that it is past, I begin to feel myself better for my travels after all. For one thing, articulate speech having returned to me,—you see what use I make of it.

On the table of the London Library, voted in by some unknown benefactor whom I found afterwards to be Richard Milnes, there lay one thing highly gratifying to me: the last two Numbers of the Dial. It is to be one of our Periodicals henceforth; the current Number lies on the Table till the next arrive; then the former goes to the Binder; we have already, in a bound volume, all of it that Emerson has had the editing of. This is right. Nay, in Edinburgh, and indeed wherever ingenuous inquisitive minds were met with, I have to report that the said Emerson could number a select and most loving public; select, and I should say fast growing: for good and indifferent reasons it may behove the man to assure himself of this. Farther, to the horror of poor Nickerson (Bookseller Fraser's Successor), a certain scoundrel interloper here has reprinted Emerson's Essays on grayish paper, to be sold at two shillings,—distracting Nickerson with the fear of change! I was glad at this, if also angry: it indicates several things. Nickerson has taken his measures, will reduce the price of his remaining copies; indeed, he informs me the best part of his edition was already sold, and he has even some color of money due from England to Emerson through me! With pride enough will I transmit this mournful, noble peculium: and after that, as I perceive, such chivalrous international doings must cease between us. Past and Present, some one told me, was, in spite of all your precautions, straightway sent forth in modest gray, and your benevolent speculation ruined. Here too, you see, it is the same. Such chivalries, therefore, are now impossible; for myself I say, "Well, let them cease; thank God they once were, the Memory of that can never cease with us!"

In this last Number of the Dial which by the bye your Bookseller never forwarded to me, I found one little Essay, a criticism on myself,* which, if it should do me mischief, may the gods forgive you for! It is considerably the most dangerous thing I have read for some years. A decided likeness of myself recognizable in it, as in the celestial mirror of a friend's heart; but so enlarged, exaggerated, all transfigured,—the most delicious, the most dangerous thing! Well, I suppose I must try to assimilate it also, to turn it also to good, if I be able. Eulogies, dyslogies, in which one finds no features of one's own natural face, are easily dealt with; easily left unread, as stuff for lighting fires, such is the insipidity, the wearisome _non_entity of pabulum like that: but here is another sort of matter! "The beautifulest piece of criticism I have read for many a day," says every one that speaks of it. May the gods forgive you!—I have purchased a copy for three shillings, and sent it to my Mother: one of the indubitablest benefits I could think of in regard to it.

————- * A criticism by Emerson of Past and Present, in the Dial for July, 1843. It embodies a great part of the extract from Emerson's Diary given in a preceding note, and is well worth reading in full for its appreciation of Carlyle's powers and defects. ————-

There have been two friends of yours here in these very days: Dr. Russell, just returning from Paris; Mr. Parker, just bound thither.* We have seen them rather oftener than common, Sterling being in town withal. They are the best figures of strangers we have had for a long time; possessions, both of them, to fall in with in this pilgrimage of life. Russell carries friendliness in his eyes, a most courteous, modest, intelligent man; an English intelligence too, as I read, the best of it lying unspoken, not as a logic but as an instinct. Parker is a most hardy, compact, clever little fellow, full of decisive utterance, with humor and good humor; whom I like much. They shine like suns, these two, amid multitudes of watery comets and tenebrific constellations, too sorrowful without such admixture on occasion!

—————— * Dr. Le Baron Russell; Theodore Parker. ——————

As for myself, dear Emerson, you must ask me no questions till— alas, till I know not when! After four weary years of the most unreadable reading, the painfulest poking and delving, I have come at last to the conclusion—that I must write a Book on Cromwell; that there is no rest for me till I do it. This point fixed, another is not less fixed hitherto, That a Book on Cromwell is impossible. Literally so: you would weep for me if you saw how, between these two adamantine certainties, I am whirled and tumbled. God only knows what will become of me in the business. Patience, Patience!

By the bye, do you know a "Massachusetts Historical Society," and a James Bowdoin, seemingly of Boston? In "Vol. II. third series" of their Collections, lately I met with a disappointment almost ludicrous. Bowdoin, in a kind of dancing, embarrassed style, gives long-winded, painfully minute account of certain precious volumes, containing "Notes of the Long Parliament," which now stand in the New York Library; poises them in his assaying balance, speculates, prophesies, inquires concerning them: to me it was like news of the lost Decades of Livy. Good Heavens, it soon became manifest that these precious Volumes are nothing whatever but a wretched broken old dead manuscript copy of part of our printed Commons Journals! printed since 1745, and known to all barbers! If the Historical Society desired it, any Member of Parliament could procure them the whole stock, Lords and Commons, a wheelbarrowful or more, with no cost but the carriage. Every Member has the right to demand a copy, and few do it, few will let such a mass cross their door-threshold! This of Bowdoin's is a platitude of some magnitude.—Adieu, dear Emerson. Rest not, haste not; you have work to do.

—T. Carlyle

LXXXVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 17 November, 1843

Dear Emerson,—About this time probably you will be reading a Letter I hurried off for you by Dr. Russell in the last steamer; and your friendly anxieties will partly be set at rest. Had I kept silence so very long? I knew it was a long while; but my vague remorse had kept no date! It behoves me now to write again without delay; to certify with all distinctness that I have safely received your Letter of the 30th October, safely the Bill for L25 it contained;—that you are a brave, friendly man, of most serene, beneficient way of life; and that I—God help me!—

By all means appoint this Mr. Clark to the honorary office of Account-keeper—if he will accept it! By Parker's list of questions from him, and by earlier reminiscences recalled on that occasion, I can discern that he is a man of lynx eyesight, of an all-investigating curiosity: if he will accept this sublime appointment, it will be the clearest case of elective affinity. Accounts to you must be horrible; as they are to me: indeed, I seldom read beyond the last line of them, if I can find the last; and one of the insupportabilities of Bookseller Accounts is that nobody but a wizard, or regular adept in such matters, can tell where the last line, and final net result of the whole accursed babblement, is to be found! By all means solicit Clark;—at all events, do you give it up, I pray you, and let the Booksellers do their own wise way. It really is not material; let the poor fellows have length of halter. Every new Bill from America comes to me like a kind of heavenly miracle; a reaping where I never sowed, and did not expect to reap: the quantity of it is a thing I can never bring in question.—For your English account with Nickerson I can yet say nothing more; perhaps about Newyear's-day the poor man will enable me to say something. I hear however that the Pirate has sold off, or nearly so, his Two-shillings edition of the Essays, and is preparing to print another; this, directly in the teeth of Cash and double-entry book-keeping, I take to be good news.

James is a very good fellow, better and better as we see him more. Something shy and skittish in the man; but a brave heart intrinsically, with sound, earnest sense, with plenty of insight and even humor. He confirms an observation of mine, which indeed I find is hundreds of years old, that a stammering man is never a worthless one. Physiology can tell you why. It is an excess of delicacy, excess of sensibility to the presence of his fellow-creature, that makes him stammer. Hammond l'Estrange says, "Who ever heard of a stammering man that was a fool?" Really there is something in that.—James is now off to the Isle of Wight; will see Sterling at Ventnor there; see whether such an Isle or France will suit better for a winter residence.

W.E. Channing's Poems are also a kind gift from you. I have read the pieces you had cut up for me: worthy indeed of reading! That Poem on Death is the utterance of a valiant, noble heart, which in rhyme or prose I shall expect more news of by and by. But at bottom "Poetry" is a most suspicious affair for me at present! You cannot fancy the oceans of Twaddle that human Creatures emit upon me, in these times; as if, when the lines had a jingle in them, a Nothing could be Something, and the point were gained! It is becoming a horror to me,—as all speech without meaning more and more is. I said to Richard Milnes, "Now in honesty what is the use of putting your accusative before the verb, and otherwise entangling the syntax; if there really is an image of any object, thought, or thing within you, for God's sake let me have it the shortest way, and I will so cheerfully excuse the omission of the jingle at the end: cannot I do without that!"—Milnes answered, "Ah, my dear fellow, it is because we have no thought, or almost none; a little thought goes a great way when you put it into rhyme!" Let a man try to the very uttermost to speak what he means, before singing is had recourse to. Singing, in our curt English speech, contrived expressly and almost exclusively for "despatch of business," is terribly difficult. Alfred Tennyson, alone of our time, has proved it to be possible in some measure. If Channing will persist in melting such obdurate speech into music he shall have my true wishes,—my augury that it will take an enormous heat from him!—Another Channing,* whom I once saw here, sends me a Progress-of-the-Species Periodical from New York. Ach Gott! These people and their affairs seem all "melting" rapidly enough, into thaw-slush or one knows not what. Considerable madness is visible in them. Stare super antiquas vias: "No," they say, "we cannot stand, or walk, or do any good whatever there; by God's blessing, we will fly,—will not you!— here goes!" And their flight, it is as the flight of the unwinged,—of oxen endeavoring to fly with the "wings" of an ox! By such flying, universally practised, the "ancient ways" are really like to become very deep before long. In short, I am terribly sick of all that;—and wish it would stay at home at Fruitland, or where there is good pasture for it. Friend Emerson, alone of all voices, out of America, has sphere-music in him for me,—alone of them all hitherto; and is a prophecy and sure dayspring in the East; immeasurably cheering to me. God long prosper him; keep him duly apart from that bottomless hubbub which is not, at all cheering! And so ends my Litany for this day.

———— * The Reverend William Henry Channing. ————

The Cromwell business, though I punch daily at it with all manner of levers, remains immovable as Ailsa Crag. Heaven alone knows what I shall do with it. I see and say to myself, It is heroical; Troy Town was probably not a more heroic business; and this belongs to thee, to thy own people,—must it be dead forever?—Perhaps yes,—and kill me too into the bargain. Really I think it very shocking that we run to Greece, to Italy, to &c., &c., and leave all at home lying buried as a nonentity. Were I absolute Sovereign and Chief Pontiff here, there should be a study of the Old English ages first of all. I will pit Odin against any Jupiter of them; find Sea-kings that would have given Jason a Roland for his Oliver! We are, as you sometimes say, a book-ridden people,—a phantom-ridden people.—All this small household is well; salutes you and yours with love old and new. Accept this hasty messenger; accept my friendliest farewell, dear Emerson.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

LXXXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 December, 1843

My Dear Friend,—I have had two good letters from you, and it is fully my turn to write, so you shall have a token on this latest day of the year. I rejoice in this good will you bear to so many friends of mine,—if they will go to you, you must thank yourself. Best when you are mutually contented. I wished lately I might serve Mr. Macready, who sent me your letter.—I called on him and introduced him to Sam G. Ward, my friend and the best man in the city, and, besides all his personal merits, a master of all the offices of hospitality. Ward was to keep himself informed of Macready's times, and bring me to him when there was opportunity. But he stayed but a few days in Boston, and, Ward said, was in very good hands, and promised to see us when he returns by and by. I saw him in Hamlet, but should much prefer to see him as Macready.

I must try to entice Mr. Macready out here into my pines and alder bushes. Just now the moon is shining on snow-drifts, four, five, and six feet high, but, before his return, they will melt; and already this my not native but ancestral village, which I came to live in nearly ten years ago because it was the quietest of farming towns, and off the road, is found to lie on the directest line of road from Boston to Montreal, a railroad is a-building through our secretest woodlands, and, tomorrow morning, our people go to Boston in two hours instead of three, and, next June, in one. This petty revolution in our country matters was very odious to me when it began, but it is hard to resist the joy of all one's neighbors, and I must be contented to be carted like a chattel in the cars and be glad to see the forest fall. This rushing on your journey is plainly a capital invention for our spacious America, but it is more dignified and man-like to walk barefoot.—But do you not see that we are getting to be neighbors? a day from London to Liverpool; twelve or eleven to Boston; and an hour to Concord; and you have owed me a visit these ten years.

I mean to send with your January Dial a copy of the number for Sterling, as it contains a review of his tragedy and poems, by Margaret Fuller. I have not yet seen the article, and the lady affirms that it is very bad, as she was ill all the time she was writing; but I hope and believe better. She, Margaret Fuller, is an admirable person, whose writing gives feeble account of her. But I was to say that I shall send this Dial for J.S. to your care, as I know not the way to the Isle of Wight.

Enclosed in this letter I send a bill of exchange for L32 8s. 2d. payable by Baring & Co. It happens to represent an exact balance on Munroe's books, and that slow mortal should have paid it before. I have not yet got to Clark, I who am a slow mortal, but have my eye fixed on him. Remember me and mine with kindest salutations to your wife and brother.

Ever yours,

R.W. Emerson

LXXXIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 31 January, 1844

Dear Emerson, Some ten days ago came your Letter with a new Draft of L32 and odd money in it: all safe; the Draft now gone into the City to ripen into gold and silver, the Letter to be acknowledged by some hasty response now and here. America, I say to myself looking at these money drafts, is a strange place; the highest comes out of it and the lowest! Sydney Smith is singing dolefully about doleful American repudiation, "_dis_owning of the soft impeachment"; and here on the other hand is an American man, in virtue of whom America has become definable withal as a place from which fall heavenly manna-showers upon certain men, at certain seasons of history, when perhaps manna-showers were not the unneedfulest things!—We will take the good and the evil, here as elsewhere, and heartily bless Heaven.

But now for the Draft at the top of this leaf. One Colman,* a kind of Agricultural Missionary, much in vogue here at present, has given it me; it is Emerson's, the net produce hitherto (all but two cents) of Emerson's Essays. I enclose farther the Bookseller's hieroglyph papers; unintelligible as all such are; but sent over to you for scrutiny by the expert. I gather only that there are some Five Hundred and odd of the dear-priced edition sold, some Two Hundred and odd still to sell, which the Bookseller says are (in spite of pirates) slowly selling; and that the half profit upon the whole adventure up to this date has been L24 15s. 11d. sterling,—equal, as I am taught, at $4.88 per pound sterling, to $121.02, for which, all but the cents, here is a draft on Boston, payable at sight. Pray have yourself straightway paid; that if there be any mistake or delay I may rectify it while time yet is.—I add, for the intelligence of the Bookseller-Papers, that Fraser, with whom the bargain originally stood, was succeeded by Nickerson; these are the names of the parties. And so, dear Friend; accept this munificent sum of Money; and expect a blessing with it if good wishes from the heart of man can give one. So much for that.

————- * The Reverend Henry Colman. ————-

Did you receive a Dumfries Newspaper with a criticism in it? The author is one Gilfillan, a young Dissenting Minister in Dundee; a person of great talent, ingenuousness, enthusiasm, and other virtues; whose position as a Preacher of bare old Calvinism under penalty of death sometimes makes me tremble for him. He has written in that same Newspaper about all the notablest men of his time; Godwin, Corn-law Elliott and I know not all whom: if he publish the Book, I will take care to send it you.* I saw the man for the first time last autumn, at Dumfries; as I said, his being a Calvinist Dissenting Minister, economically fixed, and spiritually with such germinations in him, forces me to be very reserved to him.

—————- * The sketches were published the next year in a volume under the title of The Gallery of Literary Portraits. —————-

John Sterling's Dial shall be forwarded to Ventnor in the Isle of Wight, whenever it arrives. He was here, as probably I told you, about two months ago, the old unresting brilliantly radiating man. He is now much richer in money than he was, and poorer by the loss of a good Mother and good Wife: I understand he is building himself a brave house, and also busy writing a poem. He flings too much "sheet-lightning" and unrest into me when we meet in these low moods of mine; and yet one always longs for him back again: "No doing with him or without him," the dog!

My thrice unfortunate Book on Cromwell,—it is a real descent to Hades, to Golgotha and Chaos! I feel oftenest as if it were possibler to die one's self than to bring it into life. Besides, my health is in general altogether despicable, my "spirits" equal to those of the ninth part of a dyspeptic tailor! One needs to be able to go on in all kinds of spirits, in climate sunny or sunless, or it will never do. The planet Earth, says Voss,—take four hexameters from Voss:

Journeys this Earth, her eye on a Sun, through the heavenly spaces;

Joyous in radiance, or joyless by fits and swallowed in tempests;

Falters not, alters not, equal advancing, home at the due hour:

So thou, weather-proof, constant, may, equal with day, March!

I have not a moment more tonight;—and besides am inclined to write unprofitables if I persist. Adieu, my friend; all blessings be with you always.

Yours ever truly,

T. Carlyle

XC. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 29 February, 1844

My Dear Carlyle,—I received by the last steamer your letter, and its prefixed order for one hundred and twenty-one dollars, which order I sent to Ward, who turned it at once into money. Thanks, dear friend, for your care and activity, which have brought me this pleasing and most unlooked for result. And I beg you, if you know any family representative of Mr. Fraser, to express my sense of obligation to that departed man. I feel a kindness not without some wonder for those good-natured five hundred Englishmen who could buy and read my miscellany. I shall not fail to send them a new collection, which I hope they will like better. My faith in the Writers, as an organic class, increases daily, and in the possibility to a faithful man of arriving at statements for which he shall not feel responsible, but which shall be parallel with nature. Yet without any effort I fancy I make progress also in the doctrine of Indifferency, and am certain and content that the truth can very well spare me, and have itself spoken by another without leaving it or me the worse. Enough if we have learned that music exists, that it is proper to us, and that we cannot go forth of it. Our pipes, however shrill and squeaking, certify this our faith in Tune, and the eternal Amelioration may one day reach our ears and instruments. It is a poor second thought, this literary activity.

Perhaps I am not made obnoxious to much suffering, but I have had happy hours enough in gazing from afar at the splendors of the Intellectual Law, to overpay me for any pains I know. Existence may go on to be better, and, if it have such insights, it never can be bad. You sometimes charge me with I know not what sky- blue, sky-void idealism. As far as it is a partiality, I fear I may be more deeply infected than you think me. I have very joyful dreams which I cannot bring to paper, much less to any approach to practice, and I blame myself not at all for my reveries, but that they have not yet got possession of my house and barn. But I shall not lose my love for books. I only worship Eternal Buddh in the retirements and intermissions of Brahma.—But I must not egotize and generalize to the end of my sheet, as I have a message or two to declare.

I enclose a bill of exchange on the Barings for thirty-six pounds; which is the sum of two recent payments of Munroe and of Little and Brown, whereof I do not despair you shall yet have some account in booksellers' figures. I have got so far with Clark as to have his consent to audit the accounts when I shall get energy and time enough to compile them out of my ridiculous Journal. Munroe begs me to say what possibly I have already asked for him, that, when the History of Cromwell is ready to be seen of men, you will have an entire copy of the Manuscript taken, and sent over to us. Then will he print a cheap edition such as no one will undersell, and secure such a share of profit to the author as the cheap press allows. Perhaps only thirty or forty pounds would make it worth while to take the trouble. A valued friend of mine wishes to know who wrote (perhaps three years ago) a series of metaphysical articles in Blackwood on Consciousness. Can you remember and tell me? And now I commend you to the good God, you and your History, and the true kind wife who is always good to the eager Yankees, and am yours heartily,

—R.W. Emerson

XCI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 8 April, 1844

Dear Emerson,—Till within five minutes of the limit of my time, I had forgotten that this was the 3d of the Month; that I had a Letter to write acknowledging even money! Take the acknowledgment, given in all haste, not without a gratitude that will last longer: the Thirty-six pounds and odd shillings came safe in your Letter, a new unlooked-for Gift. America, I think, is like an amiable family teapot; you think it is all out long since, and lo, the valuable implement yields you another cup, and another! Many thanks to you, who are the heart of America to me.

Republishing for one's friend's sake, I find on consulting my Bookseller, is out here; we have Pirates waiting for every American thing of mark, as you have for every British; to the tender mercies of these, on both sides, I fancy the business must be committed. They do good too; as all does, even carrion: they send you faster abroad, if the world have any use for you;—oftenest it only thinks it has. Your Essays, the Pirated Essays, make an ugly yellow tatter of a Pamphlet, price 1s. 6d.; but the edition is all sold, I understand: and even Nickerson has not entirely ceased to sell. The same Pirate who pounced upon you made an attempt the other day on my poor Life of Schiller, but I put the due spoke in his wheel. They have sent me Lowell's Poems; they are bringing out Jean Paul's Life, &c., &c.; the hungry Canaille. It is strange that men should feel themselves so entirely at liberty to steal, simply because there is no gallows to hang them for doing it. Your new Book will be eagerly waited for by that class of persons; and also by another class which is daily increasing here.

The only other thing I am "not to forget" is that of the Essay on Consciousness in Blackwood. The writer of those Papers is one Ferrier, a Nephew of the Edinburgh Miss Ferrier who wrote Marriage and some other Novels; Nephew also of Professor Wilson (Christopher North), and married to one of his daughters. A man of perhaps five-and-thirty; I remember him in boyhood, while he was boarded with an Annandale Clergyman; I have seen him since manhood, and liked him well: a solid, square-visaged, dark kind of man, more like your Theodore Parker than any mutual specimen I can recollect.

He got the usual education of an Edinburgh Advocate; but found no practice at the Bar, nor sought any with due anxiety, I believe; addicted himself to logical meditations;—became, the other year, Professor of Universal History, or some such thing, in the Edinburgh University, and lectures with hardly any audience: a certain young public wanted me to be that Professor there, but I knew better,—Is this enough about Ferrier?

I will not add another word; the time being past, irretrievable except by half-running!

Write us your Book; and be well and happy always!*

———- * The signature has been cut off. ———-

XCII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 5 August, 1844

Dear Emerson,—There had been a long time without direct news from you, till four days ago your Letter arrived. This day I understand to be the ultimate limit of the American Mail; yesterday, had it not been Sunday, would have been the limit: I write a line, therefore, though in very great haste.

Poor Sterling, even I now begin to fear, is in a very bad way. He had two successive attacks of spitting of blood, some three months ago or more; the second attack of such violence, and his previous condition then so weak, that the Doctor as good as gave up hope,—the poor Patient himself had from the first given it up. Our poor Friend has had so many attacks of that nature, and so rapidly always rallied from them, I gave no ear to these sinister prognostics; but now that I see the summer influences passing over him without visible improvement, and our good weather looking towards a close without so much strength added as will authorize even a new voyage to Madeira;—I too am at last joining in the general discouragement; all the sadder to me that I shut it out so long. Sir James Clark, our best-accredited Physician for such diseases, declares that Life, for certain months, may linger, with great pain; but that recovery is not to be expected. Great part of the lungs, it appears, is totally unserviceable for respiration; from the remainder, especially in times of coughing, it is with the greatest difficulty that breath enough is obtained. Our poor Patient passes the night in a sitting posture; cannot lie down: that fact sticks with me ever since I heard it! He is very weak, very pale; still "writes a great deal daily"; but does not wish to see anybody; declines to "see even Carlyle," who offered to go to him. His only Brother, Anthony Sterling, a hardy soldier, lately withdrawn from the Army, and settled in this quarter, whom we often communicate with, is about going down to the Isle of Wight this week: he saw John four days ago, and brings nothing but bad news,—of which indeed this removal of his to the neighborhood of the scene is a practical testimony. The old Father, a Widower for the last two years, and very lonely and dispirited, seems getting feebler and feebler: he was here yesterday: a pathetic kind of spectacle to us. Alas, alas! But what can be said? I say Nothing; I have written only one Note to Sterling: I feel it probable that I shall never see him more,—nor his like again in this world. His disease, as I have from of old construed it, is a burning of him up by his own fire. The restless vehemence of the man, struggling in all ways these many years to find a legitimate outlet, and finding, except for transitory, unsatisfactory coruscations, none, has undermined its Clay Prison in the weakest point (which proves to be the lungs), and will make outlet there. My poor Sterling! It is an old tragedy; and very stern whenever it repeats itself of new.

Today I get answer about Alfred Tennyson: all is right on that side. Moxon informs me that the Russell Books and Letter arrived duly, and were duly forwarded and safely received; nay, farther, that Tennyson is now in Town, and means to come and see me. Of this latter result I shall be very glad: Alfred is one of the few British or Foreign Figures (a not increasing number I think!) who are and remain beautiful to me;—a true human soul, or some authentic approximation thereto, to whom your own soul can say, Brother!—However, I doubt he will not come; he often skips me, in these brief visits to Town; skips everybody indeed; being a man solitary and sad, as certain men are, dwelling in an element of gloom,—carrying a bit of Chaos about him, in short, which he is manufacturing into Cosmos!

Alfred is the son of a Lincolnshire Gentleman Farmer, I think; indeed, you see in his verses that he is a native of "moated granges," and green, fat pastures, not of mountains and their torrents and storms. He had his breeding at Cambridge, as if for the Law or Church; being master of a small annuity on his Father's decease, he preferred clubbing with his Mother and some Sisters, to live unpromoted and write Poems. In this way he lives still, now here, now there; the family always within reach of London, never in it; he himself making rare and brief visits, lodging in some old comrade's rooms. I think he must be under forty, not much under it. One of the finest-looking men in the world. A great shock of rough dusty-dark hair; bright-laughing hazel eyes; massive aquiline face, most massive yet most delicate; of sallow-brown complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy;—smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical metallic,—fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech, and speculation free and plenteous: I do not meet, in these late decades, such company over a pipe!—We shall see what he will grow to. He is often unwell; very chaotic,—his way is through Chaos and the Bottomless and Pathless; not handy for making out many miles upon. (O Paper!)

I trust there is now joy in place of pain in the House at Concord, and a certain Mother grateful again to the Supreme Powers! We are all in our customary health here, or nearly so; my Wife has been in Lancashire, among her kindred there, for a month lately: our swollen City is getting empty and still; we think of trying an Autumn here this time.—Get your Book ready; there are readers ready for it! And be busy and victorious!

Ever Yours,

T. Carlyle

My History is frightful! If I live, it is like to be completed; but whether I shall live, and not rather be buried alive, broken-hearted, in the Serbonian Quagmires of English Stupidity, and so sleep beside Cromwell, often seems uncertain. Erebus has no uglier, brutaler element. Let us say nothing of it. Let us do it, or leave it to the Devils. Ay de mi!

XCIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Boston, 1 September, 1844

My Dear Carlyle,—I have just learned that in an hour Mr. Wilmer's mail-bag for London, by the "Acadia," closes, and I will not lose the occasion of sending you a hasty line: though I had designed to write you from home on sundry matters, which now must wait. I send by this steamer some sheets, to the bookseller John Chapman,—proofsheets of my new book of Essays. Chapman wrote to me by the last steamer, urging me to send him some manuscript that had not yet been published in America, and he thought he could make an advantage from printing it, and even, in some conditions, procure a copyright, and he would publish for me on the plan of half-profits. The request was so timely, since I was not only printing a book, but also a pamphlet (an Address to citizens of some thirteen towns who celebrated in Concord the negro Emancipation on 1st August last), that I came to town yesterday, and hastened the printers, and have now sent him proofs of all the Address, and of more than half the book. If you can give Chapman any counsel, or save me from any nonsense by enjoining on him careful correction, you shall.

I looked eagerly for a letter from you by the last steamer, to give me exact tidings of Sterling. None came; but I received a short note from Sterling himself, which intimated that he had but a few more days to live. It is gloomy news. I beg you will write me everything you can relate of him, by the next mail. If you can learn from his friends whether the packet of his Manuscripts and printed papers, returned by Russell and sent by me through Harnden's Express to Ventnor, arrived safely, it would be a satisfaction.

Yours affectionately,

R.W. Emerson

XCIV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 29 September, 1844

Dear Emerson,—There should a Letter have come for you by that Steamer; for I wrote one duly, and posted it in good time myself: I will hope therefore it was but some delay of some subaltern official, such as I am told occasionally chances, and that you got the Letter after all in a day or two. It would give you notice, more or less, up to its date, of all the points you had inquired about there is now little to be added; except concerning the main point, That the catastrophe has arrived there as we foresaw, and all is ended.

John Sterling died at his house in Ventnor on the night of Wednesday, 18th September, about eleven o'clock; unexpectedly at last, and to appearance without pain. His Sister-in-law, Mrs. Maurice; had gone down to him from this place about a week before; other friends were waiting as it were in view of him; but he wished generally to be alone, to continue to the last setting his house and his heart more and more in order for the Great Journey. For about a fortnight back he had ceased to have himself formally dressed; had sat only in his dressing-gown, but I believe was still daily wheeled into his Library, and sat very calmly sorting and working there. He sent me two Notes, and various messages, and gifts of little keepsakes to my Wife and myself: the Notes were brief, stern and loving; altogether noble; never to be forgotten in this world. His Brother Anthony, who had been in the Isle of Wight within call for several weeks, had now come up to Town again; but, after about a week, decided that he would run down again, and look. He arrived on the Wednesday night, about nine o'clock; found no visible change; the brave Patient calm as ever, ready to speak as ever, —to say, in direct words which he would often do, or indirectly as his whole speech and conduct did, "God is Great." Anthony and he talked for a while, then took leave for the night; in few minutes more, Anthony was summoned to the bedside, and at eleven o'clock, as I said, the curtain dropt, and it was all ended.—Euge!

Whether the American Manuscripts had arrived I do not yet know, but probably shall before this Letter goes; for Anthony is to return hither on Tuesday, and I will inquire. Our Friend is buried in Ventnor Churchyard; four big Elms overshadow the little spot; it is situated on the southeast side of that green Island, on the slope of steep hills (as I understand it) that look toward the Sun, and are close within sight and hearing of the Sea. There shall he rest, and have fit lullaby, this brave one. He has died as a man should; like an old Roman, yet with the Christian Bibles and all newest revelations present to him. He refused to see friends; men whom I think he loved as well as any,—me for one when I obliquely proposed it, he refused. He was even a little stern on his nearest relatives when they came to him: Do I need your help to die? Phocion-like he seemed to feel degraded by physical decay; to feel that he ought to wrap his mantle round him, and say, "I come, Persephoneia; it is not I that linger!"—His Sister-in-law, Anthony's Wife, probably about a month ago, while they were still in Wight, had begged that she might see him yet once; her husband would be there too, she engaged not to speak. Anthony had not yet persuaded him, when she, finding the door half open, went in: his pale changed countenance almost made her shriek; she stept forward silently, kissed his brow in silence; he burst into tears. Let us speak no more of this.—A great quantity of papers, I understand, are left for my determination; what is to be done with them I will sacredly endeavor to do.

I have visited your Bookseller Chapman; seen the Proof-sheets lying on his table; taken order that the reprint shall be well corrected,—indeed, I am to read every sheet myself, and in that way get acquainted with it, before it go into stereotype. Chapman is a tall, lank youth of five-and-twenty; full of good will, but of what other equipment time must yet try. By a little Book of his, which I looked at some months ago, he seemed to me sunk very deep in the dust-hole of extinct Socinianism; a painful predicament for a man! He is not sure of saving much copyright for you; but he will do honestly what in that respect is doable; and he will print the Book correctly, and publish it decently, I saying imprimatur if occasion be,—and your ever- increasing little congregation here will do with the new word what they can. I add no more today; reserving a little nook for the answer I hope to get two days hence. Adieu, my Friend: it is silent Sunday; the populace not yet admitted to their beer- shops, till the respectabilities conclude their rubric- mummeries,—a much more audacious feat than beer! We have wet wind at Northeast, and a sky somewhat of the dreariest:— Courage! a little way above it reigns mere blue, and sunshine eternally!—T.C.

Wednesday, October 2d.—The Letter had to wait till today, and is still in time. Anthony Sterling, who is yet at Ventnor, apprises me this morning that according to his and the Governess's belief the Russell Manuscripts arrived duly, and were spoken of more than once by our Friend.—On Monday I received from this same Anthony a big packet by Post; it contains among other things all your Letters to John, wrapt up carefully, and addressed in his hand, "Emerson's Letters, to be returned through the hands of Carlyle": they shall go towards you next week, by Mr. James, who is about returning. Among the other Papers was one containing seven stanzas of verse addressed to T. Carlyle, 14th September; full of love and enthusiasm;—the Friday before his death: I was visiting the old City of Winchester that day, among the tombs of Canutes and eldest noble ones: you may judge how sacred the memory of those hours now is!

I have read your Slavery Address; this morning the first half- sheet, in Proof, of the Essays has come: perfectly correct, and right good reading.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

XCV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 September, 1844 My Dear Friend,—I enclose a bill of exchange for thirty pounds sterling which I procured in town today at $5 each pound, or $150; so high, it seems, is the rate at present, higher, they said, than for years. It is good booksellers' money from Little and Brown, and James Munroe & Co., in unequal proportions. If you wish for more accurate information and have a great deal of patience, there is still hope that you may obtain it before death; for I this day met E.P. Clark in Washington Street, and he reported some progress in auditing of accounts, and said that when presently his family should return to town for the winter, he would see to the end of them, i.e. the accounts.

I received with great satisfaction your letter of July, which came by a later steamer than it was written for, but gave me exact and solid information on what I most wished to know. May you live forever, and may your reports of men and things be accessible to me whilst I live! Even if, as now in Sterling's case, the news are the worst, or nearly so, yet let whatever comes for knowledge be precise, for the direst tragedy that is accurately true must share the blessing of the Universe. I have no later tidings from Sterling, and I must still look to you to tell me what you can. I dread that the story should be short. May you have much good to tell of him, and for many a day to come! The sketch you drew of Tennyson was right welcome, for he is an old favorite of mine,—I owned his book before I saw your face;—though I love him with allowance. O cherish him with love and praise, and draw from him whole books full of new verses yet. The only point on which you never give precise intelligence is your own book; but you shall have your will in that; so only you arrive on the shores of light at last, with your mystic freight fished partly out of the seas of time, and partly out of the empyrean deeps.

I have much regretted a sudden note I wrote you just before the steamer of 1 September sailed, entreating you to cumber yourself about my proofsheets sent to the London bookseller. I heartily absolve you from all such vexations. Nothing could be more inconsiderate. Mr. Chapman is undoubtedly amply competent to ordinary correction, and I much prefer to send you my little book in decent trim than in rags and stains and deformities more than its own. I have just corrected and sent to the steamer the last sheets for Mr. Chapman, who is to find English readers if he can. I shall ask Mr. Chapman to send you a copy, for his edition will be more correct than mine. What can I tell you better? Why even this, that this house rejoices in a brave boy, now near three months old. Edward we call him, and my wife calls him Edward Waldo. When shall I show him to you? And when shall I show you a pretty pasture and wood-lot which I bought last week on the borders of a lake which is the chief ornament of this town, called Walden Pond? One of these days, if I should have any money, I may build me a cabin or a turret there high as the tree- tops, and spend my nights as well as days in the midst of a beauty which never fades for me.

Yours with love,

R.W. Emerson

XCVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 November, 1844

Dear Emerson,—By the clearest law I am bound to write you a word today, were my haste even greater than it is. The last American fleet or ship, about the middle of last month, brought me a Draft for Thirty Pounds; which I converted into ready cash, and have here,—and am now your grateful debtor for, as of old. There seems to be no end to those Boston Booksellers! I think the well is dry; and straightway it begins to run again. Thanks to you: —it is, I dare say, a thing you too are grateful for. We will recognize it among the good things of this rather indifferent world.—By the way, if that good Clark like his business, let him go on with it; but if not, stop him, poor fellow! It is to me a matter of really small moment whether those Booksellers' accounts be ever audited in this world, or left over to the General Day of Audit. I myself shudder at the sight of such things; and make my bargain here so always as to have no trade with them, but to be netto from the first. Why should I plague poor Clark with them, if it be any plague to him? The Booksellers will never know but we examine them! The very terror of Clark's name will be as the bark of chained Mastiff,— and no need for actual biting! Have due pity on the man.

Your English volume of Essays, as Chapman probably informs you by this Post, was advertised yesterday, "with a Preface from me." That is hardly accurate, that latter clause. My "Preface" consists only of a certificate that the Book is correctly printed, and sent forth by a Publisher of your appointment, whom therefore all readers of yours ought to regard accordingly. Nothing more. There proves, I believe, no visible real vestige of a copyright obtainable here; only Chapman asserts that he has obtained one, and that he will take all contraveners into Chancery,—which has a terrible sound; and indeed the Act he founds on is of so distracted, inextricable a character, it may mean anything and all things, and no Sergeant Talfourd whom we could consult durst take upon him to say that it meant almost anything whatever. The sound of "Chancery," the stereotype character of this volume, and its cheap price, may perhaps deter pirates,—who are but a weak body in this country as yet. I judged it right to help in that; and impertinent, at this stage of affairs, to go any farther. The Book is very fairly printed, onward. at least to the Essay New England Politics, where my "perfect-copy" of the sheets as yet stops. I did not read any of the Proofs except two; finding it quite superfluous, and a sad waste of time to the hurried Chapman himself. I have found yet but one error, and that a very correctable one, "narvest" for "harvest";—no other that I recollect at present.

The work itself falling on me by driblets has not the right chance yet—not till I get it in the bound state, and read it all at once—to produce its due impression on me. But I will say already of it, It is a sermon to me, as all your other deliberate utterances are; a real word, which I feel to be such,—alas, almost or altogether the one such, in a world all full of jargons, hearsays, echoes, and vain noises, which cannot pass with me for words! This is a praise far beyond any "literary" one; literary praises are not worth repeating in comparison. For the rest, I have to object still (what you will call objecting against the Law of Nature) that we find you a Speaker indeed, but as it were a Soliloquizer on the eternal mountain-tops only, in vast solitudes where men and their affairs lie all hushed in a very dim remoteness; and only the man and the stars and the earth are visible,—whom, so fine a fellow seems he, we could perpetually punch into, and say, "Why won't you come and help us then? We have terrible need of one man like you down among us! It is cold and vacant up there; nothing paintable but rainbows and emotions; come down, and you shall do life-pictures, passions, facts,—which transcend all thought, and leave it stuttering and stammering! To which he answers that he won't, can't, and doesn't want to (as the Cockneys have it): and so I leave him, and say, "You Western Gymnosophist! Well, we can afford one man for that too. But—!—By the bye, I ought to say, the sentences are very brief; and did not, in my sheet reading, always entirely cohere for me. Pure genuine Saxon; strong and simple; of a clearness, of a beauty—But they did not, sometimes, rightly stick to their foregoers and their followers: the paragraph not as a beaten ingot, but as a beautiful square bag of duck-shot held together by canvas! I will try them again, with the Book deliberately before me.—There are also one or two utterances about "Jesus," "immortality," and so forth, which will produce wide-eyes here and there. I do not say it was wrong to utter them; a man obeys his own Daemon in these cases as his supreme law. I dare say you are a little bored occasionally with "Jesus," &c.,—as I confess I myself am, when I discern what a beggarly Twaddle they have made of all that, what a greasy Cataplasm to lay to their own poltrooneries;- -and an impatient person may exclaim with Voltaire, in serious moments: "Au nom de Dieu, ne me parlez plus de cet homme-la! I have had enough of him;—I tell you I am alive too!"

Well, I have scribbled at a great rate; regardless of Time's flight!—My Wife thanks many times for M. Fuller's Book. I sent by Mr. James a small Packet of your letters—which will make you sad to look at them! Adieu, dear friend.

—T. Carlyle

XCVII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 December, 1844

My Dear Friend,—I have long owed you a letter and have much to acknowledge. Your two letters containing tidings, the first of the mortal illness, and the second of the death of Sterling, I had no heart to answer. I had nothing to say. Alas! as in so many instances heretofore, I knew not what to think. Life is somewhat customary and usual; and death is the unusual and astonishing; it kills in so far the survivor also, when it ravishes from him friendship and the most noble and admirable qualities. That which we call faith seems somewhat stoical and selfish, if we use it as a retreat from the pangs this ravishment inflicts. I had never seen him, but I held him fast; now I see him not, but I can no longer hold him. Who can say what he yet is and will be to me? The most just and generous can best divine that. I have written in vain to James to visit me, or to send me tidings. He sent me, without any note, the parcel you confided to him, and has gone to Albany, or I know not whither.

I have your notes of the progress of my London printing, and, at last, the book itself. It was thoughtless in me to ask your attention to the book at all in the proof state; the printer might have been fully trusted with corrected printed pages before him. Nor should Chapman have taxed you for an advertisement; only, I doubt not he was glad of a chance to have business with you; and, of course, was too thankful for any Preface. Thanks to you for the kind thought of a "Notice," and for its friendly wit. You shall not do this thing again, if I should send you any more books. A Preface from you is a sort of banner or oriflamme, a little too splendid for my occasion, and misleads. I fancy my readers to be a very quiet, plain, even obscure class,—men and women of some religious culture and aspirations, young, or else mystical, and by no means including the great literary and fashionable army, which no man can count, who now read your books. If you introduce me, your readers and the literary papers try to read me, and with false expectations. I had rather have fewer readers and only such as belong to me.

I doubt not your stricture on the book as sometimes unconnected and inconsecutive is just. Your words are very gentle. I should describe it much more harshly. My knowledge of the defects of these things I write is all but sufficient to hinder me from writing at all. I am only a sort of lieutenant here in the deplorable absence of captains, and write the laws ill as thinking it a better homage than universal silence. You Londoners know little of the dignities and duties of country lyceums. But of what you say now and heretofore respecting the remoteness of my writing and thinking from real life, though I hear substantially the same criticism made by my countrymen, I do not know what it means. If I can at any time express the law and the ideal right, that should satisfy me without measuring the divergence from it of the last act of Congress. And though I sometimes accept a popular call, and preach on Temperance or the Abolition of Slavery, as lately on the 1st of August, I am sure to feel, before I have done with it, what an intrusion it is into another sphere, and so much loss of virtue in my own. Since I am not to see you from year to year, is there never an Englishman who knows you well, who comes to America, and whom you can send to me to answer all my questions? Health and love and joy to you and yours.

—R.W. Emerson

XCVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 January, 1845

My Dear Carlyle,—Carey and Hart of Philadelphia, booksellers, have lately proposed to buy the remainder of our Boston edition of your Miscellanies, or to give you a bonus for sanctioning an edition of the same, which they propose to publish. On inquiry, I have found that only thirteen entire sets of four volumes remain to us unsold; whilst we have 226 copies of Volume III., and 243 copies of Volume IV., remaining.

In replying to Mr. Carey, I proposed that, besides the proposed bonus, he should buy of me these old volumes, which are not bound but folded, at 25 cents a volume, (Monroe having roughly computed the cost at 40 cents a volume,) but this he declines to do, and offers fifty pounds sterling for his bonus. I decided at once to accept his offer, thinking it a more favorable winding up of our account than I could otherwise look for; as Mr. Carey knows much better how to defend himself from pirates than I do. So I am to publish that his edition is edited with your concurrence. Our own remaining copies of entire sets I shall sell at once to Monroe, at a reduced price, and the odd volumes I think to dispose of by giving them a new and independent title-page. In the circumstances of the trade here, I think Mr. Carey's offer a very liberal one, and he is reputed in his dealings eminently just and generous.

My friend William Furness, who has corresponded with me on Carey's behalf, has added now another letter to say that Mr. Carey wishes to procure a picture of Mr. Carlyle to be engraved for this edition. "He understands there is a good head by Laurence, and he wishes to employ some London artist to make a copy of it in oil or water colors, or in any way that will suffice for the engraver; and he proposes to apply to Mr. Carlyle for permission through Inman the American artist who is now in England." Furness goes on to ask for my "good word" with you in furtherance of this design. Well, I heartily hope you will not resist so much good nature and true love; for Mr. Furness and Mr. Griswold, and others who compose a sort of advising committee to Mr. Carey, are sincere lovers of yours. One more opportunity this crisis in our accounts will give to that truest of all Carlylians, E.P. Clark, to make his report. I called at his house two nights ago, in Boston; he promised immediate attention, but quickly drew me aside to his "Illustrations of Carlyle," an endless train of books, and portfolios, and boxes of prints, in which every precious word of that master is explained or confirmed.

Affectionately yours,

R.W. Emerson

XCIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 16 February, 1845

Dear Emerson,—By the last Packet, which sailed on the 3d of the month, I forgot to write to you, though already in your debt one Letter; and there now has another Letter arrived, which on the footing of mere business demands to be answered. I write straightway; not knowing how the Post-Office people will contrive the conveyance, or whether it can be sooner than by the next Steam ship, but willing to give them a chance.

You have made another brave bargain for me with the Philadelphia people; to all of which I can say nothing but "Euge! Papae!" It seems to me strange, in the present state of Copyright, how my sanction or the contrary can be worth L50 to any American Bookseller; but so it is, to all appearance; let it be so, therefore, with thanks and surprise. The Messrs. Carey and Lea distinguish themselves by the beauty of their Editions; a poor Author does not go abroad among his friends in dirty paper, full of misprints, under their guidance; this is as handsome an item of the business as any. As to the Portrait too, I will be as "amiable" as heart could wish; truly it will be worth my while to take a little pains that the kind Philadelphia Editors do once for all get a faithful Portrait of me, since they are about it, and so prevent counterfeits from getting into circulation. I will endeavor to do in that matter whatsoever they require of me; to the extent even of sitting two days for a Crayon Sketch such as may be engraved,—though this new sacrifice of patience will not be needed as matters are. It stands thus: there is no Painter, of the numbers who have wasted my time and their own with trying, that has indicated any capability of catching a true Likeness, but one Samuel Lawrence; a young Painter of real talent, not quite so young now, but still only struggling for complete mastership in the management of colors. He does crayon sketches in a way to please almost himself; but his oil paintings, at least till within a year or two, have indicated only a great faculty still crude in that particular. His oil portrait of me, which you speak of, is almost terrible to behold! It has the look of a Jotun, of a Scandinavian Demon, grim, sad, as the angel of Death;—and the coloring is so _brick_ish, the finishing so coarse, it reminds you withal of a flayed horse's head! "Dinna speak o't." But the preparatory crayon-sketch of this, still in existence, is admired by some judges; poor John Sterling bought it from the Painter, and it is now here in the hands of his Brother, who will readily allow any authorized person to take a drawing of it. Lawrence himself, I imagine, would be the fittest man to employ; or your Mr. Ingham [Inman], if he be here and a capable person: one or both of these might superintend the Engraving of it here, and not part with the plate till it were pronounced satisfactory. In short, I am willing to do "anything in reason"! Only if a Portrait is to be, I confess I should rather avoid going abroad under the hands of bunglers, at least of bunglers sanctioned by myself. There is a Portrait of me in some miserable farrago called Spirit of the Age;* a farrago unknown to me, but a Portrait known, for poor Lawrence brought it down to me with sorrow in his face; it professes to be from his painting; is a "Lais without the beauty" (as Charles Lamb used to say); a flayed horse's head without the spiritualism, good or bad,—and simply figures on my mind as a detestability; which I had much rather never have seen. These poor Spirit of the Age people applied to me; I described myself as "busy," &c.; shoved them off me; and this monster of iniquity, resembling Nothing in the Earth or under it, is the result. In short, I am willing, I am willing; and so let us not waste another drop of ink on it at present!—On the whole, are not you a strange fellow? You apologize as if with real pain for "trouble" I had, or indeed am falsely supposed to have had, with Chapman here; and forthwith engage again in correspondences, in speculations, and negotiations, and I know not what, on my behalf! For shame, for shame! Nay, you have done one very ingenious thing; to set Clark upon the Boston Booksellers' accounts: it is excellent; Michael Scott setting the Devil to twist ropes of sand, "There, my brave one; see if you don't find work there for a while!" I never think of this Clark without love and laughter. Once more, Euge! Chapman is fast selling your Books here; striking off a new Five Hundred from his Stereotypes. You are wrong as to your Public in this Country; it is a very pretty public; extends pretty much, I believe, through all ranks, and is a growing one,—and a truly aristocratic, being of the bravest inquiring minds we have. All things are breaking up here, like Swedish Frost in the end of March; gachis epouvantable. Deep, very serious eternal instincts, are at work; but as yet no serious word at all that I hear, except what reaches me from Concord at intervals. Forward, forward! And you do not know what I mean by calling you "unpractical," "theoretic." 0 caeca corda! But I have no room for such a theme at present.

—————

* "A new Spirit of the Age. Edited by R.H. Horne." In Two

Volumes. London, 1844.

—————

The reason I tell you nothing about Cromwell is, alas, that there is nothing to be told. I am day and night, these long months and years, very miserable about it,—nigh broken-hearted often. Such a scandalous accumulation of Human Stupidity in every form never lay before on such a subject. No history of it can be written to this wretched, fleering, sneering, canting, twaddling, God- forgetting generation. How can you explain men to Apes by the Dead Sea?* And I am very sickly too, and my Wife is ill all this cold weather,—and I am sunk in the bowels of Chaos, and scarce once in the three months or so see so much as a possibility of ever getting out! Cromwell's own Letters and Speeches I have gathered together, and washed clean from a thousand ordures: these I do sometimes think of bringing out in a legible shape;— perhaps soon. Adieu, dear friend, with blessings always.

—T. Carlyle

Poor Sydney Smith is understood to be dying; water on the chest; past hope of Doctors. Alas!

————- * The dwellers by the Dead Sea who were changed to apes are referred to in various places by Carlyle. He tells the story of the metamorphosis, which he got from the introduction to Sale's Koran, in Past and Present, Book III. Ch. 3. ————-

C. Emerson to Carlyle*

Concord, June 29, 1845

My Dear Friend,—I grieve to think of my slackness in writing, which suffers steamer after steamer to go without a letter. But I have still hoped, before each of the late packets sailed, that I should have a message to send that would enforce a letter. I wrote you some time ago of Mr. Carey's liberal proposition in relation to your Miscellanies. I wrote, of course, to Furness, through whom it was made to me, accepting the proposition; and I forwarded to Mr. Carey a letter from me to be printed at the beginning of the book, signifying your good-will to the edition, and acknowledging the justice and liberality of the publishers. I have heard no more from them, and now, a fortnight since, the newspaper announces the death of Mr. Carey. He died very suddenly, though always an invalid and extremely crippled. His death is very much regretted in the Philadelphia papers, where he bore the reputation of a most liberal patron of good and fine arts. I have not heard from Mr. Furness, and have thought I should still expect a letter from him. I hope our correspondence will stand as a contract which Mr. Carey's representatives will feel bound to execute. They had sent me a little earlier a copy of Mr. Sartain's engraving from their water-color copy of Laurence's head of you. They were eager to have the engraving pronounced a good likeness. I showed it to Sumner, and Russell, and Theodore Parker, who have seen you long since I had, and they shook their heads unanimously and declared that D'Orsay's profile was much more like.

————- ** From the rough draft. ————-

I creep along the roads and fields of this town as I have done from year to year. When my garden is shamefully overgrown with weeds, I pull up some of them. I prune my apples and pears. I have a few friends who gild many hours of the year. I sometimes write verses. I tell you with some unwillingness, as knowing your distaste for such things, that I have received so many applications from readers and printers for a volume of poems that I have seriously taken in hand the collection, transcription, or scription of such a volume, and may do the enormity before New Year's day. Fear not, dear friend, you shall not have to read one line. Perhaps I shall send you an official copy, but I shall appeal to the tenderness of Jane Carlyle, and excuse your formidable self, for the benefit of us both. Where all writing is such a caricature of the subject, what signifies whether the form is a little more or less ornate and luxurious? Meantime, I think to set a few heads before me, as good texts for winter evening entertainments. I wrote a deal about Napoleon a few months ago, after reading a library of memoirs. Now I have Plato, Montaigne, and Swedenborg, and more in the clouds behind. What news of Naseby and Worcester?

CI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 29 August, 1845

Dear Emerson,—Your Letter, which had been very long expected, has been in my hand above a month now; and still no answer sent to it. I thought of answering straightway; but the day went by, days went by;—and at length I decided to wait till my insupportable Burden (the "Stupidity of Two Centuries" as I call it, which is a heavy load for one man!) were rolled off my shoulders, and I could resume the habit of writing Letters, which has almost left me for many months. By the unspeakable blessing of Heaven that consummation has now arrived, about four days ago I wrote my last word on Cromwell's Letters and Speeches; and one of the earliest uses I make of my recovered freedom is to salute you again. The Book is nearly printed: two big volumes; about a half of it, I think, my own; the real utterances of the man Oliver Cromwell once more legible to earnest men. Legible really to an unexpected extent: for the Book took quite an unexpected figure in my hands; and is now a kind of Life of Oliver, the best that circumstances would permit me to do:— whether either I or England shall be, in my time, fit for a better, remains submitted to the Destinies at present. I have tied up the whole Puritan Paper-Litter (considerable masses of it still unburnt) with tight strings, and hidden it at the bottom of my deepest repositories: there shall it, if Heaven please, lie dormant for a time and times. Such an element as I have been in, no human tongue can give account of. The disgust of my Soul has been great; a really pious labor: worth very little when I have done it; but the best I could do; and that is quite enough. I feel the liveliest gratitude to the gods that I have got out of it alive. The Book is very dull, but it is actually legible: all the ingenious faculty I had, and ten times as much would have been useful there, has been employed in elucidation; in saying, and chiefly in forbearing to say,—in annihilating continents of brutal wreck and dung: Ach Gott!—But in fact you will see it by and by; and then form your own conclusions about it. They are going to publish it in October, I find: I tried hard to get you a complete copy of the sheets by this Steamer; but it proves to be flatly impossible;—perhaps luckily; for I think you would have been bothering yourself with some new Bookseller negotiation about it; and that, as copyright and other matters now stand, is a thing I cannot recommend. —Enough of it now: only let all my silences and other shortcomings be explained thereby. I am now off for the North Country, for a snatch still at the small remnants of Summer, and a little free air and sunshine. I am really far from well, though I have been riding diligently for three months back, and doing what I could to help myself.

Very glad shall I be, my Friend, to have some new utterances from you either in verse or in prose! What you say about the vast imperfection of all modes of utterance is most true indeed. Let a man speak and sing, and do, and sputter and gesticulate as he may,—the meaning of him is most ineffectually shown forth, poor fellow; rather indicated as if by straggling symbols, than spoken or visually expressed! Poor fellow! So the great rule is, That he have a good manful meaning, and then that he take what "mode of utterance" is honestly the readiest for him.— I wish you would take an American Hero, one whom you really love; and give us a History of him,—make an artistic bronze statue (in good words) of his Life and him! I do indeed.—But speak of what you will, you are welcome to me. Once more I say, No other voice in this wide waste world seems to my sad ear to be speaking at all at present. The more is the pity for us.

I forbid you to plague yourself any farther with those Philadelphia or other Booksellers. If you could hinder them to promulgate any copy of that frightful picture by Lawrence, or indeed any picture at all, I had rather stand as a shadow than as a falsity in the minds of my American friends: but this too we are prepared to encounter. And as for the money of these men,— if they will pay it, good and welcome; if they will not pay it, let them keep it with what blessing there may be in it! I have your noble offices in that and in other such matters already unforgetably sure to me; and, in real fact, that is almost exactly the whole of valuable that could exist for me in the affair. Adieu, dear Friend. Write to me again; I will write again at more leisure.

Yours always,

T. Carlyle

CII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 15 September, 1845

My Dear Friend,—I have seen Furness of Philadelphia, who was, last week, in Boston, and inquired of him what account I should send you of the new Philadelphia edition. "Has not Mr. Carey paid you?" he said.—No. "Then has he not paid Carlyle directly?" No, as I believe, or I should have heard of it.— Furness replied, that the promised fifty pounds were sure, and that the debt would have been settled before this time, if Mr. Carey had lived. So as this is no longer a Three Blind Callenders' business of Arabian Nights, I shall rest secure. I have doubted whether the bad name which Philadelphia has gotten in these times would not have disquieted you in this long delay. If you have ever heard directly from Carey and Hart, you will inform me.

I am to read to a society in Boston presently some lectures, —on Plato, or the Philosopher; Swedenborg, or the Mystic; Montaigne, or the Sceptic; Shakespeare, or the Poet; Napoleon, or the Man of the World;—if I dare, and much lecturing makes us incorrigibly rash. Perhaps, before I end it, my list will be longer, and the measure of presumption overflowed. I may take names less reverend than some of these,—but six lectures I have promised. I find this obligation usually a good spur to the sides of that dull horse I have charge of. But many of its advantages must be regarded at a long distance.

I have heard nothing from you for a long time,—so may your writing prosper the more. I wish to hear, however, concerning you, and your house, and your studies, when there is little to tell. The steamers come so fast—to exchange cards would not be nothing. My wife and children and my mother are well. Peace and love to your household.

—R.W. Emerson

CIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 September, 1845

My Dear Friend,—I had hardly sent away my letter by the last steamer, when yours full of good news arrived. I greet you heartily on the achievement of your task, and the new days of freedom obtained and deserved. Happiest, first, that you can work, which seems the privilege of the great, and then, also, that thereby you can come at the sweetness of victory and rest. Yes, flee to the country, ride, run, leap, sit, spread yourself at large; and in all ways celebrate the immense benevolence of the Universe towards you; and never complain again of dyspepsia, crosses, or the folly of men; for in giving you this potent concentration, what has been withholden? I am glad with all men that a new book is made, that the gentle creation as well as the grosser goes ever on. Another month will bring it to me, and I shall know the secrets of these late silent years. Welcome the child of my friend! Why should I regret that I see you not, when you are forced thus intimately to discover yourself beyond the intimacy of conversation?

But you should have sent me out the sheets by the last steamer, or a manuscript copy of the book. I do not know but Munroe would have printed it at once, and defied the penny press. And slow Time might have brought in his hands a most modest reward.

I wrote you the other day the little I had to say on affairs. Clark, the financial Conscience, has never yet made any report, though often he promised. Half the year he lives out of Boston, and unless I go to his Bank I never see his face. I think he will not die till he have disburdened himself of this piece of arithmetic. I pray you to send me my copy of this book at the earliest hour, and to offer my glad congratulations to Jane Carlyle, on an occasion, I am sure, of great peace and relief to her spirit. And so farewell.

—R.W. Emerson

CIV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 11 November, 1846

My Dear Emerson,—I have had two Letters from you since I wrote any; the latest of them was lying here for me when I returned, about three weeks ago; the other I had received in Scotland: it was only the last that demanded a special answer;—which, alas, I meant faithfully to give it, but did not succeed! With meet despatch I made the Bookseller get ready for you a Copy of the unpublished Cromwell Book; hardly complete as yet, it was nevertheless put together, and even some kind of odious rudiments of a Portrait were bound up with it; and the Packet inscribed with your address was put into Wiley and Putnam's hands in time for the Mail Steamer;—and I hope has duly arrived? If it have not, pray set the Booksellers a-hunting. Wiley and Putnam was the Carrier's name; this is all the indication I can give, but this, I hope, if indeed any prove needful, will be enough. One may hope you have the Book already in your hands, a fortnight before this reaches you, a month before any other Copy can reach America. In which case the Parcel, without any Letter, must have seemed a little enigmatic to you! The reason was this: I miscounted the day of the month, unlucky that I was. Sitting down one morning with full purpose to write at large, and all my tools round me, I discover that it is no longer the third of November; that it is already the fourth, and the American Mail-Packet has already lifted anchor! Irrevocable, irremediable! Nothing remained but to wait for the 18th;—and now, as you see, to take Time by the forelock,— queue, as we all know, he has none.

My visit to Scotland was wholesome for me, tho' full of sadness, as the like always is. Thirty years mow away a Generation of Men. The old Hills, the old Brooks and Houses, are still there; but the Population has marched away, almost all; it is not there any more. I cannot enter into light talk with the survivors and successors; I withdraw into silence, and converse with the old dumb crags rather, in a melancholy and abstruse manner.—Thank God, my good old Mother is still there; old and frail, but still young of heart; as young and strong there, I think, as ever. It is beautiful to see affection survive where all else is submitting to decay; the altar with its sacred fire still burning when the outer walls are all slowly crumbling; material Fate saying, "They are mine!"—I read some insignificant Books; smoked a great deal of tobacco; and went moping about among the hills and hollow water-courses, somewhat like a shade in Hades. The Gospel which this World of Fact does preach to one differs considerably from the sugary twaddle one gets the offer of in Exeter-Hall and other Spouting-places! Of which, in fact, I am getting more and more weary; sometimes really impatient. It seems to me the reign of Cant and Spoonyism has about lasted long enough. Alas, in many respects, in this England I too often feel myself sorrowfully in a "minority of one";—if in the whole world, it amount to a minority of two, that is something! These words of Goethe often come into my mind, "Verachtung ja Nicht- achtung." Lancashire, with its Titanic Industries, with its smoke and dirt, and brutal stupor to all but money and the five mechanical Powers, did not excite much admiration in me; considerably less, I think, than ever! Patience, and shuffle the cards!

The Book on Cromwell is not to come out till the 22d of this month. For many weeks it has been a real weariness to me; my hope, always disappointed, that now is the last time I shall have any trade with it. Even since I began writing, there has been an Engraver here, requiring new indoctrination,—poor fellow! Nay, in about ten days it must be over: let us not complain. I feel it well to be worth nothing, except for the little fractions or intermittent fits of pious industry there really were in it; and my one wish is that the human species would be pleased to take it off my hands, and honestly let me hear no more about it! If it please Heaven, I will rest awhile still, and then try something better.

In three days hence, my Wife and I are off to the Hampshire coast for a winter visit to kind friends there, if in such a place it will prosper long with us. The climate there is greatly better than ours; they are excellent people, well affected to us; and can be lived with, though of high temper and ways! They are the Lord Ashburtons, in fact; more properly the younger stratum of that house; partly a kind of American people,—who know Waldo Emerson, among other fine things, very well! I think we are to stay some three weeks: the bustle of moving is already begun.

You promise us a new Book soon? Let it be soon, then. There are many persons here that will welcome it now. To one man here it is ever as an articulate voice amid the infinite cackling and cawing. That remains my best definition of the effect it has on me. Adieu, my friend. Good be with you and your Household always. Vale.

—T.C.

CV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 January, 1846

Dear Emerson,—I received your Letter* by the last Packet three or four days ago: this is the last day of answering, the monthly Packet sails towards you again from Liverpool tomorrow morning; and I am in great pressure with many writings, elsewhither and thither: therefore I must be very brief. I have just written to Mr. Hart of Philadelphia; his Draft (as I judge clearly by the Banker's speech and silence) is accepted, all right; and in fact, means money at this time: for which I have written to thank him heartily. Do you very heartily thank Mr. Furness for me;—Furness and various friends, as Transatlantic matters now are, must accept a silent gratitude from me. The speech of men and American hero-worshipers is grown such a babblement: in very truth, silence is the thing that chiefly has meaning,—there or here….

————- * Missing ————-

To my very great astonishment, the Book Cromwell proves popular here; and there is to be another edition very soon. Edition with improvements—for some fifty or so of new (not all insignificant) Letters have turned up, and I must try to do something rational with them;—with which painful operation I am again busy. It will make the two volumes about equal perhaps, —which will be one benefit! If any American possibility lie in this, I will take better care of it.—Alas, I have not got one word with you yet! Tell me of your Lectures;—of all things. Ever yours, T. Carlyle

We returned from Hampshire exactly a week ago; never passed six so totally idle weeks in our lives.—Better in health a little? Perhaps.

CVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 February, 1848

Dear Emerson,—One word to you before the Packet sail;—on business of my own, once more; in such a state of haste as could hardly be greater. The Printers are upon me, and I have not a moment.

Contrary to all human expectation, this Book on Cromwell proves salable to mankind here, and a second Edition is now going forward with all speed. The publication of the First has brought out from their recesses a new heap of Cromwell Letters;—which have been a huge embarrassment to me; for they are highly unimportant for most part, and do not tend to alter or materially modify anything. Some Fifty or Sixty new Letters in all (many of them from Printed Books that had escaped me) the great majority, with others yet that may come in future time, I determine to print simply as an Appendix; but several too, I think about twenty in all, are to be fitted into the Text, chiefly in the early part of the First Volume, as tending to bring some matters into greater clearness there. I am busy with that even now; sunk deep into the Dust-abysses again!—Of course I have made what provision I could for printing a Supplement, &c. to the possessors of the First Edition: but I find this Second will be the Final standing Edition of the Book; decidedly preferable to the First; not to be touched by me again, except on very good cause indeed. New letters, except they expressly contradict me, shall go at once into the back apartment, or Appendix, in future.

The Printers have sent me some five or six sheets, they send me hitherto a sheet daily; but perhaps there are not above three or two in a perfect state: so I trouble you with none of them by this Packet. But by next Packet (3d of March), unless I hear to the contrary, I will send you all the Sheets that are ready; and so by the following Packets, till we are out of it;—that you, on the scene there, may do with them once for all whatsoever you like. If nothing can be done with them, believe me I shall be very glad of that result. But if you can so much as oblige any honest Bookseller of your or my acquaintance by the gift of them, let it be done; let Pirates and ravenous Bipeds of Prey be excluded from participating: that of itself will be a comfortable and a proper thing!—You are hereby authorized to promulgate in any way you please, That the Second Edition will be augmented, corrected, as aforesaid; and that Mr. (Any Son of Adam you please to name) is, so far as I have any voice in the matter, appointed by me, to the exclusion of all and sundry others on what pretext soever, to print and vend the same to my American Friends. And so it stands; and the Sheets (probably near thirty in number) will be out with the March Packet:— and if nothing can come of it, I for one shall be very glad! The Book is to be in Three Volumes now; the first ends at p. 403, Vol. I.; the third begins at p. 155, Vol. II., of the present edition.

What are you doing? Write to me: how the Lectures went, how all things went and go! We are over head and ears in Anti-Corn-Law here; the Aristocracy struck almost with a kind of horror at sight of that terrible Millocracy, rising like a huge hideous Frankenstein up in Lancashire,—seemingly with boundless ready- money in its pocket, and a very fierce humor in its stomach! To me it is as yet almost uglier than the Aristocracy; and I will not fire guns when this small victory is gained; I will recommend a day of Fasting rather, that such a victory required such gaining.

Adieu, my Friend. Is it likely we shall meet in "Oregon," think you? That would be a beautiful affair, on the part of the most enlightened Nation!

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

CVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 March, 1846

Dear Emerson,—I must write you a word before this Packet go, tho' my haste is very great. I received your two Newspapers (price only twopence); by the same Ship there came, and reached me some days later, a Letter from Mr. Everett enclosing the Cromwell portions of the same printed-matter, clipt out by scissors; written, it appeared, by Mr. Everett's nephew; some of whose remarks, especially his wish that I might once be in New England, and see people "praying," amused me much! The Cotton Letter, &c., I have now got to the bottom of; Birch's copy is in the Museum here,—a better edition than I had. Of "Levered" and the other small American Documents—alas, I get cartloads of the like or better tumbled down at my door, and my chief duty is to front them resolutely with a shovel. "Ten thousand tons" is but a small estimate for the quantity of loose and indurated lumber I have had to send sounding, on each hand of me, down, down to the eternal deeps, never to trouble me more! The jingle of it, as it did at last get under way, and go down, was almost my one consolation in those unutterable operations.—I am again over head and ears; but shall be out soon: never to return more.

By this Packet, according to volunteer contract, there goes out by the favor of your Chapman a number of sheets, how many I do not exactly know, of the New Edition: Chapman First and Chapman Second (yours and mine) have undertaken to manage the affair for this month and for the following months;—many thanks to them both for taking it out of my hands. What you are to do with the Article you already know. If no other customer present himself, can you signify to Mr. Hart of Philadelphia that the sheets are much at his service,—his conduct on another occasion having given him right to such an acknowledgment from me? Or at any rate, you will want a new Copy of this Book; and can retain the sheets for that object.—Enough of them.

From Mr. Everett I learn that your Boston Lectures have been attended with renown enough: when are the Lectures themselves to get to print? I read, last night, an Essay on you, by a kind of "Young Scotland," as we might call it, in an Edinburgh Magazine; very fond of you, but shocked that you were Antichristian:— really not so bad. The stupidities of men go crossing one another; and miles down, at the bottom of all, there is a little veinlet of sense found running at last!

If you see Mr. Everett, will you thank him for his kind remembrance of me, till I find leisure (as I have vainly hoped today to do) to thank him more in form. A dignified, compact kind of man; whom I remember with real pleasure.

Jargon abounds in our Newspapers and Parliament Houses at present;—with which "the present Editor," and indeed I think the Public at large, takes little concern, beyond the regret of being bored by it. The Corn-Laws are going very quietly the way of all deliriums; and then there will at least be one delirium less, and we shall start upon new ones.

Not a word more today, but my blessings and regards. God be with you and yours always.

Ever your affectionate,

T. Carlyle

CVIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 18 April, 1846

Dear Emerson,—Your two Letters* have both come to hand, the last of them only three days ago. One word in answer before the Packet sail; one very hasty word, rather than none.

—————- * Missing. —————

You have made the best of Bargains for me; once again, with the freest contempt of trouble on my behalf; which I cannot sufficiently wonder at! Apparently it is a fixed-idea of yours that the Bibliopolic Genus shall not cheat me; and you are decided to make it good. Very well: let it be so, in as far as the Fates will.

Certainly I will conform in all points to this Wiley-and-Putnam Treaty, and faithfully observe the same. The London Wileys have not yet sent me any tidings; but when they do, I will say Your terms on the other side of the sea are the Law to us, and it is a finished thing.—No sheets, I think, will go by this mid-month Packet, the Printer and Bookseller were bidden not mind that: but by the Packet of May 3d, I hope the Second Volume will go complete; and, if the Printers make speed, almost the whole remainder may go by the June one. There is to be a "Supplement to the First Edition," containing all the new matter that is separable: of this too the Wileys shall have their due Copy to reprint: it is what I could do to keep my faith with purchasers of the First Edition here; but, on the whole, there will be no emulating of the Second Edition except by a reprint of the whole of it; changes great and small have had to introduce themselves everywhere, as these new Letters were woven in.—I hope before May 3d I shall have ascertained whether it will not be the simplest way (as with my present light it clearly appears) to give the sheets direct to the Wiley and Putnam here, and let them send them? In any case, the cargo shall come one way or other.

Furthermore,—Yes, you shall have that sun-shadow, a Daguerreotype likeness, as the sun shall please to paint it: there has often been talk of getting me to that establishment, but I never yet could go. If it be possible, we will have this also ready for the 3d of May. Provided you, as you promise, go and do likewise! A strange moment that, when I look upon your dead shadow again; instead of the living face, which remains unchanged within me, enveloped in beautiful clouds, and emerging now and then into strange clearness! Has your head grown grayish? On me are "gray hairs here and there,"—and I do "know it." I have lived half a century in this world, fifty years complete on the 4th of December last: that is a solemn fact for me! Few and evil have been the days of the years of thy servant,—few for any good that was ever done in them. Ay de mi!

Within late weeks I have got my Horse again; go riding through the loud torrent of vehiculatory discords, till I get into the fields, into the green lanes; which is intrinsically a great medicine to me. Most comfortless riding it is, with a horse of such kangaroo disposition, till I do get to the sight of my old ever-young green-mantled mother again; but for an hour there, it is a real blessing to me. I have company sometimes, but generally prefer solitude, and a dialogue with the trees and clouds. Alas, the speech of men, especially the witty-speech of men, is oftentimes afflictive to me: "in the wide Earth," I say sometimes with a sigh, "there is none but Emerson that responds to me with a voice wholly human!" All "Literature" too is become I cannot tell you how contemptible to me. On the whole, one's blessedness is to do as Oliver: Work while the sun is up; work well as if Eternities depended on it; and then sleep,—if under the guano-mountains of Human Stupor, if handsomely forgotten all at once, that latter is the handsome thing! I have often thought what W. Shakespeare would say, were he to sit one night in a "Shakespeare Society," and listen to the empty twaddle and other long-eared melody about him there!—Adieu, my Friend. I fear I have forgotten many things: at all events, I have forgotten the inexorable flight of the minutes, which are numbered out to me at present.

Ever yours,

T. Carlyle

I think I recognize the Inspector of Wild-beasts, in the little Boston Newspaper you send!* A small hatchet-faced, gray- eyed, good-humored Inspector, who came with a Translated Lafontaine; and took his survey not without satisfaction? Comfortable too how rapidly he fathomed the animal, having just poked him up a little. Ach Gott! Man is forever interesting to men;—and all men, even Hatchet-faces, are globular and complete!

————- * This probably refers to a letter of Mr. Elizur Wright's, describing a visit to Carlyle. ————-

CIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 30 April, 1846

Dear Emerson,—Here is the Photograph going off for you by Bookseller Munroe of Boston; the Sheets of Cromwell, all the second and part of the last volume, are to go direct to New York: both Parcels by the Putnam conveyance. For Putnam has been here since I wrote, making large confirmations of what you conveyed to me; and large Proposals of an ulterior scope,—which will involve you in new trouble for me. But it is trouble you will not grudge, inasmuch as it promises to have some issue of moment; at all events the negotiation is laid entirely into your hands: therefore I must with all despatch explain to you the essentials of it, that you may know what Wiley says when he writes to you from New York.

Mr. Putnam, really a very intelligent, modest, and reputable- looking little fellow, got at last to sight of me about a week ago;—explained with much earnestness how the whole origin of the mistake about the First Edition of Cromwell had lain with Chapman, my own Bookseller (which in fact I had already perceived to be the case); and farther set forth, what was much more important, that he and his Partner were, and had been, ready and desirous to make good said mistake, in the amplest, most satisfactory manner,—by the ready method of paying me now ten percent on the selling-price of all the copies of Cromwell sent into the market by them; and had (as I knew already) covenanted with you to do so, in a clear, bona-fide, and to you satisfactory manner, in regard to that First Edition: in consequence of which you had made a bargain with them of like tenor in regard to the Second. To all which I could only answer, that such conduct was that of men of honor, and would, in all manner of respects, be satisfactory to me. Wherefore the new Sheets of Cromwell should now go by his Package direct to New York, and the other little Parcel for you he could send to Munroe:—that as one consequence? "Yes, surely," intimated he; but there were other consequences, of more moment, behind that.

Namely, that they wanted (the Wiley & Putnam house did) to publish certain other Books of mine, the List of which I do not now recollect; under similar conditions: viz. that I was to certify, in a line or two prefixable to each Book, that I had read it over in preparation for their Printer, and did authorize them to print and sell it;—in return for which Ten percent on the sale-price (and all manner of facilities, volunteered to convince even Clark of Boston, the Lynx-eyed Friend now busy for me looking through millstones, that all was straight, and said Ten percent actually paid on every copy sold); This was Putnam's Offer, stated with all transparency, and in a way not to be misunderstood by either of us.

To which I answered that the terms seemed clear and square and every way good, and such as I could comply with heartily,—so far as I was at liberty, but not farther. Not farther: for example, there was Hart of Philadelphia (I think the Wileys do not want the Miscellanies), there were Munroe, Little and Brown, &c.;— in short, there was R.W. Emerson, who knew in all ways how far I was free and not free, and who would take care of my integrity and interest at once, and do what was just and prudent; and to him I would refer the whole question, and whatever he engaged for, that and no other than that I would do. So that you see how it is, and what a coil you have again got into! Mr. Putnam would have had some "Letter," some "exchange of Letters," to the effect above-stated: but I answered, "It was better we did not write at all till the matter was clear and liquid with you, and then we could very swiftly write,—and act. I would apprise you how the matter stood, and expect your answer, and bid you covenant with Mr. Wiley what you found good, prompt I to fulfil whatever you undertook for me."—This is a true picture of the affair, the very truest I can write in haste; and so I leave it with you— Ach Gott!

If your Photograph succeed as well as mine, I shall be almost tragically glad of it. This of me is far beyond all pictures; really very like: I got Laurence the Painter to go with me, and he would not let the people off till they had actually made a likeness. My Wife has got another, which she asserts to be much "more amiable-looking," and even liker!* O my Friend, it is a strange Phantasmagory of a Fact, this huge, tremendous World of ours, Life of ours! Do you bethink you of Craigenputtock, and the still evening there? I could burst into tears, if I had that habit: but it is of no use. The Cromwell business will be ended about the end of May,—I do hope!

You say not a word of your own affairs: I have vaguely been taught to look for some Book shortly;—what of it? We are well, or tolerably well, and the summer is come: adieu. Blessings on you and yours.

—T.C.

—————

* The engraved portrait in the first volume of this

Correspondence is from a photograph taken from this daguerrotype.

—————

CX. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 14 May, 1846

Dear Friend,—I daily expect the picture, and wonder—so long as I have wished it—I had never asked it before. I was in Boston the other day, and went to the best reputed Daguerreotypist, but though I brought home three transcripts of my face, the house- mates voted them rueful, supremely ridiculous. I must sit again; or, as true Elizabeth Hoar said, I must not sit again, not being of the right complexion which Daguerre and iodine delight in. I am minded to try once more, and if the sun will not take me, I must sit to a good crayon sketcher, Mr. Cheney, and send you his draught….

Good rides to you and the longest escapes from London streets. I too have a new plaything, the best I ever had,—a wood-lot. Last fall I bought a piece of more than forty acres, on the border of a little lake half a mile wide and more, called Walden Pond,—a place to which my feet have for years been accustomed to bring me once or twice a week at all seasons. My lot to be sure is on the further side of the water, not so familiar to me as the nearer shore. Some of the wood is an old growth, but most of it has been cut off within twenty years and is growing thriftily. In these May days, when maples, poplars, oaks, birches, walnut, and pine are in their spring glory, I go thither every afternoon, and cut with my hatchet an Indian path through the thicket all along the bold shore, and open the finest pictures.

My two little girls know the road now, though it is nearly two miles from my house, and find their way to the spring at the foot of a pine grove, and with some awe to the ruins of a village of shanties, all overgrown with mullein, which the Irish who built the railroad left behind them. At a good distance in from the shore the land rises to a rocky head, perhaps sixty feet above the water. Thereon I think to place a hut; perhaps it will have two stories and be a petty tower, looking out to Monadnoc and other New Hampshire Mountains. There I hope to go with book and pen when good hours come. I shall think there, a fortnight might bring you from London to Walden Pond.—Life wears on, and do you say the gray hairs appear? Few can so well afford them. The black have not hung over a vacant brain, as England and America know; nor, white or black, will it give itself any Sabbath for many a day henceforward, as I believe. What have we to do with old age? Our existence looks to me more than ever initial. We have come to see the ground and look up materials and tools. The men who have any positive quality are a flying advance party for reconnoitring. We shall yet have a right work, and kings for competitors. With ever affectionate remembrance to your wife, your friend,

—R.W. Emerson

CXI. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 May, 1846

My Dear Friend,—It is late at night and I have postponed writing not knowing but that my parcel would be ready to go,—and now a public meeting and the speech of a rarely honest and eloquent man have left me but a span of time for the morning's messenger.

The photograph came safely, to my thorough content. I have what I have wished. This head is to me out of comparison more satisfying than any picture. I confirm my recollections and I make new observations; it is life to life. Thanks to the Sun. This artist remembers what every other forgets to report, and what I wish to know, the true sculpture of the features, the angles, the special organism, the rooting of the hair, the form and the placing of the head. I am accustomed to expect of the English a securing of the essentials in their work, and the sun does that, and you have done it in this portrait, which gives me much to think and feel.* I was instantly stirred to an emulation of your love and punctuality, and, last Monday, which was my forty-third birthday, I went to a new Daguerreotypist, who took much pains to make his picture right. I brought home three shadows not agreeable to my own eyes. The machine has a bad effect on me. My wife protests against the imprints as slanderous. My friends say they look ten years older, and, as I think, with the air of a decayed gentleman touched with his first paralysis. However I got yesterday a trusty vote or two for sending one of them to you, on the ground that I am not likely to get a better. But it now seems probable that it will not get cased and into the hands of Harnden in time for the steamer tomorrow. It will then go by that of the 16th.

————- * From Emerson's Diary, May 23, 1846:—"In Carlyle's head (photograph), which came last night, how much appears! How unattainable this truth to any painter! Here have I the inevitable traits which the sun forgets not to copy, and which I thirst to see, but which no painter remembers to give me. Here have I the exact sculpture, the form of the head, the rooting of the hair, thickness of the lips, the man that God made. And all the Laurences and D'Orsays now serve me well as illustration. I have the form and organism, and can better spare the expression and color. What would I not give for a head of Shakespeare by the same artist? of Plato? of Demosthenes? Here I have the jutting brow, and the excellent shape of the head. And here the organism of the eye full of England, the valid eye, in which I see the strong executive talent which has made his thought available to the nations, whilst others as intellectual as he are pale and powerless. The photograph comes dated 25 April, 1846, and he writes, 'I am fifty years old."' ————-

I am heartily glad that you are in direct communication with these really energetic booksellers, Wiley and Putnam. I understood from Wiley's letter to me, weeks ago, that their ambition was not less than to have a monopoly of your books. I answered, it is very desirable for us too; saving always the rights of Mr. Hart in Philadelphia.—I told him you had no interest in Munroe's Sartor, which from the first was his own adventure, and Little and Brown had never reprinted Past and Present or Chartism. The French Revolution, Past and Present, Chartism, and the Sartor, I see no reason why they should not have. Munroe and L. & B. have no real claims, and I will speak to them. But there is one good particular in Putnam's proffer to you, which Wiley has not established in his (first and last) agreement with me, namely, that you shall have an interest in what is already sold of their first edition of Cromwell. By all means close with Putnam of the good mind, exempting only Hart's interest. I have no recent correspondence with Wiley and Putnam. And I greatly prefer that they should deal directly with you. Yet it were best to leave an American reference open for audit and umpirage to the stanch E.P. Clark of the New England Bank.

Ever yours,

R.W. Emerson

CXII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 18 June, 1846

Dear Emerson,—I have had two letters of yours, the last of them (31st May) only two days, and have seen a third written to Wiley of New York. Yesterday Putnam was here, and we made our bargain,—and are to have it signed this day at his Shop: two copies, one of which I mean to insert along with this, and give up to your or E.P. Clark's keeping. For, as you will see, I have appointed Clark my representative, economic plenipotentiary and factotum, if he will consent to act in that sublime capacity,— subject always to your advice, to your control in all ultra- economic respects, of which you alone are cognizant of the circumstances or competent to give a judgment. Pray explain this with all lucidity to Mr. Clark: and endeavor to impress upon him that it is (to all appearance) a real affair of business we are now engaged in; that I would have him satisfy his own sharp eyes (by such methods as he finds convenient and sufficient, by examination at New York or how he can) that the conditions of this bargain are fairly complied with by the New York Booksellers,—who promise "every facility for ascertaining how many copies are printed," &c., &c.; and profess to be of the integrity of Israelites indeed, in all respects whatever! If so, it may be really useful to us. And I would have Mr. Clark, if he will allow me to look upon him as my man of business in this affair, take reasonable pains, be at any reasonable expense, &c. (by himself or by deputy) to ascertain that it is so in very fact! In that case, if something come of it, we shall get the something and be thankful; if nothing come of it, we shall have the pleasure of caring nothing about it.—I have given Putnam two Books (Heroes and Sartor) ready, corrected; the others I think will follow in the course of next month;—F. Revolution waits only for an Index which my man is now busy with. The Cromwell, Supplement and all, he has now got,—published two days ago, after sorrowful delays. Your Copy will be ready this afternoon,—too late, I fear, by just one day: it will lie, in that case, for a fortnight, and then come. Wiley will find that he has no resource but to reprint the Book; he will reprint the Supplement too, in justice to former purchasers; but this is the final form of the Book, this second edition; and to this all readers of it will come at last.

We expect the Daguerreotype by next Steamer; but you take good care not to prepossess us on its behalf! In fact, I believe, the only satisfactory course will be to get a Sketch done too; if you have any Painter that can manage it tolerably, pray set about that, as the true solution of the business—out of the two together we shall make a likeness for ourselves that will do. Let the Lady Wife be satisfied with it; then we shall pronounce it genuine!—

I envy you your forest-work, your summer umbrages, and clear silent lakes. The weather here is getting insupportable to us for heat. Indeed, if rain do not come within two weeks, I believe we must wind up our affairs, and make for some shady place direct:—Scotland is perhaps likeliest; but nothing yet is fixed: you shall duly hear.—Directly after this, I set off for Putnam's in Waterloo Place; sign his paper there; stick one copy under a cover for you, and despatch.—Send me word about all that you are doing and thinking. Be busy, be still and happy.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

CXIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 15 July, 1846

My Dear Carlyle,—I received by the last steamer your letter with the copy of the covenant with Wiley and Putnam, which seems unexceptionable. I like the English side of those men very well; that is, Putnam seems eager to stand well and rightly with his fellow-men. Wiley at New York it was who provoked me, last winter, to write him an angry letter when he declared his intention to reprint our new matter without paying for it. When he thought better of it, and came to terms, I had not got so far as to be affectionate, and have never yet resumed the correspondence I had with him a year ago, about my own books. I hope you found my letter to them, though I do not remember which, properly cross. I believe I only enumerated difficulties. I have talked with Little and Brown about their editions of Chartism, and Past and Present; they have made no new sales of the books since they were printed on by the pirates, and say that the books lie still on their shelves, as also do a few copies of the London and Boston edition of French Revolution. I prayed them immediately to dispose of these things by auction, or at their trade sales, at whatever prices would sell them, and leave the market open for W. & P.; which they promise to do.

To Munroe I went, and learn that he has bought the stereotype- plates of the New York pirate edition of Sartor, and means to print it immediately. He is willing to stop if W. & P. will buy of him his plates at their cost. I wrote so to them, but they say no. And I have not spoken again with Munroe. I was in town yesterday, and carried the copy of the Covenant to E.P. Clark, and read him your message. His Bank occupies him entirely just now, for his President is gone to Europe, and Clark's duties are the more onerous. But finding that the new responsibilities delegated to him are light and tolerable, and, at any rate, involve no retrospection, he very cheerfully signified his readiness to serve you, and I graciously forbore all allusions to my heap of booksellers' accounts which he has had in keeping now —for years, I believe. He told me that he hopes at no distant day to have a house of his own,—he and his wife are always at board,—and, whenever that happens, he intends to devote a chamber in it to his "Illustrations of Mr. Carlyle's Writings," which, I believe, I have told you before, are a very large and extraordinary collection of prints, pictures, books, and manuscripts. I sent you the promised Daguerrotype with all unwillingness, by the steamer, I think of 16 June. On 1 August, Margaret Fuller goes to England and the Continent; and I shall not fail to write to you by her, and you must not fail to give a good and faithful interview to this wise, sincere, accomplished, and most entertaining of women. I wish to bespeak Jane Carlyle's friendliest ear to one of the noblest of women. We shall send you no other such.

I was lately inquired of again by an agent of a huge Boston society of young men, whether Mr. Carlyle would not come to America and read Lectures, on some terms which they could propose. I advised them to make him an offer, and a better one than they had in view. Joy and Peace to you in your new freedom.

—R.W.E.

CXIV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 17 July, 1846

Dear Emerson,—Since I wrote last to you, I think, with the Wiley-and-Putnam Covenant enclosed,—the Photograph, after some days of loitering at the Liverpool Custom-house, came safe to hand. Many thanks to you for this punctuality: this poor Shadow, it is all you could do at present in that matter! But it must not rest there, no. This Image is altogether unsatisfactory, illusive, and even in some measure tragical to me! First of all, it is a bad Photograph; no eyes discernible, at least one of the eyes not, except in rare favorable lights then, alas, Time itself and Oblivion must have been busy. I could not at first, nor can I yet with perfect decisiveness, bring out any feature completely recalling to me the old Emerson, that lighted on us from the Blue, at Craigenputtock, long ago,—eheu! Here is a genial, smiling, energetic face, full of sunny strength, intelligence, integrity, good humor; but it lies imprisoned in baleful shades, as of the valley of Death; seems smiling on me as if in mockery. "Dost know me, friend? I am dead, thou seest, and distant, and forever hidden from thee;—I belong already to the Eternities, and thou recognizest me not!" On the whole, it is the strangest feeling I have:—and practically the thing will be, that you get us by the earliest opportunity some living pictorial sketch, chalk- drawing or the like, from a trustworthy hand; and send it hither to represent you. Out of the two I shall compile for myself a likeness by degrees: but as for this present, we cannot put up with it at all; to my Wife and me, and to sundry other parties far and near that have interest in it, there is no satisfaction in this. So there will be nothing for you but compliance, by the first fair chance you have: furthermore, I bargain that the Lady Emerson have, within reasonable limits, a royal veto in the business (not absolute, if that threaten extinction to the enterprise, but absolute within the limits of possibility); and that she take our case in hand, and graciously consider what can and shall be done. That will answer, I think.

Of late weeks I have been either idle, or sunk in the sorrowfulest cobbling of old shoes again; sorrowfully reading over old Books for the Putnams and Chapmans, namely. It is really painful, looking in one's own old face; said "old face" no longer a thing extant now!—Happily I have at last finished it; the whole Lumber-troop with clothes duly brushed (French Revolution has even got an Index too) travels to New York in the Steamer that brings you this. Quod faustum sit:—or indeed I do not much care whether it be faustum or not; I grow to care about an astonishingly small number of things as times turn with me! Man, all men seem radically dumb; jabbering mere jargons and noises from the teeth outwards; the inner meaning of them,— of them and of me, poor devils,—remaining shut, buried forever. If almost all Books were burnt (my own laid next the coal), I sometimes in my spleen feel as if it really would be better with us! Certainly could one generation of men be forced to live without rhetoric, babblement, hearsay, in short with the tongue well cut out of them altogether,—their fortunate successors would find a most improved world to start upon! For Cant does lie piled on us, high as the zenith; an Augean Stable with the poisonous confusion piled so high: which, simply if there once could be nothing said, would mostly dwindle like summer snow gradually about its business, and leave us free to use our eyes again! When I see painful Professors of Greek, poring in their sumptuous Oxfords over dead Greek for a thousand years or more, and leaving live English all the while to develop itself under charge of Pickwicks and Sam Wellers, as if it were nothing and the other were all things: this, and the like of it everywhere, fills me with reflections! Good Heavens, will the people not come out of their wretched Old-Clothes Monmouth-Streets, Hebrew and other; but lie there dying of the basest pestilence,—dying and as good as dead! On the whole, I am very weary of most "Literature":—and indeed, in very sorrowful, abstruse humor otherwise at present.

For remedy to which I am, in these very hours, preparing for a sally into the green Country and deep silence; I know not altogether how or whitherward as yet; only that I must tend towards Lancashire; towards Scotland at last. My Wife already waits me in Lancashire; went off, in rather poor case, much burnt by the hot Town, some ten days ago; and does not yet report much improvement. I will write to you somewhere in my wanderings. The address, "Scotsbrig, Ecclefechan, N.B.," if you chance to write directly or soon after this arrives, will, likely, be the shortest: at any rate, that, or "Cheyne Row" either, is always sure enough to find me in a day or two after trying.

By a kind of accident I have fallen considerably into American History in these days; and am even looking out for American Geography to help me. Jared Sparks, Marshall, &c. are hickory and buckskin; but I do catch a credible trait of human life from them here and there; Michelet's genial champagne froth,—alas, I could find no fact in it that would stand handling; and so have broken down in the middle of La France, and run over to hickory and Jared for shelter! Do you know Beriah Green?* A body of Albany newspapers represent to me the people quarreling in my name, in a very vague manner, as to the propriety of being "governed," and Beriah's is the only rational voice among them. Farewell, dear Friend. Speedy news of you!

—T. Carlyle

————- * The Reverend Beriah Green, President for some years of Oneida Institute, a manual-labor school at Whitesboro, N.Y. He was an active reformer, and a leading member of the National Convention which met in Philadelphia, December 4th, 1833, to form the American Antislavery Society. He died in 1874, seventy-nine years old. ————-

CXV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 July, 1846

My Dear Friend,—The new edition of Cromwell in its perfect form and in excellent dress, and the copy of the Appendix, came munificently safe by the last steamer. When thought is best, then is there most,—is a faith of which you alone among writing men at this day will give me experience. If it is the right frankincense and sandal-wood, it is so good and heavenly to give me a basketful and not a pinch. I read proudly, a little at a time, and have not yet got through the new matter. But I think neither the new letters nor the commentary could be spared. Wiley and Putnam shall do what they can, and we will see if New England will not come to reckon this the best chapter in her Pentateuch.

I send this letter by Margaret Fuller, of whose approach I believe I wrote you some word. There is no foretelling how you visited and crowded English will like our few educated men or women, and in your learned populace my luminaries may easily be overlooked. But of all the travelers whom you have so kindly received from me, I think of none, since Alcott went to England, whom I so much desired that you should see and like, as this dear old friend of mine. For two years now I have scarcely seen her, as she has been at New York, engaged by Horace Greeley as a literary editor of his Tribune newspaper. This employment was made acceptable to her by good pay, great local and personal conveniences of all kinds, and unbounded confidence and respect from Greeley himself, and all other parties connected with this influential journal (of 30,000 subscribers, I believe). And Margaret Fuller's work as critic of all new books, critic of the drama, of music, and good arts in New York, has been honorable to her. Still this employment is not satisfactory to me. She is full of all nobleness, and with the generosity native to her mind and character appears to me an exotic in New England, a foreigner from some more sultry and expansive climate. She is, I suppose, the earliest reader and lover of Goethe in this Country, and nobody here knows him so well. Her love too of whatever is good in French, and specially in Italian genius, give her the best title to travel. In short, she is our citizen of the world by quite special diploma. And I am heartily glad that she has an opportunity of going abroad that pleases her.

Mr. Spring, a merchant of great moral merits, (and, as I am informed, an assiduous reader of your books,) has grown rich, and resolves to see the world with his wife and son, and has wisely invited Miss Fuller to show it to him. Now, in the first place, I wish you to see Margaret when you are in special good humor, and have an hour of boundless leisure. And I entreat Jane Carlyle to abet and exalt and secure this satisfaction to me. I need not, and yet perhaps I need say, that M.F. is the safest of all possible persons who ever took pen in hand. Prince Metternich's closet not closer or half so honorable. In the next place, I should be glad if you can easily manage to show her the faces of Tennyson and of Browning. She has a sort of right to them both, not only because she likes their poetry, but because she has made their merits widely known among our young people. And be it known to my friend Jane Carlyle, whom, if I cannot see, I delight to name, that her visitor is an immense favorite in the parlor, as well as in the library, in all good houses where she is known. And so I commend her to you.

Yours affectionately,

R.W. Emerson

CXVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 18 December, 1846

Dear Emerson,—This is the 18th of the month, and it is a frightful length of time, I know not how long, since I wrote to you,—sinner that I am! Truly we are in no case for paying debts at present, being all sick more or less, from the hard cold weather, and in a state of great temporary puddle but, as the adage says, "one should own debt, and crave days";—therefore accept a word from me, such as it may be.

I went, as usual, to the North Country in the Autumn; passed some two extremely disconsolate months,—for all things distress a wretched thin-skinned creature like me,—in that old region, which is at once an Earth and a Hades to me, an unutterable place, now that I have become mostly a ghost there! I saw Ireland too on my return, saw black potato-fields, a ragged noisy population, that has long in a headlong baleful manner followed the Devil's leading, listened namely to blustering shallow- violent Impostors and Children of Darkness, saying, "Yes, we know you, you are Children of Light!"—and so has fallen all out at elbows in body and in soul; and now having lost its potatoes is come as it were to a crisis; all its windy nonsense cracking suddenly to pieces under its feet: a very pregnant crisis indeed! A country cast suddenly into the melting-pot,—say into the Medea's-Caldron; to be boiled into horrid dissolution; whether into new youth, into sound healthy life, or into eternal death and annihilation, one does not yet know! Daniel O'Connell stood bodily before me, in his green Mullaghmart Cap; haranguing his retinue of Dupables: certainly the most sordid Humbug I have ever seen in this world; the emblem to me, he and his talk and the worship and credence it found, of all the miseries that can befall a Nation. I also conversed with Young Ireland in a confidential manner; for Young Ireland, really meaning what it says, is worth a little talk: the Heroism and Patriotism of a new generation; welling fresh and new from the breasts of Nature; and already poisoned by O'Connellism and the Old Irish atmosphere of bluster, falsity, fatuity, into one knows not what. Very sad to see. On the whole, no man ought, for any cause, to speak lies, or have anything to do with lies; but either hold his tongue, or speak a bit of the truth: that is the meaning of a tongue, people used to know!—Ireland was not the place to console my sorrows. I returned home very sad out of Ireland;—and indeed have remained one of the saddest, idlest, most useless of Adam's sons ever since; and do still remain so. I care not to write anything more,—so it seems to me at present. I am in my vacant interlunar cave (I suppose that is the truth);—and I ought to wrap my mantle round me, and lie, if dark, silent also. But, alas, I have wasted almost all your poor sheet first!—

Miss Fuller came duly as you announced; was welcomed for your sake and her own. A high-soaring, clear, enthusiast soul; in whose speech there is much of all that one wants to find in speech. A sharp, subtle intellect too; and less of that shoreless Asiatic dreaminess than I have sometimes met with in her writings. We liked one another very well, I think, and the Springs too were favorites. But, on the whole, it could not be concealed, least of all from the sharp female intellect, that this Carlyle was a dreadfully heterodox, not to say a dreadfully savage fellow, at heart; believing no syllable of all that Gospel of Fraternity, Benevolence, and new Heaven-on-Earth, preached forth by all manner of "advanced" creatures, from George Sand to Elihu Burritt, in these days; that in fact the said Carlyle not only disbelieved all that, but treated it as poisonous cant,—sweetness of sugar-of-lead,—a detestable phosphorescence from the dead body of a Christianity, that would not admit itself to be dead, and lie buried with all its unspeakable putrescences, as a venerable dead one ought!—Surely detestable enough.—To all which Margaret listened with much good nature; though of course with sad reflections not a few.*—She is coming back to us, she promises. Her dialect is very vernacular,—extremely exotic in the London climate. If she do not gravitate too irresistibly towards that class of New-Era people (which includes whatsoever we have of prurient, esurient, morbid, flimsy, and in fact pitiable and unprofitable, and is at a sad discount among men of sense), she may get into good tracks of inquiry and connection here, and be very useful to herself and others. I could not show her Alfred (he has been here since) nor Landor: but surely if I can I will,—that or a hundred times as much as that,—when she returns.—They tell me you are about collecting your Poems. Well, though I do not approve of rhyme at all, yet it is impossible Emerson in rhyme or prose can put down any thought that was in his heart but I should wish to get into mine. So let me have the Book as fast as may be. And do others like it if you will take circumbendibuses for sound's sake! And excuse the Critic who seems to you so unmusical; and say, It is the nature of beast! Adieu, dear Friend: write to me, write to me.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

———— * Miss Fullers impressions of Carlyle, much to this effect, may be found in the "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli," Boston, 1852, Vol. II. pp. 184-190. ————-

CXVII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 January, 1847

My Dear Carlyle,—Your letter came with a blessing last week. I had already learned from Margaret Fuller, at Paris, that you had been very good and gentle to her;—brilliant and prevailing, of course, but, I inferred, had actually restrained the volleys and modulated the thunder, out of true courtesy and goodness of nature, which was worthy of all praise in a spoiled conqueror at this time of day. Especially, too, she expressed a true recognition and love of Jane Carlyle; and thus her visit proved a solid satisfaction; to me, also, who think that few people have so well earned their pleasures as she.

She wrote me a long letter; she has been very happy in England, and her time and strength fully employed. Her description of you and your discourse (which I read with lively curiosity also) was the best I have had on that subject.

I tried hard to write you by the December steamer, to tell you how forward was my book of Poems; but a little affair makes me much writing. I chanced to have three or four items of business to despatch, when the steamer was ready to go, and you escaped hearing of them. I am the trustee of Charles Lane, who came out here with Alcott and bought land, which, though sold, is not paid for.

Somebody or somebodies in Liverpool and Manchester* have proposed once or twice, with more or less specification, that I should come to those cities to lecture. And who knows but I may come one day? Steam is strong, and Liverpool is near. I should find my account in the strong inducement of a new audience to finish pieces which have lain waiting with little hope for months or years.

————— * Mr. Alexander Ireland, who had made the acquaintance of Emerson at Edinburgh, in 1833, was his Manchester correspondent. His memorial volume on Emerson contains an interesting record of their relations. —————

Ah then, if I dared, I should be well content to add some golden hours to my life in seeing you, now all full-grown and acknowledged amidst your own people,—to hear and to speak is so little yet so much. But life is dangerous and delicate. I should like to see your solid England. The map of Britain is good reading for me. Then I have a very ignorant love of pictures, and a curiosity about the Greek statues and stumps in the British Museum. So beware of me, for on that distant day when I get ready I shall come.

Long before this time you ought to have received from John Chapman a copy of Emerson's Poems, so called, which he was directed to send you. Poor man, you need not open them. I know all you can say. I printed them, not because I was deceived into a belief that they were poems, but because of the softness or hardness of heart of many friends here who have made it a point to have them circulated.* Once having set out to print, I obeyed the solicitations of John Chapman, of an ill-omened street in London, to send him the book in manuscript, for the better securing of copyright. In printing them here I have corrected the most unpardonable negligences, which negligences must be all stereotyped under his fair London covers and gilt paper to the eyes of any curious London reader; from which recollection I strive to turn away.

————- * In the rough draft the following sentence comes in here "I reckon myself a good beginning of a poet, very urgent and decided in my bent, and in some coming millennium I shall yet sing." ————-

Little and Brown have just rendered me an account, by which it appears that we are not quite so well off as was thought last summer, when they said they had sold at auction the balance of your books which had been lying unsold. It seems now that the books supposed to be sold were not all taken, and are returned to them; one hundred Chartism, sixty-three Past and Present. Yet we are to have some eighty-three dollars ($83.68), which you shall probably have by the next steamer.

Yours affectionately,

R.W. Emerson

CXVIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 2 March, 1847

Dear Emerson,—The Steamer goes tomorrow; I must, though in a very dim condition, have a little word for you conveyed by it. In the miscellaneous maw of that strange Steamer shall lie, among other things, a friendly word!

Your very kind Letter lay waiting me here, some ten days ago; doubly welcome, after so long a silence. We had been in Hampshire, with the Barings, where we were last year;—some four weeks or more; totally idle: our winter had been, and indeed still is, unusually severe; my Wife's health in consequence was sadly deranged; but this idleness, these Isle-of-Wight sea- breezes, have brought matters well round again; so we cannot grudge the visit or the idleness, which otherwise too might have its uses. Alas, at this time my normal state is to be altogether idle, to look out upon a very lonely universe, full of grim sorrow, full of splendor too; and not to know at all, for the moment, on what side I am to attack it again!—I read your Book of Poems all faithfully, at Bay House (our Hampshire quarters); where the obstinate people,—with whom you are otherwise, in prose, a first favorite,—foolishly refused to let me read aloud; foolishly, for I would have made it mostly all plain by commentary:—so I had to read for myself; and can say, in spite of my hard-heartedness, I did gain, though under impediments, a real satisfaction and some tone of the Eternal Melodies sounding, afar off, ever and anon, in my ear! This is fact; a truth in Natural History; from which you are welcome to draw inferences. A grand View of the Universe, everywhere the sound (unhappily far of, as it were) of a valiant, genuine Human Soul: this, even under rhyme, is a satisfaction worth some struggling for. But indeed you are very perverse; and through this perplexed undiaphanous element, you do not fall on me like radiant summer rainbows, like floods of sunlight, but with thin piercing radiances which affect me like the light of the stars. It is so: I wish you would become concrete, and write in prose the straightest way; but under any form I must put up with you; that is my lot.—Chapman's edition, as you probably know, is very beautiful. I believe there are enough of ardent silent seekers in England to buy up this edition from him, and resolutely study the same: as for the review multitude, they dare not exactly call it "unintelligible moonshine," and so will probably hold their tongue. It is my fixed opinion that we are all at sea as to what is called Poetry, Art, &c., in these times; laboring under a dreadful incubus of Tradition, and mere "Cant heaped balefully on us up to the very Zenith," as men, in nearly all other provinces of their Life, except perhaps the railway province, do now labor and stagger;—in a word, that Goethe-and- Schiller's "Kunst" has far more brotherhood with Pusey-and- Newman's Shovelhattery, and other the like deplorable phenomena, than it is in the least aware of! I beg you take warning: I am more serious in this than you suppose. But no, you will not; you whistle lightly over my prophecies, and go your own stiff-necked road. Unfortunate man!—

I had read in the Newspapers, and even heard in speech from Manchester people, that you were certainly coming this very summer to lecture among us: but now it seems, in your Letter, all postponed into the vague again. I do not personally know your Manchester negotiators, but I know in general that they are men of respectability, insight, and activity; much connected with the lecturing department, which is a very growing one, especially in Lancashire, at present;—men likely, for the rest, to fulfil whatsoever they may become engaged for to you. My own ignorant though confident guess, moreover, is, that you would, in all senses of the word, succeed there; I think, also rather confidently, we could promise you an audience of British aristocracy in London here,—and of British commonalty all manner of audiences that you liked to stoop to. I heard an ignorant blockhead (or mainly so) called —- bow-wowing here, some months ago, to an audience of several thousands, in the City, one evening,—upon Universal Peace, or some other field of balderdash; which the poor people seemed very patient of. In a word, I do not see what is to hinder you to come whenever you can resolve upon it. The adventure is perfectly promising: an adventure familiar to you withal; for Lecturing is with us fundamentally just what it is with you: Much prurient curiosity, with some ingenuous love of wisdom, an element of real reverence for the same: everywhere a perfect openness to any man speaking in any measure things manful. Come, therefore; gird yourself together, and come. With little or no peradventure, you will realize what your modest hope is, and more;—and I, for my share of it, shall see you once again under this Sun! O Heavens, there might be some good in that! Nay, if you will travel like a private quiet person, who knows but I, the most unlocomotive of mortals, might be able to escort you up and down a little; to look at many a thing along with you, and even to open my long- closed heart and speak about the same?—There is a spare-room always in this House for you,—in this heart, in these two hearts, the like: bid me hope in this enterprise, in all manner of ways where I can; and on the whole, get it rightly put together, and embark on it, and arrive!

The good Miss Fuller has painted us all en beau, and your smiling imagination has added new colors. We have not a triumphant life here; very far indeed from that, ach Gott!—as you shall see. But Margaret is an excellent soul: in real regard with both of us here. Since she went, I have been reading some of her Papers in a new Book we have got: greatly superior to all I knew before; in fact the undeniable utterances (now first undeniable to me) of a true heroic mind;—altogether unique, so far as I know, among the Writing Women of this generation; rare enough too, God knows, among the writing Men. She is very narrow, sometimes; but she is truly high: honor to Margaret, and more and more good-speed to her.—Adieu dear Emerson. I am ever yours,

—T.C.

CXIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 18 March, 1847

Dear Emerson,—Yesterday morning, setting out to breakfast with Richard Milnes (Milnes's breakfast is a thing you will yet have to experience) I met, by the sunny shore of the Thames, a benevolent Son of Adam in blue coat and red collar, who thrust into my hand a Letter from you. A truly miraculous Son of Adam in red collar, in the Sunny Spring Morning!—The Bill of Seventeen Pounds is already far on its way to Dumfries, there to be kneaded into gold by the due artists: today is American Post- day; and already in huge hurry about many things, I am scribbling you some word of answer…. The night before Milnes's morning, I had furthermore seen your Manchester Correspondent, Ireland,—an old Edinborough acquaintance too, as I found. A solid, dark, broad, rather heavy man; full of energy, and broad sagacity and practicality;—infinitely well affected to the man Emerson too. It was our clear opinion that you might come at any time with ample assurance of "succeeding," so far as wages went, and otherwise; that you ought to come, and must, and would,—as he, Ireland, would farther write to you. There is only one thing I have to add of my own, and beg you to bear in mind,—a date merely. Videlicet, That the time for lecturing to the London West-End, I was given everywhere to understand, is from the latter end of April (or say April altogether) to the end of May: this is a fixed Statistic fact, all men told me: of this you are in all arrangements to keep mind. For it will actually do your heart good to look into the faces, and speak into minds, of really Aristocratic Persons,— being one yourself, you Sinner,—and perhaps indeed this will be the greatest of all the novelties that await you in your voyage. Not to be seen, I believe, at least never seen by me in any perfection, except in London only. From April to the end of May; during those weeks you must be here, and free: remember that date. Will you come in Winter then, next Winter,—or when? Ireland professed to know you by the Photograph too; which I never yet can.—I wrote by last Packet: enough here. Your friend Cunningham has not presented himself; shall be right welcome when he does,—as all that in the least belong to you may well hope to be. Adieu. Our love to you all.

Ever Yours,

T. Carlyle

CXX. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 April, 1847

My Dear Carlyle,—I have two good letters from you, and until now you have had no acknowledgment. Especially I ought to have told you how much pleasure your noble invitation in March gave me. This pleasing dream of going to England dances before me sometimes. It would be, I then fancy, that stimulation which my capricious, languid, and languescent study needs. At home, no man makes any proper demand on me, and the audience I address is a handful of men and women too widely scattered than that they can dictate to me that which they are justly entitled to say. Whether supercilious or respectful, they do not say anything that can be heard. Of course, I have only myself to please, and my work is slighted as soon as it has lost its first attraction. It is to be hoped, if one should cross the sea, that the terror of your English culture would scare the most desultory of Yankees into precision and fidelity; and perhaps I am not yet too old to be animated by what would have seemed to my youth a proud privilege. If you shall fright me into labor and concentration, I shall win my game; for I can well afford to pay any price to get my work well done. For the rest, I hesitate, of course, to rush rudely on persons that have been so long invisible angels to me. No reasonable man but must hold these bounds in awe:—I— much more,—who am of a solitary habit, from my childhood until now.—I hear nothing again from Mr. Ireland. So I will let the English Voyage hang as an afternoon rainbow in the East, and mind my apples and pears for the present.

You are to know that in these days I lay out a patch of orchard near my house, very much to the improvement, as all the household affirm, of our homestead. Though I have little skill in these things, and must borrow that of my neighbors, yet the works of the garden and orchard at this season are fascinating, and will eat up days and weeks, and a brave scholar should shun it like gambling, and take refuge in cities and hotels from these pernicious enchantments. For the present, I stay in the new orchard.

Duyckinck, a literary man in New York, who advises Wiley and Putnam in their publishing enterprises, wrote me lately, that they had $600 for you, from Cromwell. So may it be.

Yours,

R.W.E.

CXXI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 18 May, 1847

Dear Emerson,—….My time is nearly up today; but I write a word to acknowledge your last Letter (30 April), and various other things. For example, you must tell Mr. Thoreau (is that the exact name? for I have lent away the printed pages) that his Philadelphia Magazine with the Lecture* in two pieces was faithfully delivered here, about a fortnight ago; and carefully read, as beseemed, with due entertainment and recognition. A vigorous Mr. Thoreau,—who has formed himself a good deal upon one Emerson, but does not want abundant fire and stamina of his own;—recognizes us, and various other things, in a most admiring great-hearted manner; for which, as for part of the confused voice from the jury bog (not yet summed into a verdict, nor likely to be summed till Doomsday, nor needful to sum), the poor prisoner at the bar may justly express himself thankful! In plain prose, I like Mr. Thoreau very well; and hope yet to hear good and better news of him:—only let him not "turn to foolishness"; which seems to me to be terribly easy, at present, both in New England and Old! May the Lord deliver us all from Cant; may the Lord, whatever else he do or forbear, teach us to look Facts honestly in the face, and to beware (with a kind of shudder) of smearing them over with our despicable and damnable palaver, into irrecognizability, and so falsifying the Lord's own Gospels to his unhappy blockheads of children, all staggering down to Gehenna and the everlasting Swine's-trough for want of Gospels.—O Heaven, it is the most accursed sin of man; and done everywhere, at present, on the streets and high places, at noonday! Very seriously I say, and pray as my chief orison, May the Lord deliver us from it.—

—————

* On Carlyle, published in Graham's Magazine in March and

April, 1847.

—————

About a week ago there came your neighbor Hoar; a solid, sensible, effectual-looking man, of whom I hope to see much more. So soon as possible I got him under way for Oxford, where I suppose he was, last week;—both Universities was too much for the limits of his time; so he preferred Oxford;—and now, this very day, I think, he was to set out for the Continent; not to return till the beginning of July, when he promises to call here again. There was something really pleasant to me in this Mr. Hoar: and I had innumerable things to ask him about Concord, concerning which topic we had hardly got a word said when our first interview had to end. I sincerely hope he will not fail to keep his time in returning.

You do very well, my Friend, to plant orchards; and fair fruit shall they grow (if it please Heaven) for your grandchildren to pluck;—a beautiful occupation for the son of man, in all patriarchal and paternal times (which latter are patriarchal too)! But you are to understand withal that your coming hither to lecture is taken as a settled point by all your friends here; and for my share I do not reckon upon the smallest doubt about the essential fact of it, simply on some calculation and adjustment about the circumstantials. Of Ireland, who I surmise is busy in the problem even now, you will hear by and by, probably in more definite terms: I did not see him again after my first notice of him to you; but there is no doubt concerning his determinations (for all manner of reasons) to get you to Lancashire, to England;—and in fact it is an adventure which I think you ought to contemplate as fixed,—say for this year and the beginning of next? Ireland will help you to fix the dates; and there is nothing else, I think, which should need fixing.— Unquestionably you would get an immense quantity of food for ideas, though perhaps not at all in the way you anticipate, in looking about among us: nay, if you even thought us stupid, there is something in the godlike indifference with which London will accept and sanction even that verdict,—something highly instructive at least! And in short, for the truth must be told, London is properly your Mother City too,—verily you have about as much to do with it, in spite of Polk and Q. Victory, as I had! And you ought to come and look at it, beyond doubt; and say to this land, "Old Mother, how are you getting on at all?" To which the Mother will answer, "Thankee, young son, and you?"—in a way useful to both parties! That is truth.

Adieu, dear Emerson; good be with you always. Hoar gave me your American Poems: thanks. Vale et me ama.

—T. Carlyle

CXXII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 4 June, 1847

Dear Carlyle,—I have just got your friendliest letter of May 18, with its varied news and new invitations. Really you are a dangerous correspondent with your solid and urgent ways of speaking. No affairs and no studies of mine, I fear, will be able to make any head against these bribes. Well, I will adorn the brow of the coming months with this fine hope; then if the rich God at last refuses the jewel, no doubt he will give something better—to both of us. But thinking on this project lately, I see one thing plainly, that I must not come to London as a lecturer. If the plan proceed, I will come and see you,— thankful to Heaven for that mercy, should such a romance looking reality come to pass,—I will come and see you and Jane Carlyle, and will hear what you have to say. You shall even show me, if you will, such other men and women as will suffer themselves to be seen and heard, asking for nothing again. Then I will depart in peace, as I came.

At Mr. Ireland's "Institutes," I will read lectures; and possibly in London too, if, when there, you looking with your clear eyes shall say that it is desired by persons who ought to be gratified. But I wish such lecturing to be a mere contingency, and nowise a settled purpose. I had rather stay at home, and forego the happiness of seeing you, and the excitement of England, than to have the smallest pains taken to collect an audience for me. So now we will leave this egg in the desert for the ostrich Time to hatch it or not.

It seems you are not tired of pale Americans, or will not own it. You have sent our Country-Senator* where he wanted to go, and to the best hospitalities as we learn today directly from him. I cannot avoid sending you another of a different stamp. Henry Hedge is a recluse but Catholic scholar in our remote Bangor, who reads German and smokes in his solitary study through nearly eight months of snow in the year, and deals out, every Sunday, his witty apothegms to the lumber-merchants and township-owners of Penobscot River, who have actually grown intelligent interpreters of his riddles by long hearkening after them. They have shown themselves very loving and generous lately, in making a quite munificent provision for his traveling. Hedge has a true and mellow heart,… and I hope you will like him.

———— * The Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar. ————

I have seen lately a Texan, ardent and vigorous, who assured me that Carlyle's Writings were read with eagerness on the banks of the Colorado. There was more to tell, but it is too late.

Ever yours,

R.W. Emerson

CXXIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 July, 1847

Dear Carlyle,—In my old age I am coming to see you. I have written this day, in answer to sundry letters brought me by the last steamer, from Mr. Ireland and Mr. Hudson of Leeds, that I mean in good earnest to sail for Liverpool or for London about the first of October; and I am disposing my astonished household—astonished at such a Somerset of the sedentary master —with that view.

My brother William was here this week from New York, and will come again to carry my mother home with him for the winter; my wife and children three are combining for and against me; at all events, I am to have my visit. I pray you to cherish your good nature, your mercy. Let your wife cherish it,—that I may see, I indolent, this incredible worker, whose toil has been long since my pride and wonder,—that I may see him benign and unexacting,— he shall not be at the crisis of some over-labor. I shall not stay but an hour. What do I care for his fame? Ah! how gladly I hoped once to see Sterling as mediator and amalgam, when my turn should come to see the Saxon gods at home: Sterling, who had certain American qualities in his genius;—and now you send me his shade. I found at Munroe's shop the effigy, which, he said, Cunningham, whom I have not seen or heard from, had left there for me; a front face, and a profile, both—especially the first —a very welcome satisfaction to my sad curiosity, the face very national, certainly, but how thoughtful and how friendly! What more belongs to this print—whether you are editing his books, or yourself drawing his lineaments—I know not.

I find my friends have laid out much work for me in Yorkshire and Lancashire. What part of it I shall do, I cannot yet tell. As soon as I know how to arrange my journey best, I shall write you again.

Yours affectionately,

R.W. Emerson

CXXIV. Carlyle to Emerson

Rawdon, Near Leeds, Yorkshire 31 August, 1847

Dear Emerson,—Almost ever since your last Letter reached me, I have been wandering over the country, enveloped either in a restless whirl of locomotives, view-hunting, &c., or sunk in the deepest torpor of total idleness and laziness, forgetting, and striving to forget, that there was any world but that of dreams; —and though at intervals the reproachful remembrance has arisen sharply enough on me, that I ought, on all accounts high and low, to have written you an answer, never till today have I been able to take pen in hand, and actually begin that operation! Such is the naked fact. My Wife is with me; we leave no household behind us but a servant; the face of England, with its mad electioneerings, vacant tourist dilettantings, with its shady woods, green yellow harvest-fields and dingy mill-chimneys, so new and old, so beautiful and ugly, every way so abstruse and _un_speakable, invites to silence; the whole world, fruitful yet disgusting to this human soul of mine, invites me to silence; to sleep, and dreams, and stagnant indifference, as if for the time one had got into the country of the Lotos-Eaters, and it made no matter what became of anything and all things. In good truth, it is a wearied man, at least a dreadfully slothful and slumberous man, eager for sleep in any quantity, that now addresses you! Be thankful for a few half-dreaming words, till we awake again.

As to your visit to us, there is but one thing to be said and repeated: That a prophet's chamber is ready for you in Chelsea, and a brotherly and sisterly welcome, on whatever day at whatever hour you arrive: this, which is all of the Practical that I can properly take charge of, is to be considered a given quantity always. With regard to Lecturing, &c., Ireland, with whom I suppose you to be in correspondence, seems to have awakened all this North Country into the fixed hope of hearing you,—and God knows they have need enough to hear a man with sense in his head;—it was but the other day I read in one of their Newspapers, "We understand that Mr. Emerson the distinguished &c. is certainly &c. this winter," all in due Newspaper phrase, and I think they settled your arrival for "October" next. May it prove so! But on the whole there is no doubt of your coming; that is a great fact. And if so, I should say, Why not come at once, even as the Editor surmises? You will evidently do no other considerable enterprise till this voyage to England is achieved. Come therefore;—and we shall see; we shall hear and speak! I do not know another man in all the world to whom I can speak with clear hope of getting adequate response from him: if I speak to you, it will be a breaking of my silence for the last time perhaps,—perhaps for the first time, on some points! Allons. I shall not always be so roadweary, lifeweary, sleepy, and stony as at present. I even think there is yet another Book in me; "Exodus from Houndsditch" (I think it might be called), a peeling off of fetid Jewhood in every sense from myself and my poor bewildered brethren: one other Book; and, if it were a right one, rest after that, the deeper the better, forevermore. Ach Gott!—

Hedge is one of the sturdiest little fellows I have come across for many a day. A face like a rock; a voice like a howitzer; only his honest kind gray eyes reassure you a little. We have met only once; but hope (mutually, I flatter myself) it may be often by and by. That hardy little fellow too, what has he to do with "Semitic tradition" and the "dust-hole of extinct Socinianism," George-Sandism, and the Twaddle of a thousand Magazines? Thor and his Hammer, even, seem to me a little more respectable; at least, "My dear Sir, endeavor to clear your mind of Cant." Oh, we are all sunk, much deeper than any of us imagines. And our worship of "beautiful sentiments," &c., &c. is as contemptible a form of long-ears as any other, perhaps the most so of any. It is in fact damnable.—We will say no more of it at present. Hedge came to me with tall lank Chapman at his side,—an innocent flail of a creature, with considerable impetus in him: the two when they stood up together looked like a circle and tangent,—in more senses than one.

Jacobson, the Oxford Doctor, who welcomed your Concord Senator in that City, writes to me that he has received (with blushes, &c.) some grand "Gift for his Child" from that Traveler; whom I am accordingly to thank, and blush to,—Jacobson not knowing his address at present. The "address" of course is still more unknown to me at present: but we shall know it, and the man it indicates, I hope, again before long. So, much for that.

And now, dear Emerson, Adieu. Will your next Letter tell us the when? O my Friend! We are here with Quakers, or Ex-Quakers rather; a very curious people, "like water from the crystal well"; in a very curious country too, most beautiful and very ugly: but why write of it, or of anything more, while half asleep and lotos-eating! Adieu, my Friend; come soon, and let us meet again under this Sun.

Yours,

T. Carlyle

CXXV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 September, 1847

My Dear Carlyle,—The last steamer brought, as ever, good tidings from you, though certainly from a new habitat, at Leeds, or near it. If Leeds will only keep you a little in its precinct, I will search for you there; for it is one of the parishes in the diocese which Mr. Ireland and his friends have carved out for me on the map of England.

I have taken a berth in the packet-ship "Washington Irving," which leaves Boston for Liverpool next week, 5 October; having decided, after a little demurring and advising, to follow my inclination in shunning the steamer. The owners will almost take oath that their ship cannot be out of a port twenty days. At Liverpool and Manchester I shall take advice of Ireland and his officers of the "Institutes," and perhaps shall remain for some time in that region, if my courage and my head are equal to the work they offer me. I will write you what befalls me in the strange city. Who knows but I may have adventures—I who had never one, as I have just had occasion to write to Mrs. Howitt, who inquired what mine were?

Well, if I survive Liverpool, and Manchester, and Leeds, or rather my errands thither, I shall come some fine day to see you in your burly city, you in the centre of the world, and sun me a little in your British heart. It seems a lively passage that I am entering in the old Dream World, and perhaps the slumbers are lighter and the Morning is near. Softly, dear shadows, do not scatter yet. Knit your panorama close and well, till these rare figures just before me draw near, and are greeted and known.

But there is no more time in this late night—and what need? since I shall see you and yours soon.

Ever yours,

R.W.E.

CXXVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 15 October, 1847

My Dear Emerson,—Your Letter from Concord, of the 31st of July, had arrived duly in London; been duly forwarded to my transient address at Buxton in Derbyshire,—and there, by the faithless Postmaster, retained among his lumber, instead of given to me when I called on him! We staid in Buxton only one day and night; two Newspapers, as I recollect, the Postmaster did deliver to me on my demand; but your Letter he, with scandalous carelessness, kept back, and left me to travel forwards without: there accordingly it lay, week after week, for a month or more; and only by half-accident and the extraordinary diligence and accuracy of our Chelsea Postman, was it recovered at all, not many days ago, after my Wife's return hither. Consider what kind of fact this was and has been for us! For now, if all have gone right, you are approaching the coast of England; Chelsea and your fraternal House hidden under a disastrous cloud to you; and I know not so much as whitherward to write, and send you a word of solution. It is one of the most unpleasant mistakes that ever befell me; I have no resource but to enclose this Note to Mr. Ireland, and charge him by the strongest adjurations to have it ready for you the first thing when you set foot upon our shores.*

—————— * Mr. Ireland, in his Recollections of Emerson's Visit to England, p. 59, prints Carlyle's note to himself, enclosing this letter, and adds: "The ship reached Liverpool on the 22d of October, and Mr. Emerson at once proceeded to Manchester. After spending a few hours in friendly talk, he was 'shot up,' as Carlyle had desired, to Chelsea, and at the end of a week returned to Manchester, to begin his lectures." ————-

Know then, my Friend, that in verity your Home while in England is here; and all other places, whither work or amusement may call you, are but inns and temporary lodgings. I have returned hither a day or two ago, and free from any urgent calls or businesses of any kind; my Wife has your room all ready;—and here surely, if anywhere in the wide Earth, there ought to be a brother's welcome and kind home waiting you! Yes, by Allah!—An "Express Train" leaves Liverpool every afternoon; and in some six hours will set you down here. I know not what your engagements are; but I say to myself, Why not come at once, and rest a little from your sea-changes, before going farther? In six hours you can be out of the unstable waters, and sitting in your own room here. You shall not be bothered with talk till you repose; and you shall have plenty of it, hot and hot, when the appetite does arise in you. "No. 5 Great Cheyne Row, Chelsea": come to the "London Terminus," from any side; say these magic words to any Cabman, and by night or by day you are a welcome apparition here,—foul befall us otherwise! This is the fact: what more can I say? I make my affidavit of the same; and require you in the name of all Lares and Penates, and Household Gods ancient and modern which are sacred to men, to consider it and take brotherly account of it!—

Shall we hear of you, then, in a day or two: shall we not perhaps see you in a day or two! That depends on the winds and the chances; but our affection is independent of such. Adieu; au revoir, it now is! Come soon; come at once.

Ever yours,

T. Carlyle

Extracts from Emerson's Diary

October, 1847

"I found at Liverpool, after a couple of days, a letter which had been seeking me, from Carlyle, addressed to 'R.W.E. on the instant when he lands in England,' conveying the heartiest welcome and urgent invitation to house and hearth. And finding that I should not be wanted for a week in the Lecture-rooms I came down to London on Monday, and, at ten at night, the door was opened by Jane Carlyle, and the man himself was behind her with a lamp in the hall. They were very little changed from their old selves of fourteen years ago (in August), when I left them at Craigenputtock. 'Well,' said Carlyle, 'here we are shoveled together again.' The floodgates of his talk are quickly opened, and the river is a plentiful stream. We had a wide talk that night until nearly one o'clock, and at breakfast next morning again. At noon or later we walked forth to Hyde Park and the Palaces, about two miles from here, to the National Gallery, and to the Strand, Carlyle melting all Westminster and London into his talk and laughter, as he goes. Here, in his house, we breakfast about nine, and Carlyle is very prone, his wife says, to sleep till ten or eleven, if he has no company. An immense talker, and altogether as extraordinary in that as in his writing; I think, even more so; you will never discover his real vigor and range, or how much more he might do than he has ever done, without seeing him. My few hours discourse with him, long ago, in Scotland, gave me not enough knowledge of him; and I have now at last been taken by surprise by him."

"C. and his wife live on beautiful terms. Their ways are very engaging, and, in her bookcase, all his books are inscribed to her, as they came from year to year, each with some significant lines."

"I had a good talk with C. last night. He says over and over, for months, for years, the same thing. Yet his guiding genius is his moral sense, his perception of the sole importance of truth and justice; and he, too, says that there is properly no religion in England. He is quite contemptuous about 'Kunst,' also, in Germans, or English, or Americans;* and has a huge respect for the Duke of Wellington, as the only Englishman, or the only one in the Aristocracy, who will have nothing to do with any manner of lie."

————— * See English Traits, Ch. XVI.; and Life of Sterling, Part II. Ch. VII. "Among the windy gospels addressed to our poor century there are few louder than this of Art." —————

The following sentences are of later date than the preceding:—

"Carlyle had all the kleinstadtlich traits of an islander and a Scotsman, and reprimanded with severity the rebellious instincts of the native of a vast continent which made light of the British Islands."

"Carlyle has a hairy strength which makes his literary vocation a mere chance, and what seems very contemptible to him. I could think only of an enormous trip-hammer with an 'Aeolian attachment."'

"In Carlyle as in Byron, one is more struck with the rhetoric than with the matter. He has manly superiority rather than intellectuality, and so makes good hard hits all the time. There is more character than intellect in every sentence, herein strongly resembling Samuel Johnson."

"England makes what a step from Dr. Johnson to Carlyle! what wealth of thought and science, what expansion of views and profounder resources does the genius and performance of this last imply! If she can make another step as large, what new ages open!"

CXXVII. Emerson to Carlyle

Mrs. Massey's, Manchester, 2 Fenny Place, Fenny St.

November 5, 1847

Ah! my dear friend, all these days have gone, and you have had no word from me, when the shuttles fly so swiftly in your English loom, and in so few hours we may have tidings of the best that live. At last, and only this day for the first day, I am stablished in my own lodgings on English ground, and have a fair parlor and chamber, into both of which the sun and moon shine, into which friendly people have already entered.

Hitherto I have been the victim of trifles,—which is the fate and the chief objection to traveling. Days are absorbed in precious nothings. But now that I am in some sort a citizen, of Manchester, and also of Liverpool (for there also I am to enter on lodgings tomorrow, at 56 Stafford Street, Islington), perhaps the social heart of this English world will include me also in its strong and healthful circulations. I get the best letters from home by the last steamers, and was much occupied in Liverpool yesterday in seeing Dr. Nichol of Glasgow, who was to sail in the "Acadia," and in giving him credentials to some Americans. I find here a very kind reception from your friends, as they emphatically are,—Ireland, Espinasse, Miss Jewsbury, Dr. Hodgson, and a circle expanding on all sides outward,—and Mrs. Paulet at Liverpool. I am learning there also to know friendly faces, and a certain Roscoe Club has complimented me with its privileges. The oddest part of my new position is my alarming penny correspondence, which, what with welcomes, invitations to lecture, proffers of hospitality, suggestions from good Swedenborgists and others for my better guidance touching the titles of my discourses, &c., &c., all requiring answers, threaten to eat up a day like a cherry. In this fog and miscellany, and until the heavenly sun shall give me one beam, will not you, friend and joy of so many years, send me a quiet line or two now and then to say that you still smoke your pipe in peace, side by side with wife and brother also well and smoking, or able to smoke? Now that I have in some measure calmed down the astonishment and consternation of seeing your dreams change into realities, I mean, at my next approximation or perihelion, to behold you with the most serene and sceptical calmness.

So give my thanks and true affectionate remembrance to Jane Carlyle, and my regards also to Dr. Carlyle, whose precise address please also to send me.

Ever your loving

R.W.E.

The address at the top of this note is the best for the present, as I mean to make this my centre.

CXXVIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 13 November, 1847

Dear Emerson,—Your Book-parcels were faithfully sent off, directly after your departure: in regard to one of them I had a pleasant visit from the proprietor in person,—the young Swedenborgian Doctor, whom to my surprise I found quite an agreeable, accomplished secular young gentleman, much given to "progress of the species," &c., &c.; from whom I suppose you have yourself heard. The wandering umbrella, still short of an owner, hangs upon its peg here, without definite outlook. Of yourself there have come news, by your own Letter, and by various excerpts from Manchester Newspapers. Gluck zu!—

This Morning I received the Enclosed, and send it off to you without farther response. Mudie, if I mistake not, is some small Bookseller in the Russell-Square region; pray answer him, if you think him worthy of answer. A dim suspicion haunts me that perhaps he was the Republisher (or Pirate) of your first set of Essays: but probably he regards this as a mere office of untutored friendship on his part. Or possibly I do the poor man wrong by misremembrance? Chapman could tell.

I am sunk deep here, in effete Manuscripts, in abstruse meditations, in confusions old and new; sinking, as I may describe myself, through stratum after stratum of the Inane,— down to one knows not what depth! I unfortunately belong to the Opposition Party in many points, and am in a minority of one. To keep silence, therefore, is among the principal duties at present.

We had a call from Bancroft, the other evening. A tough Yankee man; of many worthy qualities more tough than musical; among which it gratified me to find a certain small under-current of genial humor, or as it were hidden laughter, not noticed heretofore.

My Wife and all the rest of us are well; and do all salute you with our true wishes, and the hope to have you here again before long. Do not bother yourself with other than voluntary writing to me, while there is so much otherwise that you are obliged to write. If on any point you want advice, information, or other help that lies within the limits of my strength, command me, now and always. And so Good be with you; and a happy meeting to us soon again.

Yours ever truly,

T. Carlyle

CXXIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 30 November, 1847

Dear Emerson,—Here is a word for you from Miss Fuller; I send you the Cover also, though I think there is little or nothing in that. It contained another little Note for Mazzini; who is wandering in foreign parts, on paths unknown to me at present. Pray send my regards to Miss Fuller, when you write.

We hear of you pretty often, and of your successes with the Northern populations. We hope for you in London again before long.—I am busy, if at all, altogether inarticulately in these days. My respect for silence, my distrust of Speech, seem to grow upon me. There is a time for both, says Solomon; but we, in our poor generation, have forgotten one of the "times."

Here is a Mr. Forster* of Rawdon, or Bradford, in Yorkshire; our late host in the Autumn time; who expects and longs to be yours when you come into those parts.

I am busy with William Conqueror's Domesday Book and with the commentaries of various blockheads on it:—Ah me!

All good be with you, and happy news from those dear to you.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

—————- * Now the Rt. Hon. W E. Forster, M.P. —————-

CXXX. Emerson to Carlyle

2 Fenny Street, Higher Broughton, Manchester 28 December, 1847

Dear Carlyle,—I am concerned to discover that Margaret Fuller in the letter which you forwarded prays me to ask you and Mrs. Carlyle respecting the Count and Countess Pepoli, who are in Rome for the winter, whether they would be good for her to know?—That is pretty nearly the form of her question. As one third of the winter is gone, and one half will be, before her question can be answered, I fear, it will have lost some of its pertinence. Well, it will serve as a token to pass between us, which will please me if it do not Margaret.—I have had nothing to send you tidings of. Yet I get the best accounts from home of wife and babes and friends. I am seeing this England more thoroughly than I had thought was possible to me. I find this lecturing a key which opens all doors. I have received everywhere the kindest hospitality from a great variety of persons. I see many intelligent and well-informed persons, and some fine geniuses. I have every day a better opinion of the English, who are a very handsome and satisfactory race of men, and, in the point of material performance, altogether incomparable. I have made some vain attempts to end my lectures, but must go on a little longer. With kindest regards to the Lady Jane,

Your friend,

R.W.E.

Margaret Fuller's address, if anything is to be written, is, Care of Maquay, Pakenham & Co., Rome.

CXXXI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 30 December, 1847

My Dear Emerson,—We are very glad to see your handwriting again, and learn that you are well, and doing well. Our news of you hitherto, from the dim Lecture-element, had been satisfactory indeed, but vague. Go on and prosper.

I do not much think Miss Fuller would do any great good with the Pepolis,—even if they are still in Rome, and not at Bologna as our advices here seemed to indicate. Madam Pepoli is an elderly Scotch lady, of excellent commonplace vernacular qualities, hardly of more; the Count, some years younger, and a much airier man, is on all sides a beautiful Dilettante,—little suitable, I fear, to the serious mind that can recognize him as such! However, if the people are still in Rome, Miss Fuller can easily try: Bid Miss Fuller present my Wife's compliments, or mine, or even yours (for they know all our domesticities here, and are very intimate, especially Madam with My dame); upon which the acquaintance is at once made, and can be continued if useful.

This morning Richard Milnes writes to me for your address; which I have sent. He is just returned out of Spain; home swiftly to "vote for the Jew Bill"; is doing hospitalities at Woburn Abbey; and I suppose will be in Yorkshire (home, near Pontefract) before long. See him if you have opportunity: a man very easy to see and get into flowing talk with; a man of much sharpness of faculty, well tempered by several inches of "Christian fat" he has upon his ribs for covering. One of the idlest, cheeriest, most gifted of fat little men.

Tennyson has been here for three weeks; dining daily till he is near dead;—setting out a Poem withal. He came in to us on Sunday evening last, and on the preceding Sunday: a truly interesting Son of Earth, and Son of Heaven,—who has almost lost his way, among the will-o'-wisps, I doubt; and may flounder ever deeper, over neck and nose at last, among the quagmires that abound! I like him well; but can do next to nothing for him. Milnes, with general co-operation, got him a Pension; and he has bread and tobacco: but that is a poor outfit for such a soul. He wants a task; and, alas, that of spinning rhymes, and naming it "Art" and "high Art," in a Time like ours, will never furnish him.

For myself I have been entirely idle,—I dare not even say, too abstrusely occupied; for I have merely been looking at the Chaos even, not by any means working in it. I have not even read a Book,—that I liked. All "Literature" has grown inexpressibly unsatisfactory to me. Better be silent than talk farther in this mood.

We are going off, on Saturday come a week, into Hampshire, to certain Friends you have heard me speak of. Our address, till the beginning of February, is "Hon. W.B. Baring, Alverstoke, Gosport, Hants." My Wife sends you many kind regards; remember us across the Ocean too;—and be well and busy till we meet.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

Last night there arrived No. 1 of the Massachusetts Review: beautiful paper and print; and very promising otherwise. In the Introduction I well recognized the hand; in the first Article too,—not in any of the others. Faustum sit.

CXXXII. Emerson to Carlyle

Ambleside, 26 February, 1848

My Dear Carlyle,—I am here in Miss Martineau's house, and having seen a good deal of England, and lately a good deal of Scotland too, I am tomorrow to set forth again for Manchester, and presently for London. Yesterday, I saw Wordsworth for a good hour and a half, which he did not seem to grudge, for he talked freely and fast, and—bating his cramping Toryism and what belongs to it—wisely enough. He is in rude health, and, though seventy-seven years old, says he does not feel his age in any particular. Miss Martineau is in excellent health and spirits, though just now annoyed by the hesitations of Murray to publish her book;* but she confides infinitely in her book, which is the best fortune. But I please myself not a little that I shall in a few days see you again, and I will give you an account of my journey. I have heard almost nothing of your late weeks,—but that is my fault,—only I heard with sorrow that your wife had been ill, and could not go with you on your Christmas holidays. Now may her good days have come again! I say I have heard nothing of your late days; of your early days, of your genius, of your influence, I cease not to hear and to see continually, yea, often am called upon to resist the same with might and main. But I will not pester you with it now.—Miss Martineau, who is most happily placed here, and a model of housekeeping, sends kindest remembrances to you both.

Yours ever,

R. W. Emerson.

————- * "Eastern Life, Past and Present." ————-

CXXXIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 28 February, 1848

Dear Emerson,—We are delighted to hear of you again at first hand: our last traditions represented you at Edinburgh, and left the prospect of your return hither very vague. I have only time for one word tonight: to say that your room is standing vacant ever since you quitted it,—ready to be lighted up with all manner of physical and moral fires that the place will yield; and is in fact your room, and expects to be accounted such.—I know not specially what your operations in this quarter are to be; but whatever they are, or the arrangements necessary for them, surely it is here that you must alight again in the big Babel, and deliberately adjust what farther is to be done. Write to us what day you are to arrive; and the rest is all already managed.

Jane has never yet got out since the cold took her; but she has at no time been so ill as is frequent with her in these winter disorders; she is now steadily improving, and we expect will come out with the sun and the green leaves,—as she usually does. I too caught an ugly cold, and, what is very uncommon with me, a kind of cough, while down in Hampshire; which, with other inarticulate matters, has kept me in a very mute abstruse condition all this while; so that, for many weeks past, I have properly had no history,—except such as trees in winter, and other merely passive objects may have. That is not an agreeable side of the page; but I find it indissolubly attached to the other: no historical leaf with me but has them both! Reading does next to nothing for me at present, neither will thinking or even dreaming rightly prosper; of no province can I be quite master except of the silent one, in such a case. One feels there, at last, as if quite annihilated; and takes up arms again (the poor goose-quill is no great things of a weapon to arm with!) as if in a kind of sacred despair.

All people are in a sort of joy-dom over the new French Republic, which has descended suddenly (or shall we say, ascended alas?) out of the Immensities upon us; showing once again that the righteous Gods do yet live and reign! It is long years since I have felt any such deep-seated pious satisfaction at a public event. Adieu: come soon; and warn us when.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

CXXXIV. Emerson to Carlyle

2 Fenny St., Manchester, 2 March, Thursday [1848]

Dear Friend,—I hope to set forward today for London, and to arrive there some time tonight. I am to go first to Chapman's house, where I shall lodge for a time. If it is too noisy, I shall move westward. But I hope you are to be at home tomorrow, for if I prosper, I shall come and beg a dinner with you,—is it not at five o'clock? I am sorry you have no better news to tell me of your health,—your own and your wife's. Tell her I shall surely report you to Alcott, who will have his revenge. Thanks that you keep the door so wide open for me still. I shall always come in.

Ever yours,

R.W.E.

CXXXV. Emerson to Carlyle

Monday, P.M., 19 June, 1848

Dear Carlyle,—Mrs. Crowe of Edinburgh, an excellent lady, known to you and to many good people, wishes me to go to you with her.

I tell her that I believe you relax the reins of labor as early as one hour after noon, and I propose one o'clock on Thursday for the invasion. If you are otherwise engaged, you must send me word. Otherwise, we shall come.

It was sad to hear no good news last evening from Jane Carlyle. I heartily hope the night brought sleep, and the morning better health to her.

Yours always,

R.W. Emerson

CXXXVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 20 June, 1848

Dear Emerson,—We shall be very glad to become acquainted with Mrs. Crowe, of whom already by report we know many favorable things. Brown (of Portobello, Edinburgh) had given us intimation of her kind purposes towards Chelsea; and now on Thursday you (please the Pigs) shall see the adventure achieved. Two o'clock, not one, is the hour when labor ceases here,—if, alas, there be any "labor" so much as got begun; which latter is often enough the sad case. But at either hour we shall be ready for you.

I hope you penetrated the Armida Palace, and did your devoir to the sublime Duchess and her Luncheon yesterday! I cannot without a certain internal amusement (foreign enough to my present humor) represent to myself such a conjunction of opposite stars! But you carry a new image off with you, and are a gainer, you. Allons.

My Papers here are in a state of distraction, state of despair!

I see not what is to become of them and me.

Yours ever truly,

T. Carlyle

My Wife arose without headache on Monday morning; but feels still a good deal beaten;—has not had "such a headache" for several years.

CXXXVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, Friday [23 June, 1848]

Dear Emerson,—I forgot to say, last night, that you are to dine with us on Sunday; that after our call on the Lady Harriet* we will take a stroll through the Park, look at the Sunday population, and find ourselves here at five o'clock for the above important object. Pray remember, therefore, and no excuse! In haste.

Yours ever truly,

T. Carlyle

——————- * Lady Ashburton ——————-

CXXXVIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 6 December, 1848

Dear Emerson,—We received your Letter* duly, some time ago, with many welcomes; and have as you see been too remiss in answering it. Not from forgetfulness, if you will take my word; no, but from many causes, too complicated to articulate, and justly producing an indisposition to put pen to paper at all! Never was I more silent than in these very months; and, with reason too, for the world at large, and my own share of it in small, are both getting more and more unspeakable with any convenience! In health we of this household are about as well as usual;—and look across to the woods of Concord with more light than we had, realizing for ourselves a most mild and friendly picture there. Perhaps it is quite as well that you are left alone of foreign interference, even of a Letter from Chelsea, till you get your huge bale of English reminiscences assorted a little. Nobody except me seems to have heard from you; at least the rest, in these parts, all plead destitution when I ask for news. What you saw and suffered and enjoyed here will, if you had once got it properly warehoused, be new wealth to you for many years. Of one impression we fail not here: admiration of your pacific virtues, of gentle and noble tolerance, often sorely tried in this place! Forgive me my ferocities; you do not quite know what I suffer in these latitudes, or perhaps it would be even easier for you. Peace for me, in a Mother of Dead Dogs like this, there is not, was not, will not be,—till the battle itself end; which, however, is a sure outlook, and daily growing a nearer one.

————— * The letter is missing, but a fragment of the rough draft of it exists, dated Concord, 2 October, 1848. Emerson had returned home in July, and he begins: "'T is high time, no doubt, long since, that you heard from me, and if there were good news in America for you, you would be sure to hear. All goes at heavy trot with us… I fell again quickly into my obscure habits, more fit for me than the fine things I had seen. I made my best endeavor to praise the rich country I had seen, and its excellent, energetic, polished people. And it is very easy for me to do so. England is the country of success, and success has a great charm for me, more than for those I talk with at home. But they were obstinate to know if the English were superior to their possessions, and if the old religion warmed their hearts, and lifted a little the mountain of wealth. So I enumerated the list of brilliant persons I had seen, and the [break in MS.]. But the question returned. Did you find kings and priests? Did you find sanctities and beauties that took away your memory, and sent you home a changed man with new aims, and with a discontent of your old pastures?"

Here the fragment ends. Emerson's answer to these questions may be found in the chapter entitled "Results," in his English Traits. —————

Nay, there is another practical question,—but it is from the female side of the house to the female side,—and in fact concerns Indian meal, upon which Mrs. Emerson, or you, or the Miller of Concord (if he have any tincture of philosophy) are now to instruct us! The fact is, potatoes having vanished here, we are again, with motives large and small, trying to learn the use of Indian meal; and indeed do eat it daily to meat at dinner, though hitherto with considerable despair. Question first, therefore: Is there by nature a bitter final taste, which makes the throat smart, and disheartens much the apprentice in Indian meal;—or is it accidental, and to be avoided? We surely anticipate the latter answer; but do not yet see how. At first we were taught the meal, all ground on your side of the water, had got fusty, raw; an effect we are well used to in oaten and other meals but, last year, we had a bushel of it ground here, and the bitter taste was there as before (with the addition of much dirt and sand, our millstones I suppose being too soft);— whereupon we incline to surmise that there is, perhaps, as in the case of oats, some pellicle or hull that ought to be rejected in making the meal? Pray ask some philosophic Miller, if Mrs. Emerson or you do not know;—and as a corollary this second question: What is the essential difference between white (or brown-gray-white) Indian Meal and yellow (the kind we now have; beautiful as new Guineas, but with an ineffaceable tastekin of soot in it)?—And question third, which includes all: How to cook mush rightly, at least without bitter? Long-continued boiling seems to help the bitterness, but does not cure it. Let some oracle speak! I tell all people, our staff of life is in the Mississippi Valley henceforth;—and one of the truest benefactors were an American Minerva who could teach us to cook this meal; which our people at present (I included) are unanimous in finding nigh uneatable, and loudly exclaimable against! Elihu Burritt had a string of recipes that went through all newspapers three years ago; but never sang there oracle of longer ears than that,—totally destitute of practical significance to any creature here!

And now enough of questioning. Alas, alas, I have a quite other batch of sad and saddest considerations,—on which I must not so much as enter at present! Death has been very busy in this little circle of ours within these few days. You remember Charles Buller, to whom I brought you over that night at the Barings' in Stanhope Street? He died this day week, almost quite unexpectedly; a sore loss to all that knew him personally, and his gladdening sunny presence in many circles here; a sore loss to the political people too, for he was far the cleverest of all Whig men, and indeed the only genial soul one can remember in that department of things.* We buried him yesterday; and now see what new thing has come. Lord Ashburton, who had left his mother well in Hampshire ten hours before, is summoned from poor Buller's funeral by telegraph; hurries back, finds his mother, whom he loved much, already dead! She was a Miss Bingham, I think, from Pennsylvania, perhaps from Philadelphia itself. You saw her; but the first sight by no means told one all or the best worth that was in that good Lady. We are quite bewildered by our own regrets, and by the far painfuler sorrow of those closely related to these sudden sorrows. Of which let me be silent for the present;—and indeed of all things else, for speech, inadequate mockery of one's poor meaning, is quite a burden to me just now!

————- * The reader of Carlyle's Reminiscences, and of Froude's volumes of his biography, is familiar with the close relations that had existed between Buller and Carlyle. —————

Neuberg* comes hither sometimes; a welcome, wise kind of man. Poor little Espinasse still toils cheerily at the oar, and various friends of yours are about us. Brother John did send through Chapman all the Dante, which we calculate you have received long ago: he is now come to Town; doing a Preface, &c., which also will be sent to you, and just about publishing.— Helps, who has been alarmingly ill, and touring on the Rhine since we were his guests, writes to me yesterday from Hampshire about sending you a new Book of his. I instructed him How.

Adieu, dear Emerson; do not forget us, or forget to think as kindly as you can of us, while we continue in this world together.

Yours ever affectionately,

T. Carlyle

————- * Mr. Ireland, in his Recollections, p. 62, gives an interesting account of Mr. Neuberg,—a highly cultivated German, who assisted Carlyle in some of the later literary labors of his life. Neuberg died in 1867, and in a letter to his sister of that year Carlyle says: "No kinder friend had I in this world; no man of my day, I believe, had so faithful, loyal, and willing a helper as he generously was to me for the last twenty or more years." —————-

CXXXIX. Emerson to Carlyle

Boston, 28 January, 1849

My Dear Carlyle,—Here in Boston for the day, though in no fit place for writing, you shall have, since the steamer goes tomorrow, a hasty answer to at least one of your questions….

You tell me heavy news of your friends, and of those who were friendly to me for your sake. And I have found farther particulars concerning them in the newspapers. Buller I have known by name ever since he was in America with Lord Durham, and I well remember his face and figure at Mr. Baring's. Even England cannot spare an accomplished man.

Since I had your letter, and, I believe, by the same steamer, your brother's Dante,* complete within and without, has come to me, most welcome. I heartily thank him. 'T is a most workmanlike book, bearing every mark of honest value. I thank him for myself, and I thank him, in advance, for our people, who are sure to learn their debt to him, in the coming months and years. I sent the book, after short examination, the same day, to New York, to the Harpers, lest their edition should come out without Prolegomena. But they answered, the next day, that they had already received directly the same matter;—yet have not up to this time returned my book. For the Indian corn,—I have been to see Dr. Charles T. Jackson (my wife's brother, and our best chemist, inventor of etherization), who tells me that the reason your meal is bitter is, that all the corn sent to you from us is kiln-dried here, usually at a heat of three hundred degrees, which effectually kills the starch or diastase (?) which would otherwise become sugar. This drying is thought necessary to prevent the corn from becoming musty in the contingency of a long voyage. He says, if it should go in the steamer, it would arrive sound without previous drying. I think I will try that experiment, shortly on a box or a barrel of our Concord maize, as Lidian Emerson confidently engages to send you accurate recipes for johnny-cake, mush, and hominy.

————- * The Inferno of Dante, a translation in prose by John Carlyle; an excellent piece of work, still in demand. ————-

Why did you not send me word of Clough's hexameter poem, which I have now received and read with much joy.* But no, you will never forgive him his metres. He is a stout, solid, reliable man and friend,—I knew well; but this fine poem has taken me by surprise. I cannot find that your journals have yet discovered its existence. With kindest remembrances to Jane Carlyle, and new thanks to John Carlyle, your friend,

—R.W. Emerson

————— * "The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich." —————

CXL. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 19 April, 1849

My Dear Emerson,—Today is American Postday; and by every rule and law,—even if all laws but those of Cocker were abolished from this universe,—a word from me is due to you! Twice I have heard since I spoke last: prompt response about the Philadelphia Bill; exact performance of your voluntary promise,—Indian Corn itself is now here for a week past….

Still more interesting is the barrel of genuine Corn ears,— Indian Cobs of edible grain, from the Barn of Emerson himself! It came all safe and right, according to your charitable program; without cost or trouble to us of any kind; not without curious interest and satisfaction! The recipes contained in the precedent letter, duly weighed by the competent jury of housewives (at least by my own Wife and Lady Ashburton), were judged to be of decided promise, reasonable-looking every one of them; and now that the stuff itself is come, I am happy to assure you that it forms a new epoch for us all in the Maize department: we find the grain sweet, among the sweetest, with a touch even of the taste of nuts in it, and profess with contrition that properly we have never tasted Indian Corn before. Millers of due faculty (with millstones of iron) being scarce in the Cockney region, and even cooks liable to err, the Ashburtons have on their resources undertaken the brunt of the problem one of their own Surrey or Hampshire millers is to grind the stuff, and their own cook, a Frenchman commander of a whole squadron, is to undertake the dressing according to the rules. Yesterday the Barrel went off to their country place in Surrey,— a small Bag of select ears being retained here, for our own private experimenting;—and so by and by we shall see what comes of it.—I on my side have already drawn up a fit proclamation of the excellences of this invaluable corn, and admonitions as to the benighted state of English eaters in regard to it;—to appear in Fraser's Magazine, or I know not where, very soon. It is really a small contribution towards World-History, this small act of yours and ours: there is no doubt to me, now that I taste the real grain, but all Europe will henceforth have to rely more and more upon your Western Valleys and this article. How beautiful to think of lean tough Yankee settlers, tough as gutta-percha, with most occult unsubduable fire in their belly, steering over the Western Mountains, to annihilate the jungle, and bring bacon and corn out of it for the Posterity of Adam! The Pigs in about a year eat up all the rattlesnakes for miles round: a most judicious function on the part of the Pigs. Behind the Pigs comes Jonathan with his all-conquering ploughshare,—glory to him too! Oh, if we were not a set of Cant-ridden blockheads, there is no Myth of Athene or Herakles equal to this fact;—which I suppose will find its real "Poets" some day or other; when once the Greek, Semitic, and multifarious other Cobwebs are swept away a little! Well, we must wait.—For the rest, if this skillful Naturalist and you will make any more experiments on Indian Corn for us, might I not ask that you would try for a method of preserving the meal in a sound state for us? Oatmeal, which would spoil directly too, is preserved all year by kiln-drying the grain before it is ground,—parching it till it is almost brown, sometimes the Scotch Highlanders, by intense parching, can keep their oatmeal good for a series of years. No Miller here at present is likely to produce such beautiful meal as some of the American specimens I have seen:—if possible, we must learn to get the grain over in the shape of proper durable meal. At all events, let your Friend charitably make some inquiry into the process of millerage, the possibilities of it for meeting our case;—and send us the result some day, on a separate bit of paper. With which let us end, for the present.

Alas, I have yet written nothing; am yet a long way off writing, I fear! Not for want of matter, perhaps, but for redundance of it; I feel as if I had the whole world to write yet, with the day fast bending downwards on me, and did not know where to begin,—in what manner to address the deep-sunk populations of the Theban Land. Any way my Life is very grim, on these terms, and is like to be; God only knows what farther quantity of braying in the mortar this foolish clay of mine may yet need!— They are printing a third Edition of Cromwell; that bothered me for some weeks, but now I am over with that, and the Printer wholly has it: a sorrowful, not now or ever a joyful thing to me, that. The stupor of my fellow blockheads, for Centuries back, presses too heavy upon that,—as upon many things, O Heavens! People are about setting up some Statue of Cromwell, at St. Ives, or elsewhere: the King-Hudson Statue is never yet set up; and the King himself (as you may have heard) has been discovered swindling. I advise all men not to erect a statue for Cromwell just now. Macaulay's History is also out, running through the fourth edition: did I tell you last time that I had read it,—with wonder and amazement? Finally, it seems likely Lord John Russell will shortly walk out (forever, it is hoped), and Sir R. Peel come in; to make what effort is in him towards delivering us from the pedant method of treating Ireland. The beginning, as I think, of salvation (if he can prosper a little) to England, and to all Europe as well. For they will all have to learn that man does need government, and that an able- bodied starving beggar is and remains (whatever Exeter Hall may say to it) a Slave destitute of a Master; of which facts England, and convulsed Europe, are fallen foundly ignorant in these bad ages, and will plunge ever deeper till they rediscover the same. Alas, alas, the Future for us is not to be made of butter, as the Platforms prophesy; I think it will be harder than steel for some ages! No noble age was ever a soft one, nor ever will or can be.—Your beautiful curious little discourse (report of a discourse) about the English was sent me by Neuberg; I thought it, in my private heart, one of the best words (for hidden genius lodged in it) I had ever heard; so sent it to the Examiner, from which it went to the Times and all the other Papers: an excellent sly little word.

Clough has gone to Italy; I have seen him twice,—could not manage his hexameters, though I like the man himself, and hope much of him. "Infidelity" has broken out in Oxford itself,—immense emotion in certain quarters in consequence, virulent outcries about a certain "Sterling Club," altogether a secular society!

Adieu, dear Emerson; I had much more to say, but there is no room. O, forgive me, forgive me all trespasses,—and love me what you can!

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

CXLI. Carlyle to Emerson

Scotsbrig, Ecclefechan, N.B., 13 August, 1849

Dear Emerson,—By all laws of human computation, I owe you a letter, and have owed, any time these seven weeks: let me now pay a little, and explain. Your second Barrel of Indian Corn arrived also perfectly fresh, and of admirable taste and quality; the very bag of new-ground meal was perfect; and the "popped corn" ditto, when it came to be discovered: with the whole of which admirable materials such order was taken as promised to secure "the greatest happiness to the greatest number"; and due silent thanks were tendered to the beneficence of the unwearied Sender:—but all this, you shall observe, had to be done in the thick of a universal packing and household bustle; I just on the wing for a "Tour in Ireland," my Wife too contemplating a run to Scotland shortly after, there to meet me on my return. All this was seven good weeks ago: I hoped somewhere in my Irish wayfarings to fling you off a Letter; but alas, I reckoned there quite without my host (strict "host," called Time), finding nowhere half a minute left to me; and so now, having got home to my Mother, not to see my Wife yet for some days, it is my earliest leisure, after all, that I employ in this purpose. I have been terribly knocked about too,—jolted in Irish cars, bothered almost to madness with Irish balderdash, above all kept on dreadfully short allowance of sleep;—so that now first, when fairly down to rest, all aches and bruises begin to be fairly sensible; and my clearest feeling at this present is the uncomfortable one, "that I am not Caliban, but a Cramp": terribly cramped indeed, if I could tell you everything!

What the other results of this Irish Tour are to be for me I cannot in the least specify. For one thing, I seem to be farther from speech on any subject than ever: such masses of chaotic ruin everywhere fronted me, the general fruit of long-continued universal falsity and folly; and such mountains of delusion yet possessing all hearts and tongues I could do little that was not even noxious, except admire in silence the general "Bankruptcy of Imposture" as one there finds and sees it come to pass, and think with infinite sorrow of the tribulations, futile wrestlings, tumults, and disasters which yet await that unfortunate section of Adam's Posterity before any real improvement can take place among them. Alas, alas! The Gospels of Political Economy, of Laissez-faire, No-Government, Paradise to all comers, and so many fatal Gospels,—generally, one may say, all the Gospels of this blessed "New Era,"—will first have to be tried, and found wanting. With a quantity of written and uttered nonsense, and of suffered and inflicted misery, which one sinks fairly dumb to estimate! A kind of comfort it is, however, to see that "Imposture" has fallen openly "bankrupt," here as everywhere else in our old world; that no dexterity of human tinkering, with all the Parliamentary Eloquence and Elective Franchises in nature, will ever set it on its feet again, to go many yards more; but that its goings and currencies in this Earth have as good as ceased for ever and ever! God is great; all Lies do now, as from the first, travel incessantly towards Chaos, and there at length lodge! In some parts of Ireland (the Western "insolvent Unions," some twenty-seven of them in all), within a trifle of one half of the whole population are on Poor-Law rations (furnished by the British Government, L1,100 a week furnished here, L1,300 there, L800 there); the houses stand roofless, the lands unstocked, uncultivated, the landlords hidden from bailiffs, living sometimes "on the hares of their domain": such a state of things was never witnessed under this sky before; and, one would humbly expect, cannot last long!—What is to be done? asks every one; incapable of hearing any answer, were there even one ready for imparting to him. "Blacklead these two million idle beggars," I sometimes advised, "and sell them in Brazil as Niggers,—perhaps Parliament, on sweet constraint, will allow you to advance them to be Niggers!" In fact, the Emancipation Societies should send over a deputation or two to look at these immortal Irish "Freemen," the ne plus ultra of their class it would perhaps moderate the windpipe of much eloquence one hears on that subject! Is not this the most illustrious of all "ages"; making progress of the species at a grand rate indeed? Peace be with it.

Waiting for me here, there was a Letter from Miss Fuller in Rome, written about a month ago; a dignified and interesting Letter; requesting help with Booksellers for some "History of the late Italian Revolution" she is about writing; and elegiacally recognizing the worth of Mazzini and other cognate persons and things. I instantly set about doing what little seemed in my power towards this object,—with what result is yet hidden, and have written to the heroic Margaret: "More power to her elbow!" as the Irish say. She has a beautiful enthusiasm; and is perhaps in the right stage of insight for doing that piece of business well.—Of other persons or interests I will say nothing till a calmer opportunity; which surely cannot be very long in coming.

In four days I am to rejoin my wife; after which some bits of visits are to be paid in this North Country; necessary most of them, not likely to be profitable almost any. In perhaps a month I expect to be back in Chelsea; whither direct a word if you are still beneficent enough to think of such a Castaway!

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

I got Thoreau's Book; and meant well to read it, but have not yet succeeded, though it went with me through all Ireland: tell him so, please. Too Jean-Paulish, I found it hitherto.

CXLII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 19 July, 1850

My Dear Emerson, My Friend, my Friend,—You behold before you a remorseful man! It is well-nigh a year now since I despatched some hurried rag of paper to you out of Scotland, indicating doubtless that I would speedily follow it with a longer letter; and here, when gray Autumn is at hand again, I have still written nothing to you, heard nothing from you! It is miserable to think of:—and yet it is a fact, and there is no denying of it; and so we must let it lie. If it please Heaven, the like shall not occur again. "Ohone Arooh!" as the Irish taught me to say, "Ohone Arooh!"

The fact is, my life has been black with care and toil,—labor above board and far worse labor below;—I have hardly had a heavier year (overloaded too with a kind of "health" which may be called frightful): to "burn my own smoke" in some measure, has really been all I was up to; and except on sheer immediate compulsion I have not written a word to any creature.— Yesternight I finished the last of these extraordinary Pamphlets; am about running off somewhither into the deserts, of Wales or Scotland, Scandinavia or still remoter deserts;—and my first signal of revived reminiscence is to you.

Nay I have not at any time forgotten you, be that justice done the unfortunate: and though I see well enough what a great deep cleft divides us, in our ways of practically looking at this world,—I see also (as probably you do yourself) where the rock- strata, miles deep, unite again; and the two poor souls are at one. Poor devils!—Nay if there were no point of agreement at all, and I were more intolerant "of ways of thinking" than I even am,—yet has not the man Emerson, from old years, been a Human Friend to me? Can I ever forget, or think otherwise than lovingly of the man Emerson? No more of this. Write to me in your first good hour; and say that there is still a brother-soul left to me alive in this world, and a kind thought surviving far over the sea!—Chapman, with due punctuality at the time of publication, sent me the Representative Men; which I read in the becoming manner: you now get the Book offered you for a shilling, at all railway stations; and indeed I perceive the word "representative man"' (as applied to the late tragic loss we have had in Sir Robert Peel) has been adopted by the Able- Editors, and circulates through Newspapers as an appropriate household word, which is some compensation to you for the piracy you suffer from the Typographic Letter-of-marque men here. I found the Book a most finished clear and perfect set of Engravings in the line manner; portraitures full of likeness, and abounding in instruction and materials for reflection to me: thanks always for such a Book; and Heaven send us many more of them. Plato, I think, though it is the most admired by many, did least for me: little save Socrates with his clogs and big ears remains alive with me from it. Swedenborg is excellent in likeness; excellent in many respects;—yet I said to myself, on reaching your general conclusion about the man and his struggles: "Missed the consummate flower and divine ultimate elixir of Philosophy, say you? By Heaven, in clutching at it, and almost getting it, he has tumbled into Bedlam,—which is a terrible miss, if it were never so near! A miss fully as good as a mile, I should say!" —In fact, I generally dissented a little about the end of all these Essays; which was notable, and not without instructive interest to me, as I had so lustily shouted "Hear, hear!" all the way from the beginning up to that stage.—On the whole, let us have another Book with your earliest convenience: that is the modest request one makes of you on shutting this.

I know not what I am now going to set about: the horrible barking of the universal dog-kennel (awakened by these Pamphlets) must still itself again; my poor nerves must recover themselves a little:—I have much more to say; and by Heaven's blessing must try to get it said in some way if I live.—

Bostonian Prescott is here, infinitely lionized by a mob of gentlemen; I have seen him in two places or three (but forbore speech): the Johnny-cake is good, the twopence worth of currants in it too are good; but if you offer it as a bit of baked Ambrosia, Ach Gott!—

Adieu, dear Emerson, forgive, and love me a little.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

CXLIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 14 November, 1850

Dear Emerson,—You are often enough present to my thoughts; but yesterday there came a little incident which has brought you rather vividly upon the scene for me. A certain "Mr. —-" from Boston sends us, yesterday morning by post, a Note of yours addressed to Mazzini, whom he cannot find; and indicates that he retains a similar one addressed to myself, and (in the most courteous, kindly, and dignified manner, if Mercy prevent not) is about carrying it off with him again to America! To give Mercy a chance, I by the first opportunity get under way for Morley's Hotel, the address of Mr. —-; find there that Mr.—, since morning, has been on the road towards Liverpool and America, and that the function of Mercy is quite extinct in this instance! My reflections as I wandered home again were none of the pleasantest. Of this Mr. —- I had heard some tradition, as of an intelligent, accomplished, and superior man; such a man's acquaintance, of whatever complexion he be, is and was always a precious thing to me, well worth acquiring where possible; not to say that any friend of yours, whatever his qualities otherwise, carries with him an imperative key to all bolts and locks of mine, real or imaginary. In fact I felt punished;—and who knows, if the case were seen into, whether I deserve it? What "business" it was that deprived me of a call from Mr. —-, or of the possibility of calling on him, I know very well,—and —-, the little dog, and others know! But the fact in that matter is very far different indeed from the superficial semblance; and I appeal to all the gentlemen that are in America for a candid interpretation of the same. "Eighteen million bores,"—good Heavens don't I know how many of that species we also have; and how with us, as with you, the difference between them and the Eighteen thousand noble-men and non-bores is immeasurable and inconceivable; and how, with us as with you, the latter small company, sons of the Empyrean, will have to fling the former huge one, sons of Mammon and Mud, into some kind of chains again, reduce them to some kind of silence again,—unless the old Mud-Demons are to rise and devour us all? Truly it is so I construe it: and if —- and the Eighteen millions are well justified in their anger at me, and the Eighteen thousand owe me thanks and new love. That is my decided opinion, in spite of you all! And so, along with —-, probably in the same ship with him, there shall go my protest against the conduct of —-; and the declaration that to the last I will protest! Which will wind up the matter (without any word of yours on it) at this time.—For the rest, though —- sent me his Pamphlet, it is a fact I have not read a word of it, nor shall ever read. My Wife read it; but I was away, with far other things in my head; and it was "lent to various persons" till it died!—Enough and ten times more than enough of all that. Let me on this last slip of paper give you some response to the Letter* I got in Scotland, under the silence of the bright autumn sun, in my Mother's house, and read there.

———— * This letter is missing. ————

You are bountiful abundantly in your reception of those Latter Day Pamphlets; and right in all you say of them;—and yet withal you are not right, my Friend, but I am! Truly it does behove a man to know the inmost resources of this universe, and, for the sake both of his peace and of his dignity, to possess his soul in patience, and look nothing doubting (nothing wincing even, if that be his humor) upon all things. For it is most indubitable there is good in all;—and if you even see an Oliver Cromwell assassinated, it is certain you may get a cartload of turnips from his carcass. Ah me, and I suppose we had too much forgotten all this, or there had not been a man like you sent to show it us so emphatically! Let us well remember it; and yet remember too that it is not good always, or ever, to be "at ease in Zion"; good often to be in fierce rage in Zion; and that the vile Pythons of this Mud-World do verily require to have sun-arrows shot into them and red-hot pokers struck through them, according to occasion: woe to the man that carries either of these weapons, and does not use it in their presence! Here, at this moment, a miserable Italian organ-grinder has struck up the Marseillaise under my window, for example: was the Marseillaise fought out on a bed of down, or is it worth nothing when fought? On those wretched Pamphlets I set no value at all, or even less than none: to me their one benefit is, my own heart is clear of them (a benefit not to be despised, I assure you!)—and in the Public, athwart this storm of curses, and emptyings of vessels of dishonor, I can already perceive that it is all well enough there too in reference to them; and the controversy of the Eighteen millions versus the Eighteen thousands, or Eighteen units, is going on very handsomely in that quarter of it, for aught I can see! And so, Peace to the brave that are departed; and, Tomorrow to fresh fields and pastures new!—

I was in Wales, as well as Scotland, during Autumn time; lived three weeks within wind of St. Germanus's old "College" (Fourteen Hundred years of age or so) and also not far from Merthyr Tydvil, Cyclops' Hell, sootiest and horridest avatar of the Industrial Mammon I had ever anywhere seen; went through the Severn Valley; at Bath stayed a night with Landor (a proud and high old man, who charged me with express remembrances for you); saw Tennyson too, in Cumberland, with his new Wife; and other beautiful recommendable and 'questionable things;—and was dreadfully tossed about, and torn almost to tatters by the manifold brambles of my way: and so at length am here, a much- lamed man indeed! Oh my Friend, have tolerance for me, have sympathy with me; you know not quite (I imagine) what a burden mine is, or perhaps you would find this duty, which you always do, a little easier done! Be happy, be busy beside your still waters, and think kindly of me there. My nerves, health I call them, are in a sad state of disorder: alas, that is nine tenths of all the battle in this world. Courage, courage!—My Wife sends salutations to you and yours. Good be with you all always.

Your affectionate,

T. Carlyle

CXLIV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 8 July, 1851

Dear Emerson,—Don't you still remember very well that there is such a man? I know you do, and will do. But it is a ruinously long while since we have heard a word from each other;—a state of matters that ought immediately to cease. It was your turn, I think, to write? It was somebody's turn! Nay I heard lately you complained of bad eyes; and were grown abstinent of writing. Pray contradict me this. I cannot do without some regard from you while we are both here. Spite of your many sins, you are among the most human of all the beings I now know in the world;— who are a very select set, and are growing ever more so, I can inform you!

In late months, feeling greatly broken and without heart for anything weighty, I have been upon a Life of John Sterling; which will not be good for much, but will as usual gratify me by taking itself off my hands: it was one of the things I felt a kind of obligation to do, and so am thankful to have done. Here is a patch of it lying by me, if you will look at a specimen. There are four hundred or more pages (prophesies the Printer), a good many Letters and Excerpts in the latter portion of the volume. Already half printed, wholly written; but not to come out for a couple of months yet,—all trade being at a stand till this sublime "Crystal Palace" go its ways again.—And now since we are upon the business, I wish you would mention it to E.P. Clark (is not that the name?) next time you go to Boston: if that friendly clear-eyed man have anything to say in reference to it and American Booksellers, let him say and do; he may have a Copy for anybody in about a month: if he have nothing to say, then let there be nothing anywhere said. For, mark O Philosopher, I expressly and with emphasis prohibit you at this stage of our history, and henceforth, unless I grow poor again. Indeed, indeed, the commercial mandate of the thing (Nature's little order on that behalf) being once fulfilled (by speaking to Clark), I do not care a snuff of tobacco how it goes, and will prefer, here as elsewhere, my night's rest to any amount of superfluous money.

This summer, as you may conjecture, has been very noisy with us, and productive of little,—the "Wind-dust-ry of all Nations" involving everything in one inane tornado. The very shopkeepers complain that there is no trade. Such a sanhedrim of windy fools from all countries of the Globe were surely never gathered in one city before. But they will go their ways again, they surely will! One sits quiet in that faith;—nay, looks abroad with a kind of pathetic grandfatherly feeling over this universal Children's Ball which the British Nation in these extraordinary circumstances is giving it self! Silence above all, silence is very behoveful! I read lately a small old brown French duodecimo, which I mean to send you by the first chance there is. The writer is a Capitaine Bossu; the production, a Journal of his experiences in "La Louisiane," "Oyo" (Ohio), and those regions, which looks very genuine, and has a strange interest to me, like some fractional Odyssey or letter.* Only a hundred years ago, and the Mississippi has changed as never valley did: in 1751 older and stranger, looked at from its present date, than Balbec or Nineveh! Say what we will, Jonathan is doing miracles (of a sort) under the sun in these times now passing.—Do you know Bartram's Travels? This is of the Seventies (1770) or so; treats of Florida chiefly, has a wondrous kind of floundering eloquence in it; and has also grown immeasurably old. All American libraries ought to provide themselves with that kind of book; and keep them as a kind of future biblical article.— Finally on this head, can you tell me of any good Book on California? Good: I have read several bad. But that too is worthy of some wonder; that too, like the Old Bucaniers, hungers and thirsts (in ingenuous minds) to have some true record and description given of it.

————— * Bossu wrote two books which are known to the student of the history of the settlement of America; one, "Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes occidentales," Paris, 1768; the other, "Nouveaux Voyages dans l'Amerique septentrionale," Amsterdam (Paris), 1777. —————

And poor Miss Fuller, was there any Life ever published of her? or is any competent hand engaged on it? Poor Margaret, I often remember her; and think how she is asleep now under the surges of the sea. Mazzini, as you perhaps know, is with us this summer; comes across once in the week or so, and tells me, or at least my Wife, all his news. The Roman revolution has made a man of him,—quite brightened up ever since;—and the best friend he ever saw, I believe, was that same Quack-President of France, who relieved him while it was still time.

My Brother is in Annandale, working hard over Dante at last; talks of coming up hither shortly; I am myself very ill and miserable in the liver regions; very tough otherwise,—though I have now got spectacles for small print in the twilight. Eheu fugaces,—and yet why Eheu? In fact it is better to be silent.—Adieu, dear Emerson; I expect to get a great deal brisker by and by,—and in the first place to have a Missive from Boston again. My Wife sends you many regards. I am as ever,— affectionately Yours,

—T. Carlyle

CXLV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 28 July, 1851

My Dear Carlyle,—You must always thank me for silence, be it never so long, and must put on it the most generous interpretations. For I am too sure of your genius and goodness, and too glad that they shine steadily for all, to importune you to make assurance sure by a private beam very often. There is very little in this village to be said to you, and, with all my love of your letters, I think it the kind part to defend you from our imbecilities,—my own, and other men's. Besides, my eyes are bad, and prone to mutiny at any hint of white paper.

And yet I owe you all my story, if story I have. I have been something of a traveler the last year, and went down the Ohio River to its mouth; walked nine miles into, and nine miles out of the Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky,—walked or sailed, for we crossed small underground streams,—and lost one day's light; then steamed up the Mississippi, five days, to Galena. In the Upper Mississippi, you are always in a lake with many islands.

"The Far West" is the right name for these verdant deserts. On all the shores, interminable silent forest. If you land, there is prairie behind prairie, forest behind forest, sites of nations, no nations. The raw bullion of nature; what we call "moral" value not yet stamped on it. But in a thousand miles the immense material values will show twenty or fifty Californias; that a good ciphering head will make one where he is. Thus at Pittsburg, on the Ohio, the "Iron" City, whither, from want of railroads, few Yankees have penetrated, every acre of land has three or four bottoms; first of rich soil; then nine feet of bituminous coal; a little lower, fourteen feet of coal; then iron, or salt; salt springs, with a valuable oil called petroleum floating on their surface. Yet this acre sells for the price of any tillage acre in Massachusetts; and, in a year, the railroads will reach it, east and west.—I came home by the great Northern Lakes and Niagara.

No books, a few lectures, each winter, I write and read. In the spring, the abomination of our Fugitive Slave Bill drove me to some writing and speech-making, without hope of effect, but to clear my own skirts. I am sorry I did not print whilst it was yet time. I am now told that the time will come again, more's the pity. Now I am trying to make a sort of memoir of Margaret Fuller, or my part in one;—for Channing and Ward are to do theirs. Without either beauty or genius, she had a certain wealth and generosity of nature which have left a kind of claim on our consciences to build her a cairn. And this reminds me that I am to write a note to Mazzini on this matter; and, as you say you see him, you must charge yourself with delivering it. What we do must be ended by October. You too are working for Sterling. It is right and kind. I learned so much from the New York Tribune, and, a few days after, was on the point of writing to you, provoked by a foolish paragraph which appeared in Rufus Griswold's Journal, (New York,) purporting that R.W.E. possessed important letters of Sterling, without which Thomas Carlyle could not write the Life. What scrap of hearsay about contents of Sterling's letters to me, or that I had letters, this paltry journalist swelled into this puff-ball, I know not. He once came to my house, and, since that time, may have known Margaret Fuller in New York; but probably never saw any letter of Sterling's or heard the contents of any. I have not read again Sterling's letters, which I keep as good Lares in a special niche, but I have no recollection of anything that would be valuable to you. For the American Public for the Book, I think it important that you should take the precise step of sending Phillips and Sampson the early copy, and at the earliest. I saw them, and also E.P. Clark, and put them in communication, and Clark is to write you at once.

Having got so far in my writing to you, I do not know but I shall gain heart, and write more letters over sea. You will think my sloth suicidal enough. So many men as I learned to value in your country,—so many as offered me opportunities of intercourse,— and I lose them all by silence. Arthur Helps is a chief benefactor of mine. I wrote him a letter by Ward,—who brought the letter back. I ought to thank John Carlyle, not only for me, but for a multitude of good men and women here who read his Inferno duly. W.E. Forster sent me his Penn Pamphlet; I sent it to Bancroft, who liked it well, only he thought Forster might have made a still stronger case. Clough I prize at a high rate, the man and his poetry, but write not. Wilkinson I thought a man of prodigious talent, who somehow held it and so taught others to hold it cheap, as we do one of those bushel-basket memories which school-boys and school-girls often show,—and we stop their mouths lest they be troublesome with their alarming profusion. But there is no need of beginning to count the long catalogue. Kindest, kindest remembrance to my benefactress, also in your house, and health and strength and victory to you.

Your affectionate,

Waldo Emerson

CXLVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Great Malvern, Worcestershire, 25 August, 1851

Dear Emerson,—Many thanks for your Letter, which found me here about a week ago, and gave a full solution to my bibliopolic difficulties. However sore your eyes, or however taciturn your mood, there is no delay of writing when any service is to be done by it! In fact you are very good to me, and always were, in all manner of ways; for which I do, as I ought, thank the Upper Powers and you. That truly has been and is one of the possessions of my life in this perverse epoch of the world….

I have sent off by John Chapman a Copy of the Life of Sterling, which is all printed and ready, but is not to appear till the first week of October…. Along with the Sheets was a poor little French Book for you,—Book of a poor Naval Mississippi Frenchman, one "Bossu," I think; written only a Century ago, yet which already seemed old as the Pyramids in reference to those strange fast-growing countries. I read it as a kind of defaced romance; very thin and lean, but all true, and very marvelous as such.

It is above three weeks since my Wife and I left London, (the Printer having done,) and came hither with the purpose of a month of what is called "Water Cure"; for which this place, otherwise extremely pleasant and wholesome, has become celebrated of late years. Dr. Gully, the pontiff of the business in our Island, warmly encouraged my purpose so soon as he heard of it; nay, urgently offered at once that both of us should become his own guests till the experiment were tried: and here accordingly we are; I water-curing, assiduously walking on the sunny mountains, drinking of the clear wells, not to speak of wet wrappages, solitary sad steepages, and other singular procedures; my Wife not meddling for her own behoof, but only seeing me do it. These have been three of the idlest weeks I ever spent, and there is still one to come: after which we go northward to Lancashire, and across the Border where my good old Mother still expects me; and so, after some little visiting and dawdling, hope to find ourselves home again before September end, and the inexpressible Glass Palace with its noisy inanity have taken itself quite away again. It was no increase of ill-health that drove me hither, rather the reverse; but I have long been minded to try this thing: and now I think the result will be,—zero pretty nearly, and one imagination the less. My long walks, my strenuous idleness, have certainly done me good; nor has the "water" done me any ill, which perhaps is much to say of it. For the rest, it is a strange quasi-monastic—godless and yet devotional—way of life which human creatures have here, and useful to them beyond doubt. I foresee, this "Water Cure," under better forms, will become the Ramadhan of the overworked unbelieving English in time coming; an institution they were dreadfully in want of, this long while!—We had Twisleton* here (often speaking of you), who is off to America again; will sail, I think, along with this Letter; a semi-articulate but solid- minded worthy man. We have other officials and other litterateurs (T.B. Macaulay in his hired villa for one): but the mind rather shuns than seeks them, one finds solitary quasi- devotion preferable, and [Greek], as Pindar had it!

—————- * The late Hon. Edward Twisleton, a man of high character and large attainments, and with a personal disposition that won the respect and affection of a wide circle of friends on both sides of the Atlantic. He was the author of a curious and learned treatise entitled "The Tongue not Essential to Speech," and his remarkable volume on "The Handwriting of Junius" seems to have effectually closed a long controversy. ————-

Richard Milnes is married, about two weeks ago, and gone to Vienna for a jaunt. His wife, a Miss Crewe (Lord Crewe's sister), about forty, pleasant, intelligent, and rather rich: that is the end of Richard's long first act. Alfred Tennyson, perhaps you heard, is gone to Italy with his wife: their baby died or was dead-born; they found England wearisome: Alfred has been taken up on the top of the wave, and a good deal jumbled about since you were here. Item Thackeray; who is coming over to lecture to you: a mad world, my Masters! Your Letter to Mazzini was duly despatched; and we hear from him that he will write to you, on the subject required, without delay. Browning and his wife, home from Florence, are both in London at present; mean to live in Paris henceforth for some time. They had seen something both of Margaret and her d'Ossoli, and appeared to have a true and lively interest in them; Browning spoke a long while to me, with emphasis, on the subject: I think it was I that had introduced poor Margaret to them. I said he ought to send these reminiscences to America,—that was the night before we left London, three weeks ago; his answer gave me the impression there had been some hindrance somewhere. Accordingly, when your Letter and Mazzini's reached me here, I wrote to Browning urgently on the subject: but he informs me that they have sent all their reminiscences, at the request of Mr. Story; so that it is already all well.—Dear Emerson, you see I am at the bottom of my paper. I will write to you again before long; we cannot let you lie fallow in that manner altogether. Have you got proper spectacles for your eyes? I have adopted that beautiful symbol of old age, and feel myself very venerable: take care of your eyes!

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

CXLVII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 14 April, 1852

My Dear Carlyle,—I have not grown so callous by my sulky habit, but that I know where my friends are, and who can help me, in time of need. And I have to crave your good offices today, and in a matter relating once more to Margaret Fuller…. You were so kind as to interest yourself, many months ago, to set Mazzini and Browning on writing their Reminiscences for us. But we never heard from either of them. Lately I have learned, by way of Sam Longfellow, in Paris, brother of our poet Longfellow, that Browning assured him that he did write and send a memoir to this country,—to whom, I know not. It never arrived at the hands of the Fullers, nor of Story, Channing, or me;—though the book was delayed in the hope of such help. I hate that his paper should be lost.

The little French Voyage, &c. of Bossu, I got safely, and compared its pictures with my own, at the Mississippi, the Illinois, and Chicago. It is curious and true enough, no doubt, though its Indians are rather dim and vague, and "Messieurs Sauvages" Good Indians we have in Alexander Henry's Travels in Canada, and in our modern Catlin, and the best Western America, perhaps, in F.A. Michaux, Voyage a l'ouest des monts Alleghanis, and in Fremont. But it was California I believe you asked about, and, after looking at Taylor, Parkman, and the rest, I saw that the only course is to read them all, and every private letter that gets into the newspapers. So there was nothing to say.

I rejoiced with the rest of mankind in the Life of Sterling, and now peace will be to his Manes, down in this lower sphere. Yet I see well that I should have held to his opinion, in all those conferences where you have so quietly assumed the palms. It is said: here, that you work upon Frederick the Great?? However that be, health, strength, love, joy, and victory to you.

—R.W. Emerson

CXLVIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 7 May, 1852

Dear Emerson,—I was delighted at the sight of your hand again. My manifold sins against you, involuntary all of them I may well say, are often enough present to my sad thoughts; and a kind of remorse is mixed with the other sorrow,—as if I could have helped growing to be, by aid of time and destiny, the grim Ishmaelite I am, and so shocking your serenity by my ferocities! I admit you were like an angel to me, and absorbed in the beautifulest manner all thunder-clouds into the depths of your immeasurable a ether;—and it is indubitable I love you very well, and have long done, and mean to do. And on the whole you will have to rally yourself into some kind of Correspondence with me again; I believe you will find that also to be a commanded duty by and by! To me at any rate, I can say, it is a great want, and adds perceptibly to the sternness of these years: deep as is my dissent from your Gymnosophist view of Heaven and Earth, I find an agreement that swallows up all conceivable dissents; in the whole world I hardly get, to my spoken human word, any other word of response which is authentically human. God help us, this is growing a very lonely place, this distracted dog- kennel of a world! And it is no joy to me to see it about to have its throat cut for its immeasurable devilries; that is not a pleasant process to be concerned in either more or less,— considering above all how many centuries, base and dismal all of them, it is like to take! Nevertheless Marchons,—and swift too, if we have any speed, for the sun is sinking…. Poor Margaret, that is a strange tragedy that history of hers; and has many traits of the Heroic in it, though it is wild as the prophecy of a Sibyl. Such a predetermination to eat this big Universe as her oyster or her egg, and to be absolute empress of all height and glory in it that her heart could conceive, I have not before seen in any human soul. Her "mountain me" indeed:— but her courage too is high and clear, her chivalrous nobleness indeed is great; her veracity, in its deepest sense, a toute epreuve.—Your Copy of the Book* came to me at last (to my joy): I had already read it; there was considerable notice taken of it here; and one half-volume of it (and I grieve to say only one, written by a man called Emerson) was completely approved by me and innumerable judges. The rest of the Book is not without considerable geniality and merits; but one wanted a clear concise Narrative beyond all other merits; and if you ask here (except in that half-volume) about any fact, you are answered (so to speak) not in words, but by a symbolic tune on the bagpipe, symbolic burst of wind-music from the brass band;—which is not the plan at all!—What can have become of Mazzini's Letter, which he certainly did write and despatched to you, is not easily conceivable. Still less in the case of Browning: for Browning and his Wife did also write; I myself in the end of last July, having heard him talk kindly and well of poor Margaret and her Husband, took the liberty on your behalf of asking him to put something down on paper; and he informed me, then and repeatedly since, he had already done it,—at the request of Mrs. Story, I think. His address at present is, "No. 138 Avenue des Champs Elysees, a Paris," if your American travelers still thought of inquiring.—Adieu, dear Emerson, till next week.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

———— * "The Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli." ————

CXLIX. Emerson to Carlyle*

Concord, May [?], 1852

You make me happy with your loving thoughts and meanings towards me. I have always thanked the good star which made us early neighbors, in some sort, in time and space. And the beam is twice warmed by your vigorous good-will, which has steadily kept clear, kind eyes on me.

———— * From an imperfect rough draft. ————

It is good to be born in good air and outlook, and not less with a civilization, that is, with one poet still living in the world. O yes, and I feel all the solemnity and vital cheer of the benefit.—If only the mountains of water and of land and the steeper mountains of blighted and apathized moods would permit a word to pass now and then. It is very fine for you to tax yourself with all those incompatibilities. I like that Thor should make comets and thunder, as well as Iduna apples, or Heimdal his rainbow bridge, and your wrath and satire has all too much realism in it, than that we can flatter ourselves by disposing of you as partial and heated. Nor is it your fault that you do a hero's work, nor do we love you less if we cannot help you in it. Pity me, O strong man! I am of a puny constitution half made up, and as I from childhood knew,—not a poet but a lover of poetry, and poets, and merely serving as writer, &c. in this empty America, before the arrival of the poets. You must not misconstrue my silences, but thank me for them all, as a true homage to your diligence which I love to defend…

She* had such reverence and love for Landor that I do not know but at any moment in her natural life she would have sunk in the sea, for an ode from him; and now this most propitious cake is offered to her Manes. The loss of the notes of Browning and of Mazzini, which you confirm, astonishes me.

————- * Margaret Fuller. The break in continuity is in the rough draft. ————-

CL. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 25 June, 1852

Dear Emerson…… You are a born enthusiast, as quiet as you are; and it will continue so, at intervals, to the end. I admire your sly low-voiced sarcasm too;—in short, I love the sternly-gentle close-buttoned man very well, as I have always done, and intend to continue doing!—Pray observe therefore, and lay it to heart as a practical fact, that you are bound to persevere in writing to me from time to time; and will never get it given up, how sulky soever you grow, while we both remain in this world. Do not I very well understand all that you say about "apathized moods," &c.? The gloom of approaching old age (approaching, nay arriving with some of us) is very considerable upon a man; and on the whole one contrives to take the very ugliest view, now and then, of all beautifulest things; and to shut one's lips with a kind of grim defiance, a kind of imperial sorrow which is almost like felicity,—so completely and composedly wretched, one is equal to the very gods! These too are necessary, moods to a man. But the Earth withal is verdant, sun-beshone; and the Son of Adam has his place on it, and his tasks and recompenses in it, to the close;—as one remembers by and by, too. On the whole, I am infinitely solitary; but not more heavy laden than I have all along been, perhaps rather less so; I could fancy even old age to be beautiful, and to have a real divineness: for the rest, I say always, I cannot part with you, however it go; and so, in brief, you must get into the way of holding yourself obliged as formerly to a kind of dialogue with me; and speak, on paper since not otherwise, the oftenest you can. Let that be a point settled.

I am not writing on Frederic the Great; nor at all practically contemplating to do so. But, being in a reading mood after those furious Pamphlets (which have procured me showers of abuse from all the extensive genus Stupid in this country, and not done me any other mischief, but perhaps good), and not being capable of reading except in a train and about some object of interest to me,—I took to reading, near a year ago, about Frederick, as I had twice in my life done before; and have, in a loose way, tumbled up an immense quantity of shot rubbish on that field, and still continue. Not with much decisive approach to Frederick's self, I am still afraid! The man looks brilliant and noble to me; but how love him, or the sad wreck he lived and worked in? I do not even yet see him clearly; and to try making others see him—?—Yet Voltaire and he are the celestial element of the poor Eighteenth Century; poor souls. I confess also to a real love for Frederick's dumb followers: the Prussian Soldiery.—I often say to myself, "Were not here the real priests and virtuous martyrs of that loud-babbling rotten generation!" And so it goes on; when to end, or in what to end, God knows.

Adieu, dear Emerson. A blockhead (by mistake) has been let in, and has consumed all my time. Good be ever with you and yours.

—T. Carlyle

CLI. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 19 April, 1853

My Dear Friend,—As I find I never write a letter except at the dunning of the Penny Post,—which is the pest of the century,—I have thought lately of crossing to England to excuse to you my negligence of your injunction, which so flattered me by its affectionateness a year ago. I was to write once a month. My own disobedience is wonderful, and explains to me all the sins of omission of the whole world. The levity with which we can let fall into disuse such a sacrament as the exchange of greeting at short periods, is a kind of magnanimity, and should be an astonishing argument of the "Immortality"; and I wonder how it has escaped the notice of philosophers. But what had I, dear wise man, to tell you? What, but that life was still tolerable; still absurdly sweet; still promising, promising, to credulous idleness;—but step of mine taken in a true direction, or clear solution of any the least secret,—none whatever. I scribble always a little,—much less than formerly,—and I did within a year or eighteen months write a chapter on Fate, which—if we all live long enough, that is, you, and I, and the chapter—I hope to send you in fair print. Comfort yourself—as you will—you will survive the reading, and will be a sure proof that the nut is not cracked. For when we find out what Fate is, I suppose, the Sphinx and we are done for; and Sphinx, Oedipus, and world ought, by good rights, to roll down the steep into the sea.

But I was going to say, my neglect of your request will show you how little saliency is in my weeks and months. They are hardly distinguished in memory other than as a running web out of a loom, a bright stripe for day, a dark stripe for night, and, when it goes faster, even these run together into endless gray… I went lately to St. Louis and saw the Mississippi again. The powers of the River, the insatiate craving for nations of men to reap and cure its harvests, the conditions it imposes,—for it yields to no engineering,—are interesting enough. The Prairie exists to yield the greatest possible quantity of adipocere. For corn makes pig, pig is the export of all the land, and you shall see the instant dependence of aristocracy and civility on the fat four legs. Workingmen, ability to do the work of the River, abounded. Nothing higher was to be thought of. America is incomplete. Room for us all, since it has not ended, nor given sign of ending, in bard or hero. 'T is a wild democracy, the riot of mediocrities, and none of your selfish Italies and Englands, where an age sublimates into a genius, and the whole population is made into Paddies to feed his porcelain veins, by transfusion from their brick arteries. Our few fine persons are apt to die. Horatio Greenough, a sculptor, whose tongue was far cunninger in talk than his chisel to carve, and who inspired great hopes, died two months ago at forty-seven years. Nature has only so much vital force, and must dilute it, if it is to be multiplied into millions. "The beautiful is never plentiful." On the whole, I say to myself, that our conditions in America are not easier or less expensive than the European. For the poor scholar everywhere must be compromise or alternation, and, after many remorses, the consoling himself that there has been pecuniary honesty, and that things might have been worse. But no; we must think much better things than these. Let Lazarus believe that Heaven does not corrupt into maggots, and that heroes do not succumb.

Clough is here, and comes to spend a Sunday with me, now and then. He begins to have pupils, and, if his courage holds out, will have as many as he wants…. I have written hundreds of pages about England and America, and may send them to you in print. And now be good and write me once more, and I think I will never cease to write again. And give my homage to Jane Carlyle.

Ever yours,

R.W. Emerson

CLII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 13 May, 1853

Dear Emerson,—The sight of your handwriting was a real blessing to me, after so long an abstinence. You shall not know all the sad reflections I have made upon your silence within the last year. I never doubted your fidelity of heart; your genial deep and friendly recognition of my bits of merits, and my bits of sufferings, difficulties and obstructions; your forgiveness of my faults; or in fact that you ever would forget me, or cease to think kindly of me: but it seemed as if practically Old Age had come upon the scene here too; and as if upon the whole one must make up one's mind to know that all this likewise had fallen silent, and could be possessed henceforth only on those new terms. Alas, there goes much over, year after year, into the regions of the Immortals; inexpressibly beautiful, but also inexpressibly sad. I have not many voices to commune with in the world. In fact I have properly no voice at all; and yours, I have often said, was the unique among my fellow-creatures, from which came full response, and discourse of reason: the solitude one lives in, if one has any spiritual thought at all, is very great in these epochs!—The truth is, moreover, I bought spectacles to myself about two years ago (bad print in candle- light having fairly become troublesome to me); much may lie in that! "The buying of your first pair of spectacles," I said to an old Scotch gentleman, "is an important epoch; like the buying of your first razor."—"Yes," answered he, "but not quite so joyful perhaps!"—Well, well, I have heard from you again; and you promise to be again constant in writing. Shall I believe you, this time? Do it, and shame the Devil! I really am persuaded it will do yourself good; and to me I know right well, and have always known, what it will do. The gaunt lonesomeness of this Midnight Hour, in the ugly universal snoring hum of the overfilled deep-sunk Posterity of Adam, renders an articulate speaker precious indeed! Watchman, what sayest thou, then? Watchman, what of the night?—

Your glimpses of the huge unmanageable Mississippi, of the huge ditto Model Republic, have here and there something of the epic in them,—ganz nach meinem Sinne. I see you do not dissent from me in regard to that latter enormous Phenomenon, except on the outer surface, and in the way of peaceably instead of _un_peaceably accepting the same. Alas, all the world is a "republic of the Mediocrities," and always was;—you may see what its "universal suffrage" is and has been, by looking into all the ugly mud-ocean (with some old weathercocks atop) that now is: the world wholly (if we think of it) is the exact stamp of men wholly, and of the sincerest heart-tongue-and-hand "suffrage" they could give about it, poor devils!—I was much struck with Plato, last year, and his notions about Democracy: mere Latter-Day Pamphlet saxa et faces (read faeces, if you like) refined into empyrean radiance and lightning of the gods!— I, for my own part, perceive the use of all this too, the inevitability of all this; but perceive it (at the present height it has attained) to be disastrous withal, to be horrible and even damnable. That Judas Iscariot should come and slap Jesus Christ on the shoulder in a familiar manner; that all heavenliest nobleness should be flung out into the muddy streets there to jostle elbows with all thickest-skinned denizens of chaos, and get itself at every turn trampled into the gutters and annihilated:—alas, the reverse of all this was, is, and ever will be, the strenuous effort and most solemn heart-purpose of every good citizen in every country of the world,—and will reappear conspicuously as such (in New England and in Old, first of all, as I calculate), when once this malodorous melancholy "Uncle Tommery" is got all well put by! Which will take some time yet, I think.—And so we will leave it.

I went to Germany last autumn; not seeking anything very definite; rather merely flying from certain troops of carpenters, painters, bricklayers, &c., &c., who had made a lodgment in this poor house; and have not even yet got their incalculable riot quite concluded. Sorrow on them,—and no return to these poor premises of mine till I have quite left!—In Germany I found but little; and suffered, from six weeks of sleeplessness in German beds, &c., &c., a great deal. Indeed I seem to myself never yet to have quite recovered. The Rhine which I honestly ascended from Rotterdam to Frankfort was, as I now find, my chief Conquest the beautifulest river in the Earth, I do believe; and my first idea of a World-river. It is many fathoms deep, broader twice over than the Thames here at high water; and rolls along, mirror-smooth (except that, in looking close, you will find ten thousand little eddies in it), voiceless, swift, with trim banks, through the heart of Europe, and of the Middle Ages wedded to the Present Age: such an image of calm power (to say nothing of its other properties) I find I had never seen before. The old Cities too are a little beautiful to me, in spite of my state of nerves; honest, kindly people too, but sadly short of our and your despatch-of-business talents,—a really painful defect in the long run. I was on two of Fritz's Battle-fields, moreover: Lobositz in Bohemia, and Kunersdorf by Frankfurt on the Oder; but did not, especially in the latter case, make much of that. Schiller's death-chamber, Goethe's sad Court-environment; above all, Luther's little room in the Wartburg (I believe I actually had tears in my eyes there, and kissed the old oak-table, being in a very flurried state of nerves), my belief was that under the Canopy there was not at present so holy a spot as that same. Of human souls I found none specially beautiful to me at all, at all,—such my sad fate! Of learned professors, I saw little, and that little was more than enough. Tieck at Berlin, an old man, lame on a Sofa, I did love, and do; he is an exception, could I have seen much of him. But on the whole Universal Puseyism seemed to me the humor of German, especially of Berlin thinkers;—and I had some quite portentous specimens of that kind,—unconscious specimens of four hundred quack power! Truly and really the Prussian Soldiers, with their intelligent silence, with the touches of effective Spartanism I saw or fancied in them, were the class of people that pleased me best. But see, my sheet is out! I am still reading, reading, most nightmare Books about Fritz; but as to writing,—Ach Gott! Never, never.—Clough is coming home, I hope.—Write soon, if you be not enchanted!

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

CLIIa. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 10 August, 1853

My Dear Carlyle,—Your kindest letter, whose date I dare not count back to,—perhaps it was May,—I have just read again, to be deeply touched by its noble tragic tone of goodness to me, not without new wonder at my perversity, and terror at what both may be a-forging to strike me. My slowness to write is a distemper that reaches all my correspondence, and not that with you only, though the circumstance is not worth stating, because, if I ceased to write to all the rest, there would yet be good reason for writing to you. I believe the reason of this recusancy is the fear of disgusting my friends, as with a book open always at the same page. For I have some experiences, that my interest in thoughts—and to an end, perhaps, only of new thoughts and thinking—outlasts that of all my reasonable neighbors, and offends, no doubt, by unhealthy pertinacity. But though rebuked by a daily reduction to an absurd solitude, and by a score of disappointments with intellectual people, and in the face of a special hell provided for me in the Swedenborg Universe, I am yet confirmed in my madness by the scope and satisfaction I find in a conversation once or twice in five years, if so often; and so we find or pick what we call our proper path, though it be only from stone to stone, or from island to island, in a very rude, stilted, and violent fashion. With such solitariness and frigidities, you may judge I was glad to see Clough here, with whom I had established some kind of robust working-friendship, and who had some great permanent values for me. Had he not taken me by surprise and fled in a night, I should have done what I could to block his way. I am too sure he will not return. The first months comprise all the shocks of disappointment that are likely to disgust a new-comer. The sphere of opportunity opens slowly, but to a man of his abilities and culture—rare enough here—with the sureness of chemistry. The Giraffe entering Paris wore the label, "Eh bien, messieurs, il n'y a qu'une bete de plus!" And Oxonians are cheap in London; but here, the eternal economy of sending things where they are wanted makes a commanding claim. Do not suffer him to relapse into London. He had made himself already cordially welcome to many good people, and would have soon made his own place. He had just established his valise at my house, and was to come—the gay deceiver—once a fortnight for his Sunday; and his individualities and his nationalities are alike valuable to me. I beseech you not to commend his unheroic retreat.

I have lately made, one or two drafts on your goodness,—which I hate to do, both because you meet them so generously, and because you never give me an opportunity of revenge,—and mainly in the case of Miss Bacon, who has a private history that entitles her to high respect, and who could be helped only by facilitating her Shakespeare studies, in which she has the faith and ardor of a discoverer. Bancroft was to have given her letters to Hallam, but gave one to Sir H. Ellis. Everett, I believe, gave her one to Mr. Grote; and when I told her what I remembered hearing of Spedding, she was eager to see him; which access I knew not how to secure, except through you. She wrote me that she prospers in all things, and had just received at once a summons to meet Spedding at your house. But do not fancy that I send any one to you heedlessly; for I value your time at its rate to nations, and refuse many more letters than I give. I shall not send you any more people without good reason.

Your visit to Germany will stand you in stead, when the annoyances of the journey are forgotten, and, in spite of your disclaimers, I am preparing to read your history of Frederic. You are an inveterate European, and rightfully stand for your polity and antiquities and culture: and I have long since forborne to importune you with America, as if it were a humorous repetition of Johnson's visit to Scotland. And yet since Thackeray's adventure, I have often thought how you would bear the pains and penalties; and have painted out your march triumphal. I was at New York, lately, for a few days, and fell into some traces of Thackeray, who has made a good mark in this country by a certain manly blurting out of his opinion in various companies, where so much honesty was rare and useful. I am sorry never once to have been in the same town with him whilst he was here. I hope to see him, if he comes again. New York would interest you, as I am told it did him; you both less and more. The "society" there is at least self-pleased, and its own; it has a contempt of Boston, and a very modest opinion of London. There is already all the play and fury that belong to great wealth. A new fortune drops into the city every day; no end is to palaces, none to diamonds, none to dinners and suppers. All Spanish America discovers that only in the U. States, of all the continent, is safe investment; and money gravitates therefore to New York. The Southern naphtha, too, comes in as an ingredient, and lubricates manners and tastes to that degree, that Boston is hated for stiffness, and excellence in luxury is rapidly attained. Of course, dining, dancing, equipaging, etc. are the exclusive beatitudes,—and Thackeray will not cure us of this distemper. Have you a physician that can? Are you a physician, and will you come? If you will come, cities will go out to meet you.

And now I see I have so much to say to you that I ought to write once a month, and I must begin at this point again incontinently.

Ever yours,

R.W. Emerson

CLIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 9 September, 1853

Dear Emerson,—Your Letter came ten days ago; very kind, and however late, surely right welcome! You ought to stir yourself up a little, and actually begin to speak to me again. If we are getting old, that is no reason why we should fall silent, and entirely abstruse to one another. Alas, I do not find as I grow older that the number of articulate-speaking human souls increases around me, in proportion to the inarticulate and palavering species! I am often abundantly solitary in heart; and regret the old days when we used to speak oftener together.

I have not quitted Town this year at all; have resisted calls to Scotland both of a gay and a sad description (for the Ashburtons are gone to John of Groat's House, or the Scottish Thule, to rusticate and hunt; and, alas, in poor old Annandale a tragedy seems preparing for me, and the thing I have dreaded all my days is perhaps now drawing nigh, ah me!)—I felt so utterly broken and disgusted with the jangle of last year's locomotion, I judged it would be better to sit obstinately still, and let my thoughts settle (into sediment and into clearness, as it might be); and so, in spite of great and peculiar noises moreover, here I am and remain. London is not a bad place at all in these months,—with its long clean streets, green parks, and nobody in them, or nobody one has ever seen before. Out of La Trappe, which does not suit a Protestant man, there is perhaps no place where one can be so perfectly alone. I might study even but, as I said, there are noises going on; a last desperate spasmodic effort of building,—a new top-story to the house, out of which is to be made one "spacious room" (so they call it, though it is under twenty feet square) where there shall be air ad libitum, light from the sky, and no sound, not even that of the Cremorne Cannons, shall find access to me any more! Such is the prophecy; may the gods grant it! We shall see now in about a month;—then adieu to mortar-tubs to all Eternity:—I endure the thing, meanwhile, as well as I can; might run to a certain rural retreat near by, if I liked at any time; but do not yet: the worst uproar here is but a trifle to that of German inns, and horrible squeaking, choking railway trains; and one does not go to seek this, this is here of its own will, and for a purpose! Seriously, I had for twelve years had such a sound-proof inaccessible apartment schemed out in my head; and last year, under a poor, helpless builder, had finally given it up: but Chelsea, as London generally, swelling out as if it were mad, grows every year noisier; a good builder turned up, and with a last paroxysm of enthusiasm I set him to. My notion is, he will succeed; in which case, it will be a great possession to me for the rest of my life. Alas, this is not the kind of silence I could have coveted, and could once get,—with green fields and clear skies to accompany it! But one must take such as can be had,—and thank the gods. Even so, my friend. In the course of about a year of that garret sanctuary, I hope to have swept away much litter from my existence: in fact I am already, by dint of mere obstinate quiescence in such circumstances as there are, intrinsically growing fairly sounder in nerves. What a business a poor human being has with those nerves of his, with that crazy clay tabernacle of his! Enough, enough; there will be all Eternity to rest in, as Arnauld said: "Why in such a fuss, little sir?"

You "apologize" for sending people to me: O you of little faith! Never dream of such a thing nay, whom did you send? The Cincinnati Lecturer* I had provided for with Owen; they would have been glad to hear him, on the Cedar forests, on the pigs making rattlesnakes into bacon, and the general adipocere question, under any form, at the Albemarle Street rooms;—and he never came to hand. As for Miss Bacon, we find her, with her modest shy dignity, with her solid character and strange enterprise, a real acquisition; and hope we shall now see more of her, now that she has come nearer to us to lodge. I have not in my life seen anything so tragically quixotic as her Shakespeare enterprise: alas, alas, there can be nothing but sorrow, toil, and utter disappointment in it for her! I do cheerfully what I can;—which is far more than she asks of me (for I have not seen a prouder silent soul);—but there is not the least possibility of truth in the notion she has taken up: and the hope of ever proving it, or finding the least document that countenances it, is equal to that of vanquishing the windmills by stroke of lance. I am often truly sorry about the poor lady: but she troubles nobody with her difficulties, with her theories; she must try the matter to the end, and charitable souls must further her so far.

————- * Mr. O.M. Mitchell, the astronomer. ————-

Clough is settled in his Office; gets familiarized to it rapidly (he says), and seems to be doing well. I see little of him hitherto; I did not, and will not, try to influence him in his choice of countries; but I think he is now likely to continue here, and here too he may do us some good. Of America, at least of New England, I can perceive he has brought away an altogether kindly, almost filial impression,—especially of a certain man who lives in that section of the Earth. More power to his elbow!—Thackeray has very rarely come athwart me since his return: he is a big fellow, soul and body; of many gifts and qualities (particularly in the Hogarth line, with a dash of Sterne superadded), of enormous appetite withal, and very uncertain and chaotic in all points except his outer breeding, which is fixed enough, and perfect according to the modern English style. I rather dread explosions in his history. A big, fierce, weeping, hungry man; not a strong one. Ay de mi! But I must end, I must end. Your Letter awakened in me, while reading it, one mad notion. I said to myself: Well, if I live to finish this Frederic impossibility, or even to fling it fairly into the fire, why should not I go, in my old days, and see Concord, Yankeeland, and that man again, after all!—Adieu, dear friend; all good be with you and yours always.

—T. Carlyle

CLIV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 11 March, 1854

My Dear Carlyle,—The sight of Mr. Samuel Laurence, the day before yesterday, in New York, and of your head among his sketches, set me on thinking which had some pain where should be only cheer. For Mr. Laurence I hailed his arrival, on every account. I wish to see a good man whom you prize; and I like to have good Englishmen come to America, which, of all countries, after their own, has the best claim to them. He promises to come and see me, and has begun most propitiously in New York. For you,—I have too much constitutional regard and —-, not to feel remorse for my short-comings and slow-comings, and I remember the maxim which the French stole from our Indians,—and it was worth stealing,—"Let not the grass grow on the path of friendship." Ah! my brave giant, you can never understand the silence and forbearances of such as are not giants. To those to whom we owe affection, let us be dumb until we are strong, though we should never be strong. I hate mumped and measled lovers. I hate cramp in all men,—most in myself.

And yet I should have been pushed to write without Samuel Laurence; for I lately looked into Jesuitism, a Latter-Day Pamphlet, and found why you like those papers so well. I think you have cleared your skirts; it is a pretty good minority of one, enunciating with brilliant malice what shall be the universal opinion of the next edition of mankind. And the sanity was so manifest, that I felt that the over-gods had cleared their skirts also to this generation, in not leaving themselves without witness, though without this single voice perhaps I should not acquit them. Also I pardon the world that reads the book as though it read it not, when I see your inveterated humors. It required courage and required conditions that feuilletonists are not the persons to name or qualify, this writing Rabelais in 1850. And to do this alone.—You must even pitch your tune to suit yourself. We must let Arctic Navigators and deepsea divers wear what astonishing coats, and eat what meats—wheat or whale— they like, without criticism.

I read further, sidewise and backwards, in these pamphlets, without exhausting them. I have not ceased to think of the great warm heart that sends them forth, and which I, with others, sometimes tag with satire, and with not being warm enough for this poor world;—I too,—though I know its meltings to-me-ward. Then I learned that the newspapers had announced the death of your mother (which I heard of casually on the Rock River, Illinois), and that you and your brother John had been with her in Scotland. I remembered what you had once and again said of her to me, and your apprehensions of the event which has come. I can well believe you were grieved. The best son is not enough a son. My mother died in my house in November, who had lived with me all my life, and kept her heart and mind clear, and her own, until the end. It is very necessary that we should have mothers,—we that read and write,—to keep us from becoming paper. I had found that age did not make that she should die without causing me pain. In my journeying lately, when I think of home the heart is taken out.

Miss Bacon wrote me in joyful fulness of the cordial kindness and aid she had found at your hands, and at your wife's; and I have never thanked you, and much less acknowledged her copious letter,—copious with desired details. Clough, too, wrote about you, and I have not written to him since his return to England. You will see how total is my ossification. Meantime I have nothing to tell you that can explain this mild palsy. I worked for a time on my English Notes with a view of printing, but was forced to leave them to go read some lectures in Philadelphia and some Western towns. I went out Northwest to great countries which I had not visited before; rode one day, fault of broken railroads, in a sleigh, sixty-five miles through the snow, by Lake Michigan, (seeing how prairies and oak-openings look in winter,) to reach Milwaukee; "the world there was done up in large lots," as a settler told me. The farmer, as he is now a colonist and has drawn from his local necessities great doses of energy, is interesting, and makes the heroic age for Wisconsin. He lives on venison and quails. I was made much of, as the only man of the pen within five hundred miles, and by rarity worth more than venison and quails.

Greeley of the New York Tribune is the right spiritual father of all this region; he prints and disperses one hundred and ten thousand newspapers in one day,—multitudes of them in these very parts. He had preceded me, by a few days, and people had flocked together, coming thirty and forty miles to hear him speak; as was right, for he does all their thinking and theory for them, for two dollars a year. Other than Colonists, I saw no man. "There are no singing birds in the prairie," I truly heard. All the life of the land and water had distilled no thought. Younger and better, I had no doubt been tormented to read and speak their sense for them. Now I only gazed at them and their boundless land.

One good word closed your letter in September, which ought to have had an instant reply, namely, that you might come westward when Frederic was disposed of. Speed Frederic, then, for all reasons and for this! America is growing furiously, town and state; new Kansas, new Nebraska looming up in these days, vicious politicians seething a wretched destiny for them already at Washington. The politicians shall be sodden, the States escape, please God! The fight of slave and freeman drawing nearer, the question is sharply, whether slavery or whether freedom shall be abolished. Come and see. Wealth, which is always interesting, for from wealth power refuses to be divorced, is on a new scale. Californian quartz mountains dumped down in New York to be repiled architecturally along shore from Canada to Cuba, and thence west to California again. John Bull interests you at home, and is all your subject. Come and see the Jonathanization of John. What, you scorn all this? Well, then, come and see a few good people, impossible to be seen on any other shore, who heartily and always greet you. There is a very serious welcome for you here. And I too shall wake from sleep. My wife entreats that an invitation shall go from her to you.

Faithfully yours,

R.W. Emerson

CLV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 8 April, 1854

Dear Emerson,—It was a morning not like any other which lay round it, a morning to be marked white, that one, about a week ago, when your Letter came to me; a word from you yet again, after so long a silence! On the whole, I perceive you will not utterly give up answering me, but will rouse yourself now and then to a word of human brotherhood on my behalf, so long as we both continue in this Planet. And I declare, the Heavens will reward you; and as to me, I will be thankful for what I get, and submissive to delays and to all things: all things are good compared with flat want in that respect. It remains true, and will remain, what I have often told you, that properly there is no voice in this world which is completely human to me, which fully understands all I say and with clear sympathy and sense answers to me, but your voice only. That is a curious fact, and not quite a joyful one to me. The solitude, the silence of my poor soul, in the centre of this roaring whirlpool called Universe, is great, always, and sometimes strange and almost awful. I have two million talking bipeds without feathers, close at my elbow, too; and of these it is often hard for me to say whether the so-called "wise" or the almost professedly foolish are the more inexpressibly unproductive to me. "Silence, Silence!" I often say to myself: "Be silent, thou poor fool; and prepare for that Divine Silence which is now not far!"—On the whole, write to me whenever you can; and be not weary of well-doing.

I have had sad things to do and see since I wrote to you: the loss of my dear and good old Mother, which could not be spared me forever, has come more like a kind of total bankruptcy upon me than might have been expected, considering her age and mine. Oh those last two days, that last Christmas Sunday! She was a true, pious, brave, and noble Mother to me; and it is now all over; and the Past has all become pale and sad and sacred;—and the all-devouring potency of Death, what we call Death, has never looked so strange, cruel and unspeakable to me. Nay not cruel altogether, let me say: huge, profound, unspeakable, that is the word.—You too have lost your good old Mother, who stayed with you like mine, clear to the last: alas, alas, it is the oldest Law of Nature; and it comes on every one of us with a strange originality, as if it had never happened before.— Forward, however; and no more lamenting; no more than cannot be helped. "Paradise is under the shadow of our swords," said the Emir: "Forward!"—

I make no way in my Prussian History; I bore and dig toilsomely through the unutterablest mass of dead rubbish, which is not even English, which is German and inhuman; and hardly from ten tons of learned inanity is there to be riddled one old rusty nail. For I have been back as far as Pytheas who, first of speaking creatures, beheld the Teutonic Countries; and have questioned all manner of extinct German shadows,—who answer nothing but mumblings. And on the whole Fritz himself is not sufficiently divine to me, far from it; and I am getting old, and heavy of heart;—and in short, it oftenest seems to me I shall never write any word about that matter; and have again fairly got into the element of the IMPOSSIBLE. Very well: could I help it? I can at least be honestly silent; and "bear my indigence with dignity," as you once said. The insuperable difficulty of Frederic is, that he, the genuine little ray of Veritable and Eternal that was in him, lay imbedded in the putrid Eighteenth Century, such an Ocean of sordid nothingness, shams, and scandalous hypocrisies, as never weltered in the world before; and that in everything I can find yet written or recorded of him, he still, to all intents and purposes, most tragically lies THERE;—and ought not to lie there, if any use is ever to be had of him, or at least of writing about him; for as to him, he with his work is safe enough to us, far elsewhere.—Pity me, pity me; I know not on what hand to turn; and have such a Chaos filling all my Earth and Heaven as was seldom seen in British or Foreign Literature! Add to which, the Sacred Entity, Literature itself, is not growing more venerable to me, but less and ever less: good Heavens, I feel often as if there were no madder set of bladders tumbling on the billows of the general Bedlam at this moment than even the Literary ones,—dear at twopence a gross, I should say, unless one could annihilate them by purchase on those easy terms! But do not tell this in Gath; let it be a sad family secret.

I smile, with a kind of grave joy, over your American speculations, and wild dashing portraitures of things as they are with you; and recognize well, under your light caricature, the outlines of a right true picture, which has often made me sad and grim in late years. Yes, I consider that the "Battle of Freedom and Slavery" is very far from ended; and that the fate of poor "Freedom" in the quarrel is very questionable indeed! Alas, there is but one Slavery, as I wrote somewhere; and that, I think, is mounting towards a height, which may bring strokes to bear upon it again! Meanwhile, patience; for us there is nothing else appointed.—Tell me, however, what has become of your Book on England? We shall really be obliged to you for that. A piece of it went through all the Newspapers, some years ago; which was really unique for its quaint kindly insight, humor, and other qualities; like an etching by Hollar or Durer, amid the continents of vile smearing which are called "pictures" at present. Come on, Come on; give us the Book, and don't loiter!—

Miss Bacon has fled away to St. Alban's (the Great Bacon's place) five or six months ago; and is there working out her Shakespeare Problem, from the depths of her own mind, disdainful apparently, or desperate and careless, of all evidence from Museums or Archives; I have not had an answer from her since before Christmas, and have now lost her address. Poor Lady: I sometimes silently wish she were safe home again; for truly there can no madder enterprise than her present one be well figured. Adieu, my Friend; I must stop short here. Write soon, if you have any charity. Good be with you ever.

—T. Carlyle

CLVI. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 17 April, 1855

My Dear Friend,—On this delicious spring day, I will obey the beautiful voices of the winds, long disobeyed, and address you; nor cloud the hour by looking at the letters in my drawer to know if a twelvemonth has been allowed to elapse since this tardy writing was due. Mr. Everett sent me one day a letter he had received from you, containing a kind message to me, which gave me pleasure and pain. I returned the letter with thanks, and with promises I would sin no more. Instantly, I was whisked, by "the stormy wing of Fate," out of my chain, and whirled, like a dry leaf, through the State of New York.

Now at home again, I read English Newspapers, with all the world, and claim an imaginary privilege over my compatriots, that I revolve therein my friend's large part. Ward said to me yesterday, that Carlyle's star was daily rising. For C. had said years ago, when all men thought him mad, that which the rest of mortals, including the Times Newspaper, have at last got near enough to see with eyes, and therefore to believe. And one day, in Philadelphia, you should have heard the wise young Philip Randolph defend you against objections of mine. But when I have such testimony, I say to myself, the high-seeing austerely exigent friend whom I elected, and who elected me, twenty years and more ago, finds me heavy and silent, when all the world elects and loves him. Yet I have not changed. I have the same pride in his genius, the same sympathy with the Genius that governs his, the old love with the old limitations, though love and limitation be all untold. And I see well what a piece of Providence he is, how material he is to the times, which must always have a solo Soprano to balance the roar of the Orchestra. The solo sings the theme; the orchestra roars antagonistically but follows.—And have I not put him into my Chapter of "English Spiritual Tendencies," with all thankfulness to the Eternal Creator,—though the chapter lie unborn in a trunk?

'T is fine for us to excuse ourselves, and patch with promises. We shall do as before, and science is a fatalist. I follow, I find, the fortunes of my Country, in my privatest ways. An American is pioneer and man of all work, and reads up his newspaper on Saturday night, as farmers and foresters do. We admire the [Greek], and mean to give our boys the grand habit; but we only sketch what they may do. No leisure except for the strong, the nimble have none.—I ought to tell you what I do, or I ought to have to tell you what I have done. But what can I? the same concession to the levity of the times, the noise of America comes again. I have even run on wrong topics for my parsimonious Muse, and waste my time from my true studies. England I see as a roaring volcano of Fate, which threatens to roast or smother the poor literary Plinys that come too near for mere purpose of reporting.

I have even fancied you did me a harm by the valued gift of Antony Wood;—which, and the like of which, I take a lotophagous pleasure in eating. Yet this is measuring after appearance, measuring on hours and days; the true measure is quite other, for life takes its color and quality not from the days, but the dawns. The lucid intervals are like drowning men's moments, equivalent to the foregoing years. Besides, Nature uses us. We live but little for ourselves, a good deal for our children, and strangers. Each man is one more lump of clay to hold the world together. It is in the power of the Spirit meantime to make him rich reprisals,—which he confides will somewhere be done.—Ah, my friend, you have better things to send me word of, than these musings of indolence. Is Frederic recreated? Is Frederic the Great?

Forget my short-comings and write to me. Miss Bacon sends me word, again and again, of your goodness. Against hope and sight she must be making a remarkable book. I have a letter from her, a few days ago, written in perfect assurance of success! Kindest remembrances to your wife and to your brother.

Yours faithfully,

R.W. Emerson

CLVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 18 May, 1855

Dear Emerson,—Last Sunday, Clough was here; and we were speaking about you, (much to your discredit, you need not doubt,) and how stingy in the way of Letters you were grown; when, next morning, your Letter itself made its appearance. Thanks, thanks. You know not in the least, I perceive, nor can be made to understand at all, how indispensable your Letters are to me. How you are, and have for a long time been, the one of all the sons of Adam who, I felt, completely understood what I was saying; and answered with a truly human voice,—inexpressibly consolatory to a poor man, in his lonesome pilgrimage, towards the evening of the day! So many voices are not human; but more or less bovine, porcine, canine; and one's soul dies away in sorrow in the sound of them, and is reduced to a dialogue with the "Silences," which is of a very abstruse nature!—Well, whether you write to me or not, I reserve to myself the privilege of writing to you, so long as we both continue in this world! As the beneficent Presences vanish from me, one after the other, those that remain are the more precious, and I will not part with them, not with the chief of them, beyond all.

This last year has been a grimmer lonelier one with me than any I can recollect for a long time. I did not go to the Country at all in summer or winter; refused even my Christmas at The Grange with the Ashburtons,—it was too sad an anniversary for me;—I have sat here in my garret, wriggling and wrestling on the worst terms with a Task that I cannot do, that generally seems to me not worth doing, and yet must be done. These are truly the terms. I never had such a business in my life before. Frederick himself is a pretty little man to me, veracious, courageous, invincible in his small sphere; but he does not rise into the empyrean regions, or kindle my heart round him at all; and his history, upon which there are wagon-loads of dull bad books, is the most dislocated, unmanageably incoherent, altogether dusty, barren and beggarly production of the modern Muses as given hitherto. No man of genius ever saw him with eyes, except twice Mirabeau, for half an hour each time. And the wretched Books have no indexes, no precision of detail; and I am far away from Berlin and the seat of information;—and, in brief, shall be beaten miserably with this unwise enterprise in my old days; and (in fine) will consent to be so, and get through it if I can before I die. This of obstinacy is the one quality I still show; all my other qualities (hope, among them) often seem to have pretty much taken leave of me; but it is necessary to hold by this last. Pray for me; I will complain no more at present. General Washington gained the freedom of America— chiefly by this respectable quality I talk of; nor can a history of Frederick be written, in Chelsea in the year 1855, except as against hope, and by planting yourself upon it in an extremely dogged manner.

We are all wool-gathering here, with wide eyes and astonished minds, at a singular rate, since you heard last from me! "Balaklava," I can perceive, is likely to be a substantive in the English language henceforth: it in truth expresses compendiously what an earnest mind will experience everywhere in English life; if his soul rise at all above cotton and scrip, a man has to pronounce it all a Balaklava these many years. A Balaklava now yielding, under the pressure of rains and unexpected transit of heavy wagons; champing itself down into mere mud-gulfs,—towards the bottomless Pool, if some flooring be not found. To me it is not intrinsically a new phenomenon, only an extremely hideous one. Altum Silentium, what else can I reply to it at present? The Turk War, undertaken under pressure of the mere mobility, seemed to me an enterprise worthy of Bedlam from the first; and this method of carrying it on, without any general, or with a mere sash and cocked-hat for one, is of the same block of stuff. Ach Gott! Is not Anarchy, and parliamentary eloquence instead of work, continued for half a century everywhere, a beautiful piece of business? We are in alliance with Louis Napoleon (a gentleman who has shown only housebreaker qualities hitherto, and is required now to show heroic ones, or go to the Devil); and under Marechal Saint-Arnaud (who was once a dancing-master in this city, and continued a thief in all cities), a Commander of the Playactor-Pirate description, resembling a General as Alexander Dumas does Dante Alighieri,—we have got into a very strange problem indeed!—But there is something almost grand in the stubborn thickside patience and persistence of this English People; and I do not question but they will work themselves through in one fashion or another; nay probably, get a great deal of benefit out of this astonishing slap on the nose to their self-complacency before all the world. They have not done yet, I calculate, by any manner of means: they are, however, admonished in an ignominious and convincing manner, amid the laughter of nations, that they are altogether on the wrong road this great while (two hundred years, as I have been calculating often),—and I shudder to think of the plunging and struggle they will have to get into the approximately right one again. Pray for them also, poor stupid overfed heavy-laden souls!—Before my paper quite end, I must in my own name, and that of a select company of others, inquire rigorously of R.W.E. why he does not give us that little Book on England he has promised so long? I am very serious in saying, I myself want much to see it;—and that I can see no reason why we all should not, without delay. Bring it out, I say, and print it, tale quale. You will never get it in the least like what you wish it, clearly no! But I venture to warrant, it is good enough,—far too good for the readers that are to get it. Such a pack of blockheads, and disloyal and bewildered unfortunates who know not their right hand from their left, as fill me with astonishment, and are more and more forfeiting all respect from me. Publish the Book, I say; let us have it and so have done! Adieu, my dear friend, for this time. I had a thousand things more to write, but have wasted my sheet, and must end. I will take another before long, whatever you do. In my lonely thoughts you are never long absent: Valete all of you at Concord!

—T. Carlyle

CLVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 6 May, 1856

Dear Carlyle,—There is no escape from the forces of time and life, and we do not write letters to the gods or to our friends, but only to attorneys, landlords, and tenants. But the planes and platforms on which all stand remain the same, and we are ever expecting the descent of the heavens, which is to put us into familiarity with the first named. When I ceased to write to you for a long time, I said to myself,—If anything really good should happen here,—any stroke of good sense or virtue in our politics, or of great sense in a book,—I will send it on the instant to the formidable man; but I will not repeat to him every month, that there are no news. Thank me for my resolution, and for keeping it through the long night.—One book, last summer, came out in New York, a nondescript monster which yet had terrible eyes and buffalo strength, and was indisputably American,—which I thought to send you; but the book throve so badly with the few to whom I showed it, and wanted good morals so much, that I never did. Yet I believe now again, I shall. It is called Leaves of Grass,—was written and printed by a journeyman printer in Brooklyn, New York, named Walter Whitman; and after you have looked into it, if you think, as you may, that it is only an auctioneer's inventory of a warehouse, you can light your pipe with it.

By tomorrow's steamer goes Mrs. —- to Liverpool, and to Switzerland and Germany, by the advice of physicians, and I cannot let her go without praying you to drop your pen, and shut up German history for an hour, and extend your walk to her chambers, wherever they may be. There's a piece of republicanism for you to see and hear! That person was, ten or fifteen years ago, the loveliest of women, and her speech and manners may still give you some report of the same. She has always lived with good people, and in her position is a centre of what is called good society, wherein her large heart makes a certain glory and refinement. She is one of nature's ladies, and when I hear her tell I know not what stories of her friends, or her children, or her pensioners, I find a pathetic eloquence which I know not where to match. But I suppose you shall never hear it. Every American is a little displaced in London, and, no doubt, her company has grown to her. Her husband is a banker connected in business with your —-, and is a man of elegant genius and tastes, and his house is a resort for fine people. Thorwaldsen distinguished Mrs. —- in Rome, formerly, by his attentions. Powers the sculptor made an admirable bust of her; Clough and Thackeray will tell you of her. Jenny Lind, like the rest, was captivated by her, and was married at her house. Is not Henry James in London? he knows her well. If Tennyson comes to London, whilst she is there, he should see her for his "Lays of Good Women." Now please to read these things to the wise and kind ears of Jane Carlyle, and ask her if I have done wrong in giving my friend a letter to her? I could not ask more than that each of those ladies might appear to the other what each has appeared to me.

I saw Thackeray, in the winter, and he said he would come and see me here, in April or May; but he is still, I believe, in the South and West. Do not believe me for my reticency less hungry for letters. I grieve at the want and loss, and am about writing again, that I may hear from you.

Ever affectionately yours,

R.W. Emerson

CLIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 20 July, 1856

Dear Emerson;—Welcome was your Letter to me, after the long interval; as welcome as any human Letter could now well be. These many months and years I have been sunk in what disastrous vortexes of foreign wreck you know, till I am fallen sick and almost broken-hearted, and my life (if it were not this one interest, of doing a problem which I see to be impossible, and of smallish value if found doable!) is burdensome and without meaning to me. It is so rarely I hear the voice of a magnanimous Brother Man addressing any word to me: ninety-nine hundredths of the Letters I get are impertinent clutchings of me by the button, concerning which the one business is, How to get handsomely loose again; What to say that shall soonest end the intrusion,—if saying Nothing will not be the best way. Which last I often in my sorrow have recourse to, at what ever known risks. "We must pay our tribute to Time": ah yes, yes;—and yet I will believe, so long as we continue together in this sphere of things there will always be a potential Letter coming out of New England for me, and the world not fallen irretrievably dumb.—The best is, I am about going into Scotland, in two days, into deep solitude, for a couple of months beside the Solway sea: I absolutely need to have the dust blown out of me, and my mad nerves rested (there is nothing else quite gone wrong): this unblest Life of Frederick is now actually to get along into the Printer's hand; —a good Book being impossible upon it, there shall a bad one be done, and one's poor existence rid of it:—for which great object two months of voluntary torpor are considered the fair preliminary. In another year's time, (if the Fates allow me to live,) I expect to have got a great deal of rubbish swept into chaos again. Unlucky it should ever have been dug up, much of it!—

Your Mrs. —- should have had our best welcome, for the sake of him who sent her, had there been nothing more: but the Lady never showed face at all; nor could I for a long time get any trace—and then it was a most faint and distant one as if by double reflex—of her whereabout: too distant, too difficult for me, who do not make a call once in the six months lately. I did mean to go in quest (never had an address); but had not yet rallied for the Enterprise, when Mrs. —- herself wrote that she had been unwell, that she was going directly for Paris, and would see us on her return. So be it:—pray only I may not be absent next! I have not seen or distinctly heard of Miss Bacon for a year and half past: I often ask myself, what has become of that poor Lady, and wish I knew of her being safe among her friends again. I have even lost the address (which at any rate was probably not a lasting one); perhaps I could find it by the eye,—but it is five miles away; and my non-plus-ultra for years past is not above half that distance. Heigho!

My time is all up and more; and Chaos come again is lying round me, in the shape of "packing," in a thousand shapes!—Browning is coming tonight to take leave. Do you know Browning at all? He is abstruse, but worth knowing.—And what of the Discourse on England by a certain man? Shame! We always hear of it again as "out"; and it continues obstinately in. Adieu, my friend.

Ever yours,

T. Carlyle

CLX. Carlyle to Emerson

The Gill, Cummertrees, Annan, N.B. 28 August, 1856

Dear Emerson,—Your Letter alighted here yesterday;* like a winged Mercury, bringing "airs from Heaven" (in a sense) along with his news. I understand very well your indisposition to write; we must conform to it, as to the law of Chronos (oldest of the gods); but I will murmur always, "It is such a pity as of almost no other man!"—You are citizen of a "Republic," and perhaps fancy yourself republican in an eminent degree: nevertheless I have remarked there is no man of whom I am so certain always to get something kingly:—and whenever your huge inarticulate America gets settled into kingdoms, of the New Model, fit for these Ages which are all upon the Moult just now, and dreadfully like going to the Devil in the interim,—then will America, and all nations through her, owe the man Emerson a debt, far greater than either they or he are in the least aware of at present! That I consider (for myself) to be an ascertained fact. For which I myself at least am thankful and have long been.

————- * It is missing now. ————-

It pleases me much to know that this English [book], so long twinkling in our expectations and always drawn back again, is at last verily to appear: I wish I could get hold of my copy: there is no Book that would suit me better just now. But we must wait for four weeks till we get back to Chelsea,—unless I call find some trusty hand to extract it from the rubbish that will have accumulated there, and forward it by post. You speak as if there were something dreadful said of my own sacred self in that Book: Courage, my Friend, it will be a most miraculous occurrence to meet with anything said by you that does me ill; whether the immediate taste of it be sweet or bitter, I will take it with gratitude, you may depend,—nay even with pleasure, what perhaps is still more incredible. But an old man deluged for half a century with the brutally nonsensical vocables of his fellow-creatures (which he grows to regard soon as rain, "rain of frogs" or the like, and lifts his umbrella against with indifference),—such an old gentleman, I assure you, is grateful for a word that he can recognize perennial sense in; as in this case is his sure hope. And so be the little Book thrice welcome; and let all England understand (as some choice portion of England will) that there has not been a man talking about us these very many years whose words are worth the least attention in comparison.

"Post passing!" I must end, in mid-course; so much still untouched upon. Thanks for Sampson & Co., and let them go their course upon me. If I can see Mrs. —- about the end of September or after, I shall be right glad:—but I fear she will have fled before that?—

I am here in my native Country, riding, seabathing, living on country diet,—uttering no word,—now into the fifth week; have had such a "retreat" as no La Trappe hardly could have offered me. A "retreat" without cilices, thistle-mattresses; and with silent devotions (if any) instead of blockhead spoken ones to the Virgin and others! There is still an Excursion to the Highlands ahead, which cannot be avoided;—then home again to peine forte et dure. Good be with you always, dear friend.

—T. Carlyle

CLXI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 2 December, 1856

Dear Emerson,—I am really grieved to have hurt the feelings of Mr. Phillips;* a gentleman to whom I, on my side, had no feelings but those of respect and good will! I pray you smooth him down again, by all wise methods, into at least good-natured indifference to me. He may depend upon it I could not mean to irritate him; there lay no gain for me in that! Nor is there anything of business left now between us. It is doubly and trebly evident those Stereotype Plates are not to him worth their prime cost here, still less, their prime cost plus any vestige of definite motive for me to concern myself in them:—whereupon the Project falls on its face, and vanishes forever, with apologies all round. For as to that other method, that is a game I never thought, and never should think of playing at! You may also tell him this little Biographical fact, if you think it will any way help. Some ten or more years ago, I made a similar Bargain with a New York House (known to you, and now I believe extinct): "10" or something "percent," of selling price on the Copies Printed, was to be my return—not for four or five hundred pounds money laid out, but for various things I did, which gratis would by no means have been done; in fine, it was their own Offer, made and accepted in due form; "10 percent on the copies printed."

————- * This refers to a proposed arrangement, which fell through, for the publication in America by Messrs. Phillips and Sampson, of Boston, of a complete edition of Carlyle's works, to be printed from the stereotype plates of the English edition then in course of issue by Messrs. Chapman and Hall. ————-

And how many were "printed," thinks Mr. Phillips? I saw one set; dreadfully ugly Books, errors in every page;—and to this hour I have never heard of any other! The amount remains zero net; and it would appear there was simply one copy "printed," the ugly one sent to myself, which I instantly despatched again somewhither! On second thought perhaps you had better not tell Mr. Phillips this story, at least not in this way. His integrity I would not even question by insinuation, nor need I, at the point where we now are. I perceive he sees in extraordinary brilliancy of illumination his own side of the bargain; and thinks me ignorant of several things which I am well enough informed about. In brief, make a perfect peace between us, O friend, and man of peace; and let the wampums be all wrapped up, and especially the tomahawks entirely buried, and the thing end forever! To you also I owe apologies; but not to you do I pay them, knowing from of old what you are to me. Enough, enough!

I got your Book by post in the Highlands; and had such a day over it as falls rarely to my lot! Not for seven years and more have I got hold of such a Book;—Book by a real man, with eyes in his head; nobleness, wisdom, humor, and many other things, in the heart of him. Such Books do not turn up often in the decade, in the century. In fact I believe it to be worth all the Books ever written by New England upon Old. Franklin might have written such a thing (in his own way); no other since! We do very well with it here, and the wise part of us best. That Chapter on the Church is inimitable; "the Bishop asking a troublesome gentleman to take wine,"—you should see the kind of grin it awakens here on our best kind of faces. Excellent the manner of that, and the matter too dreadfully true in every part. I do not much seize your idea in regard to "Literature," though I do details of it, and will try again. Glad of that too, even in its half state; not "sorry" at any part of it,—you Sceptic! On the whole, write again, and ever again at greater length: there lies your only fault to me. And yet I know, that also is a right noble one, and rare in our day.

O my friend, save always for me some corner in your memory; I am very lonely in these months and years,—sunk to the centre of the Earth, like to be throttled by the Pythons and Mudgods in my old days;—but shall get out again, too; and be a better boy! No "hurry" equals mine, and it is in permanence.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

CLXII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 17 May, 1858

My Dear Carlyle,—I see no way for you to avoid the Americans but to come to America. For, first or last, we are all embarking, and all steering straight to your door. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Longworth of Cincinnati are going abroad on their travels. Possibly, the name is not quite unknown to you. Their father, Nicholas Longworth, is one of the founders of the city of Cincinnati, a bigger town than Boston, where he is a huge land lord and planter, and patron of sculptors and painters. And his family are most favorably known to all dwellers and strangers, in the Ohio Valley, as people who have well used their great wealth. His chief merit is to have introduced a systematic culture of the wine-grape and wine manufacture, by the importing and settlement of German planters in that region, and the trade is thriving to the general benefit. His son Joseph is a well-bred gentleman of literary tastes, whose position and good heart make him largely hospitable. His wife is a very attractive and excellent woman, and they are good friends of mine. It seems I have at some former time told her that, when she went to England, she should see you. And they are going abroad, soon, for the first time. If you are in London, you must be seen of them.

But I hailed even this need of taxing once more your often taxed courtesy, as a means to break up my long contumacy to-you-ward. Please let not the wires be rusted out, so that we cannot weld them again, and let me feel the subtle fluid streaming strong. Tell me what is become of Frederic, for whose appearance I have watched every week for months? I am better ready for him, since one or two books about Voltaire, Maupertuis, and company, fell in my way.

Yet that book will not come which I most wish to read, namely, the culled results, the quintessence of private conviction, a liber veritatis, a few sentences, hints of the final moral you drew from so much penetrating inquest into past and present men. All writing is necessitated to be exoteric, and written to a human should instead of to the terrible is. And I say this to you, because you are the truest and bravest of writers. Every writer is a skater, who must go partly where he would, and partly, where the skates carry him; or a sailor, who can only land where sails can be safely blown. The variations to be allowed for in the surveyor's compass are nothing like so large as those that must be allowed for in every book. And a friendship of old gentlemen who have got rid of many illusions, survived their ambition, and blushes, and passion for euphony, and surface harmonies, and tenderness for their accidental literary stores, but have kept all their curiosity and awe touching the problems of man and fate and the Cause of causes,—a friendship of old gentlemen of this fortune is looking more comely and profitable than anything I have read of love. Such a dream flatters my incapacities for conversation, for we can all play at monosyllables, who cannot attempt the gay pictorial panoramic styles.

So, if ever I hear that you have betrayed the first symptom of age, that your back is bent a twentieth of an inch from the perpendicular, I shall hasten to believe you are shearing your prodigal overgrowths, and are calling in your troops to the citadel, and I may come in the first steamer to drop in of evenings and hear the central monosyllables.

Be good now again, and send me quickly—though it be the shortest autograph certificate of….*

———— * The end of this letter is lost. ————

CLXIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 2 June, 1858

Dear Emerson,—Glad indeed I am to hear of you on any terms, on any subject. For the last eighteen months I have pretty much ceased all human correspondence,—writing no Note that was not in a sense wrung from me; my one society the Nightmares (Prussian and other) all that while:—but often and often the image of you, and the thoughts of old days between us, has risen sad upon me; and I have waited to get loose from the Nightmares to appeal to you again,—to edacious Time and you. Most likely in a couple of weeks you would have heard from me again at any rate.—Your friends shall be welcome to me; no friend of yours can be other at any time. Nor in fact did anybody ever sent by you prove other than pleasant in this house, so pray no apologies on that small score.—If only these Cincinnati Patricians can find me here when they come? For I am off to the deepest solitudes discoverable (native Scotland probably) so soon as I can shake the final tag rags of Printer people off me;—"surely within three weeks now!" I say to myself. But I shall be back, too, if all prosper; and your Longworths will be back; and Madam will stand to her point, I hope.

That book on Friedrich of Prussia—first half of it, two swoln unlovely volumes, which treat mainly of his Father, &c., and leave him at his accession—is just getting out of my hands. One packet more of Proofs, and I have done with it,—thanks to all the gods! No job approaching in ugliness to it was ever cut out for me; nor had I any motive to go on, except the sad negative one, "Shall we be beaten in our old days, then?"—But it has thoroughly humbled me,—trampled me down into the mud, there to wrestle with the accumulated stupidities of Mankind, German, English, French, and other, for all have borne a hand in these sad centuries;—and here I emerge at last, not killed, but almost as good. Seek not to look at the Book,—nay in fact it is "not to be published till September" (so the man of affairs settles with me yesterday, "owing to the political &c., to the season," &c.); my only stipulation was that in ten days I should be utterly out of it,—not to hear of it again till the Day of Judgment, and if possible not even then! In fact it is a bad book, poor, misshapen, feeble, nearly worthless (thanks to past generations and to me); and my one excuse is, I could not make it better, all the world having played such a game with it. Well, well!—How true is that you say about the skater; and the rider too depending on his vehicles, on his roads, on his et ceteras! Dismally true have I a thousand times felt it, in these late operations; never in any so much. And in short the business of writing has altogether become contemptible to me; and I am become confirmed in the notion that nobody ought to write,—unless sheer Fate force him to do it;—and then he ought (if not of the mountebank genus) to beg to be shot rather. That is deliberately my opinion,—or far nearer it than you will believe.

Once or twice I caught some tone of you in some American Magazine; utterances highly noteworthy to me; in a sense, the only thing that is speech at all among my fellow-creatures in this time. For the years that remain, I suppose we must continue to grumble out some occasional utterance of that kind: what can we do, at this late stage? But in the real "Model Republic," it would have been different with two good boys of this kind!—

Though shattered and trampled down to an immense degree, I do not think any bones are broken yet,—though age truly is here, and you may engage your berth in the steamer whenever you like. In a few months I expect to be sensibly improved; but my poor Wife suffers sadly the last two winters; and I am much distressed by that item of our affairs. Adieu, dear Emerson: I have lost many things; let me not lose you till I must in some way!

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

P.S. If you read the Newspapers (which I carefully abstain from doing) they will babble to you about Dickens's "Separation from Wife," &c., &c.; fact of Separation I believe is true; but all the rest is mere lies and nonsense. No crime or misdemeanor specifiable on either side; unhappy together, these good many years past, and they at length end it.—Sulzer said, "Men are by nature good." "Ach, mein lieber Sulzer, Er kennt nicht diese verdammte Race," ejaculated Fritz, at hearing such an axiom.

CLXIII.* Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 9 April, 1859

Dear Emerson,—Long months ago there was sent off for you a copy of Friedrich of Prussia, two big red volumes (for which Chapman the Publisher had found some "safe, swift" vehicle); and now I have reason to fear they are still loitering somewhere, or at least have long loitered sorrow on them! This is to say: If you have not yet got them, address a line to "Saml. F. Flower, Esq, Librarian of Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass." (forty miles from you, they say), and that will at once bring them. In the Devil's name! I never in my life was so near choked; swimming in this mother of Dead Dogs, and a long spell of it still ahead! I profoundly pity myself (if no one else does). You shall hear of me again if I survive,—but really that is getting beyond a joke with me, and I ought to hold my peace (even to you), and swim what I can. Your little touch of Human Speech on Burns'* was charming; had got into the papers here (and been clipt out by me) before your copy came, and has gone far and wide since. Newberg was to give it me in German, from the Allgemeine Zeitung, but lost the leaf. Adieu, my Friend; very dear to me, tho' dumb.

—T. Carlyle (in such haste as seldom was).**

————-

* Emerson's fine speech was made at the celebration of the Burns

Centenary, Boston, January 25, 1859. See his Miscellanies

(Works, vol. xi.), p. 363.

** The preceding letter was discovered in 1893, in a little package of letters put aside by Mr. Emerson and marked "Autographs." ————-

CLXIV. Emerson to Carlyle*

Concord, 1 May, 1859

Dear Carlyle,—Some three weeks ago came to me a note from Mr. Haven of Worcester, announcing the arrival there of "King Friedrich," and, after a fortnight, the good book came to my door. A week later, your letter arrived. I was heartily glad to get the crimson Book itself. I had looked for it with the first ships. As it came not, I had made up my mind to that hap also. It was quite fair: I had disentitled myself. He, the true friend, had every right to punish me for my sluggish contumacy,— backsliding, too, after penitence. So I read with resignation our blue American reprint, and I enclose to you a leaf from my journal at the time, which leaf I read afterwards in one of my lectures at the Music Hall in Boston. But the book came from the man himself. He did not punish me. He is loyal, but royal as well, and, I have always noted, has a whim for dealing en grand monarque. The book came, with its irresistible inscription, so that I am all tenderness and all but tears. The book too is sovereignly written. I think you the true inventor of the stereoscope, as having exhibited that art in style, long before we had heard of it in drawing.

———- * This letter and the Extract from the Diary are printed from a copy of the original supplied to me by the kindness of Mr. Alexander Ireland, who first printed a portion of the letter in his "Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Biographical Sketch," London, 1882. One or two words missing in the copy are inserted from the rough draft, which, as usual, varies in minor points from the letter as sent. ————

The letter came also. Every child of mine knows from far that handwriting, and brings it home with speed. I read without alarm the pathetical hints of your sad plight in the German labyrinth. I know too well what invitations and assurance brought you in there, to fear any lack of guides to bring you out. More presence of mind and easy change from the microscopic to the telescopic view does not exist. I await peacefully your issue from your pretended afflictions.

What to tell you of my coop and byre? Ah! you are a very poor fellow, and must be left with your glory. You hug yourself on missing the illusion of children, and must be pitied as having one glittering toy the less. I am a victim all my days to certain graces of form and behavior, and can never come into equilibrium. Now I am fooled by my own young people, and grow old contented. The heedless children suddenly take the keenest hold on life, and foolish papas cling to the world on their account, as never on their own. Out of sympathy, we make believe to value the prizes of their ambition and hope. My, two girls, pupils once or now of Agassiz, are good, healthy, apprehensive, decided young people, who love life. My boy divides his time between Cicero and cricket, knows his boat, the birds, and Walter Scott—verse and prose, through and through,— and will go to College next year. Sam Ward and I tickled each other the other day, in looking over a very good company of young people, by finding in the new comers a marked improvement on their parents. There, I flatter myself, I see some emerging of our people from the prison of their politics. The insolvency of slavery shows and stares, and we shall perhaps live to see that putrid Black-vomit extirpated by mere dying and planting.

I am so glad to find myself speaking once more to you, that I mean to persist in the practice. Be as glad as you have been. You and I shall not know each other on this platform as long as we have known. A correspondence even of twenty-five years should not be disused unless through some fatal event. Life is too short, and, with all our poetry and morals, too indigent to allow such sacrifices. Eyes so old and wary, and which have learned to look on so much, are gathering an hourly harvest,—and I cannot spare what on noble terms is offered me.

With congratulations to Jane Carlyle on the grandeur of the Book,

Yours affectionately,

R.W. Emerson

Extract From Diary*

Here has come into the country, three or four months ago, a History of Frederick, infinitely the wittiest book that ever was written,—a book that one would think the English people would rise up in mass and thank the author for, by cordial acclamation, and signify, by crowning him with oakleaves, their joy that such a head existed among them, and sympathizing and much-reading America would make a new treaty or send a Minister Extraordinary to offer congratulation of honoring delight to England, in acknowledgment of this donation,—a book holding so many memorable and heroic facts, working directly on practice; with new heroes, things unvoiced before;—the German Plutarch (now that we have exhausted the Greek and Roman and British Plutarchs), with a range, too, of thought and wisdom so large and so elastic, not so much applying as inosculating to every need and sensibility of man, that we do not read a stereotype page, rather we see the eyes of the writer looking into ours, mark his behavior, humming, chuckling, with under-tones and trumpet-tones and shrugs, and long-commanding glances, stereoscoping every figure that passes, and every hill, river, road, hummock, and pebble in the long perspective. With its wonderful new system of mnemonics, whereby great and insignificant men are ineffaceably ticketed and marked and modeled in memory by what they were, had, and did; and withal a book that is a Judgment Day, for its moral verdict on the men and nations and manners of modern times.

————- * In the first edition, this extract was printed from the original Diary; it is now printed according to the copy sent abroad. ————

And this book makes no noise; I have hardly seen a notice of it in any newspaper or journal, and you would think there was no such book. I am not aware that Mr. Buchanan has sent a special messenger to Great Cheyne Row, Chelsea, or that Mr. Dallas has been instructed to assure Mr. Carlyle of his distinguished consideration. But the secret wits and hearts of men take note of it, not the less surely. They have said nothing lately in praise of the air, or of fire, or of the blessing of love, and yet, I suppose, they are sensible of these, and not less of this book, which is like these.

CLXV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 16 April, 1860

My Dear Carlyle,—Can booksellers break the seal which the gods do not, and put me in communication again with the loyalest of men? On the ground of Mr. Wight's honest proposal to give you a benefit from his edition,* I, though unwilling, allowed him to copy the Daguerre of your head. The publishers ask also some expression of your good will to their work….

———— * Mr. O.W. Wight of New York, an upright "able editor," who, had just made arrangements for the publication of a very satisfactory edition of Carlyle's Miscellaneous Essays. ————

I commend you to the gods who love and uphold you, and who do not like to make their great gifts vain, but teach us that the best life-insurance is a great task. I hold you to be one of those to whom all is permitted, and who carry the laws in their hand. Continue to be good to your old friends. 'T is no matter whether they write to you or not. If not, they save your time. When Friedrich is once despatched to gods and men, there was once some talk that you should come to America! You shall have an ovation such, and on such sincerity, as none have had.

Ever affectionately yours,

R.W. Emerson

I do not know Mr. Wight, but he sends his open letter, which I fear is already old, for me to write in: and I will not keep it, lest it lose another steamer.

CLXVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 30 April, 1860

Dear Emerson,—It is a special favor of Heaven to me that I hear of you again by this accident; and am made to answer a word de Profundis. It is constantly among the fairest of the few hopes that remain for me on the other side of this Stygian Abyss of a Friedrich (should I ever get through it alive) that I shall then begin writing to you again, who knows if not see you in the body before quite taking wing! For I feel always, what I have some times written, that there is (in a sense) but one completely human voice to me in the world; and that you are it, and have been,—thanks to you, whether you speak or not! Let me say also, while I am at it, that the few words you sent me about those first Two volumes are present with me in the far more frightful darknesses of these last Two; and indeed are often almost my one encouragement. That is a fact, and not exaggerated, though you think it is. I read some criticisms of my wretched Book, and hundreds of others I in the gross refused to read; they were in praise, they were in blame; but not one of them looked into the eyes of the object, and in genuine human fashion responded to its human strivings, and recognized it,—completely right, though with generous exaggeration! That was well done, I can tell you: a human voice, far out in the waste deeps, among the inarticulate sea-krakens and obscene monsters, loud-roaring, inexpressibly ugly, dooming you as if to eternal solitude by way of wages,— "hath exceeding much refreshment in it," as my friend Oliver used to say.

Having not one spare moment at present, I will answer to you only the whole contents of that letter; you in your charity will convey to Mr. Wight what portion belongs to him. Wight, if you have a chance of him, is worth knowing; a genuine bit of metal, too thin and ringing for my tastes (hammered, in fact, upon the Yankee anvils), but recognizably of steel and with a keen fire- edge. Pray signify to him that he has done a thing agreeable to me, and that it will be pleasant if I find it will not hurt him. Profit to me out of it, except to keep his own soul clear and sound (to his own sense, as it always will be to mine), is perfectly indifferent; and on the whole I thank him heartily for showing me a chivalrous human brother, instead of the usual vulturous, malodorous, and much avoidable phenomenon, in Transatlantic Bibliopoly! This is accurately true; and so far as his publisher and he can extract encouragement from this, in the face of vested interests which I cannot judge of, it is theirs without reserve….

Adieu, my friend; I have not written so much in the Letter way, not, I think, since you last heard of me. In my despair it often seems as if I should never write more; but be sunk here, and perish miserably in the most undoable, least worthy, most disgusting and heart breaking of all the labors I ever had. But perhaps also not, not quite. In which case—

Yours ever truly at any rate,

T. Carlyle

No time to re-read. I suppose you can decipher.

CLXVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 29 January, 1861

Dear Emerson,—The sight of my hand-writing will, I know, be welcome again. Though I literally do not write the smallest Note once in a month, or converse with anything but Prussian Nightmares of a hideous [nature], and with my Horse (who is human in comparison), and with my poor Wife (who is altogether human, and heroically cheerful to me, in her poor weak state),—I must use the five minutes, which have fallen to me today, in acknowledgment, _du_e by all laws terrestrial and celestial, of the last Book* that has come from you.

———— * "The Conduct of Life." ————

I read it a great while ago, mostly in sheets, and again read it in the finely printed form,—I can tell you, if you do not already guess, with a satisfaction given me by the Books of no other living mortal. I predicted to your English Bookseller a great sale even, reckoning it the best of all your Books. What the sale was or is I nowhere learned; but the basis of my prophecy remains like the rocks, and will remain. Indeed, except from my Brother John, I have heard no criticism that had much rationality,—some of them incredibly irrational (if that matter had not altogether become a barking of dogs among us);—but I always believe there are in the mute state a great number of thinking English souls, who can recognize a Thinker and a Sayer, of perennially human type and welcome him as the rarest of miracles, in "such a spread of knowledge" as there now is:—one English soul of that kind there indubitably is; and I certify hereby, notarially if you like, that such is emphatically his view of the matter. You have grown older, more pungent, piercing;—I never read from you before such lightning-gleams of meaning as are to be found here. The finale of all, that of "Illusions" falling on us like snow-showers, but again of "the gods sitting steadfast on their thrones" all the while,—what a Fiat Lux is there, into the deeps of a philosophy, which the vulgar has not, which hardly three men living have, yet dreamt of! Well done, I say; and so let that matter rest.

I am still twelve months or so from the end of my Task; very uncertain often whether I can, even at this snail's pace, hold out so long. In my life I was never worn nearly so low, and seem to get weaker monthly. Courage! If I do get through, you shall hear of me, again.

Yours forever,

T. Carlyle

CLXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 16 April, 1861

My Dear Carlyle,—…I have to thank you for the cordial note which brought me joy, many weeks ago. It was noble and welcome in all but its boding account of yourself and your task. But I have had experience of your labors, and these deplorations I have long since learned to distrust. We have settled it in America, as I doubt not it is settled in England, that Frederick is a history which a beneficent Providence is not very likely to interrupt. And may every kind and tender influence near you and over you keep the best head in England from all harm.

Affectionately,

R.W. Emerson

CLXIX. Emerson to Carlyle*

Concord, 8 December, 1862

My Dear Friend,—Long ago, as soon as swift steamers could bring the new book across the sea, I received the third volume of Friedrich, with your autograph inscription, and read it with joy. Not a word went to the beloved author, for I do not write or think. I would wait perhaps for happier days, as our President Lincoln will not even emancipate slaves, until on the heels of a victory, or the semblance of such. But he waited in vain for his triumph, nor dare I in my heavy months expect bright days. The book was heartily grateful, and square to the author's imperial scale. You have lighted the glooms, and engineered away the pits, whereof you poetically pleased yourself with complaining, in your sometime letter to me, clean out of it, according to the high Italian rule, and have let sunshine and pure air enfold the scene. First, I read it honestly through for the history; then I pause and speculate on the Muse that inspires, and the friend that reports it. 'T is sovereignly written, above all literature, dictating to all mortals what they shall accept as fated and final for their salvation. It is Mankind's Bill of Rights and Duties, the royal proclamation of Intellect ascending the throne, announcing its good pleasure, that, hereafter, as heretofore, and now once for all, the World shall be governed by Common Sense and law of Morals, or shall go to ruin.

————- * Portions of this and of the following letter of Emerson have been printed by Mr. Alexander Ireland in his "Ralph Waldo Emerson: Recollections of his Visits to England," &c. London, 1882. —————

But the manner of it!—the author sitting as Demiurgus, trotting out his manikins, coaxing and bantering them, amused with their good performance, patting them on the back, and rating the naughty dolls when they misbehave; and communicating his mind ever in measure, just as much as the young public can understand; hinting the future, when it would be useful; recalling now and then illustrative antecedents of the actor, impressing, the reader that he is in possession of the entire history centrally seen, that his investigation has been exhaustive, and that he descends too on the petty plot of Prussia from higher and cosmical surveys. Better I like the sound sense and the absolute independence of the tone, which may put kings in fear. And, as the reader shares, according to his intelligence, the haughty coup d'oeil of this genius, and shares it with delight, I recommend to all governors, English, French, Austrian, and other, to double their guards, and look carefully to the censorship of the press. I find, as ever in your books, that one man has deserved well of mankind for restoring the Scholar's profession to its highest use and dignity.* I find also that you are very wilful, and have made a covenant with your eyes that they shall not see anything you do not wish they should. But I was heartily glad to read somewhere that your book was nearly finished in the manuscript, for I could wish you to sit and taste your fame, if that were not contrary to law of Olympus. My joints ache to think of your rugged labor. Now that you have conquered to yourself such a huge kingdom among men, can you not give yourself breath, and chat a little, an Emeritus in the eternal university, and write a gossiping letter to an old American friend or so? Alas, I own that I have no right to say this last,—I who write never.

———— * As long before as 1843 Emerson wrote in his Diary: "Carlyle in his new book" (Past and Present), "as everywhere, is a continuer of the great line of scholars in the world, of Horace, Varro, Pliny, Erasmus, Scaliger, Milton, and well sustains their office in ample credit and honor." ————-

Here we read no books. The war is our sole and doleful instructor. All our bright young men go into it, to be misused and sacrificed hitherto by incapable leaders. One lesson they all learn,—to hate slavery, teterrima causa. But the issue does not yet appear. We must get ourselves morally right. Nobody can help us. 'T is of no account what England or France may do. Unless backed by our profligate parties, their action would be nugatory, and, if so backed, the worst. But even the war is better than the degrading and descending politics that preceded it for decades of years, and our legislation has made great strides, and if we can stave off that fury of trade which rushes to peace at the cost of replacing the South in the status ante bellum, we can, with something more of courage, leave the problem to another score of years,—free labor to fight with the Beast, and see if bales and barrels and baskets cannot find out that they pass more commodiously and surely to their ports through free hands, than through barbarians.

I grieved that the good Clough, the generous, susceptible scholar, should die. I read over his Bothie again, full of the wine of youth at Oxford. I delight in Matthew Arnold's fine criticism in two little books. Give affectionate remembrances from me to Jane Carlyle, whom —-'s happiness and accurate reporting restored to me in brightest image.

Always faithfully yours,

R.W. Emerson

CLXX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 8 March, 1864

Dear Emerson,—This will be delivered to you by the Hon. Lyulph Stanley, an excellent, intelligent young gentleman whom I have known ever since his infancy,—his father and mother being among my very oldest friends in London; "Lord and Lady Stanley of Alderley" (not of Knowesley, but a cadet branch of it), whom perhaps you did not meet while here.

My young Friend is coming to look with his own eyes at your huge and hugely travailing Country;—and I think will agree with you, better than he does with me, in regard to that latest phenomenon. At all events, he regards "Emerson" as intelligent Englishmen all do; and you will please me much by giving him your friendliest reception and furtherance,—which I can certify that he deserves for his own sake, not counting mine at all.

Probably he may deliver you the Vol. IV. of Frederic; he will tell you our news (part of which, what regards my poor Wife, is very bad, though God be thanked not yet the worst);—and, in some six months, he may bring me back some human tidings from Concord, a place which always inhabits my memory,—though it is so dumb latterly!

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

CLXXI. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 26 September, 1864

Dear Carlyle,—Your friend, young Stanley, brought me your letter now too many days ago. It contained heavy news of your household,—yet such as in these our autumnal days we must await with what firmness we can. I hear with pain that your Wife, whom I have only seen beaming goodness and intelligence, has suffered and suffers so severely. I recall my first visit to your house, when I pronounced you wise and fortunate in relations wherein best men are often neither wise nor fortunate. I had already heard rumors of her serious illness. Send me word, I pray you, that there is better health and hope. For the rest, the Colonna motto would fit your letter, "Though sad, I am strong."

I had received in July, forwarded by Stanley, on his flight through Boston, the fourth Volume of Friedrich, and it was my best reading in the summer, and for weeks my only reading: One fact was paramount in all the good I drew from it, that whomsoever many years had used and worn, they had not yet broken any fibre of your force:—a pure joy to me, who abhor the inroads which time makes on me and on my friends. To live too long is the capital misfortune, and I sometimes think, if we shall not parry it by better art of living, we shall learn to include in our morals some bolder control of the facts. I read once, that Jacobi declared that he had some thoughts which—if he should entertain them—would put him to death: and perhaps we have weapons in our intellectual armory that are to save us from disgrace and impertinent relation to the world we live in. But this book will excuse you from any unseemly haste to make up your accounts, nay, holds you to fulfil your career with all amplitude and calmness. I found joy and pride in it, and discerned a golden chain of continuity not often seen in the works of men, apprising me that one good head and great heart remained in England,—immovable, superior to his own eccentricities and perversities, nay, wearing these, I can well believe, as a jaunty coat or red cockade to defy or mislead idlers, for the better securing his own peace, and the very ends which the idlers fancy he resists. England's lease of power is good during his days.

I have in these last years lamented that you had not made the visit to America, which in earlier years you projected or favored. It would have made it impossible that your name should be cited for one moment on the side of the enemies of mankind. Ten days' residence in this country would have made you the organ of the sanity of England and of Europe to us and to them, and have shown you the necessities and aspirations which struggle up in our Free States, which, as yet, have no organ to others, and are ill and unsteadily articulated here. In our today's division of Republican and Democrat, it is certain that the American nationality lies in the Republican party (mixed and multiform though that party be); and I hold it not less certain, that, viewing all the nationalities of the world, the battle for Humanity is, at this hour, in America. A few days here would show you the disgusting composition of the Party which within the Union resists the national action. Take from it the wild Irish element, imported in the last twenty-five year's into this country, and led by Romish Priests, who sympathize, of course, with despotism, and you would bereave it of all its numerical strength. A man intelligent and virtuous is not to be found on that side. Ah! how gladly I would enlist you, with your thunderbolt, on our part! How gladly enlist the wise, thoughtful, efficient pens and voices of England! We want England and Europe to hold our people stanch to their best tendency. Are English of this day incapable of a great sentiment? Can they not leave caviling at petty failures, and bad manners, and at the dunce part (always the largest part in human affairs), and leap to the suggestions and finger-pointings of the gods, which, above the understanding, feed the hopes and guide the wills of men? This war has been conducted over the heads of all the actors in it; and the foolish terrors, "What shall we do with the negro?" "The entire black population is coming North to be fed," &c., have strangely ended in the fact that the black refuses to leave his climate; gets his living and the living of his employers there, as he has always done; is the natural ally and soldier of the Republic, in that climate; now takes the place of two hundred thousand white soldiers; and will be, as the conquest of the country proceeds, its garrison, till peace, without slavery, returns. Slaveholders in London have filled English ears with their wishes and perhaps beliefs; and our people, generals, and politicians have carried the like, at first, to the war, until corrected by irresistible experience. I shall always respect War hereafter. The cost of life, the dreary havoc of comfort and time, are overpaid by the vistas it opens of Eternal Life, Eternal Law, reconstructing and uplifting Society, —breaks up the old horizon, and we see through the rifts a wider. The dismal Malthus, the dismal DeBow, have had their night.

Our Census of 1860, and the War, are poems, which will, in the next age, inspire a genius like your own. I hate to write you a newspaper, but, in these times, 't is wonderful what sublime lessons I have once and again read on the Bulletin-boards in the streets. Everybody has been wrong in his guess, except good women, who never despair of an Ideal right.

I thank you for sending to me so gracious a gentleman as Mr. Stanley, who interested us in every manner, by his elegance, his accurate information of that we wished to know, and his surprising acquaintance with the camp and military politics on our frontier. I regretted that I could see him so little. He has used his time to the best purpose, and I should gladly have learned all his adventures from so competent a witness. Forgive this long writing, and keep the old kindness which I prize above words. My kindest salutations to the dear invalid!

—R.W. Emerson

CLXXII. Carlyle to Emerson

Cummertrees, Annan, Scotland, 14 June, 1865

Dear Emerson,—Though my hand is shaking (as you sadly notice) I determine to write you a little Note today. What a severance there has been these many sad years past!—In the first days of February I ended my weary Book; a totally worn-out man, got to shore again after far the ugliest sea he had ever swam in. In April or the end of March, when the book was published, I duly handed out a Copy for Concord and you; it was to be sent by mail; but, as my Publisher (a new Chapman, very unlike the old) discloses to me lately an incredible negligence on such points, it is quite possible the dog may not, for a long while, have put it in the Post-Office (though he faithfully charged me the postage of it, and was paid), and that the poor waif may never yet have reached you! Patience: it will come soon enough,—there are two thick volumes, and they will stand you a great deal of reading; stiff rather than "light."

Since February last, I have been sauntering about in Devonshire, in Chelsea, hither, thither; idle as a dry bone, in fact, a creature sinking into deeper and deeper collapse, after twelve years of such mulish pulling and pushing; creature now good for nothing seemingly, and much indifferent to being so in permanence, if that be the arrangement come upon by the Powers that made us. Some three or four weeks ago, I came rolling down hither, into this old nook of my Birthland, to see poor old Annandale again with eyes, and the poor remnants of kindred and loved ones still left me there; I was not at first very lucky (lost sleep, &c.); but am now doing better, pretty much got adjusted to my new element, new to me since about six years past,—the longest absence I ever had from it before. My Work was getting desperate at that time; and I silently said to myself, "We won't return till it is done, or you are done, my man!"

This is my eldest living sister's house; one of the most rustic Farmhouses in the world, but abounding in all that is needful to me, especially in the truest, silently-active affection, the humble generosity of which is itself medicine and balm. The place is airy, on dry waving knolls cheerfully (with such water as I never drank elsewhere, except at Malvern) all round me are the Mountains, Cheviot and Galloway (three to fifteen miles off), Cumberland and Yorkshire (say forty and fifty, with the Solway brine and sands intervening). I live in total solitude, sauntering moodily in thin checkered woods, galloping about, once daily, by old lanes and roads, oftenest latterly on the wide expanses of Solway shore (when the tide is out!) where I see bright busy Cottages far off, houses over even in Cumberland, and the beautifulest amphitheatre of eternal Hills,—but meet no living creature; and have endless thoughts as loving and as sad and sombre as I like. My youngest Brother (whom on the whole I like best, a rustic man, the express image of my Father in his ways of living and thinking) is within ten miles of me; Brother John "the Doctor" has come down to Dumfries to a sister (twelve miles off), and runs over to me by rail now and then in few minutes. I have Books; but can hardly be troubled with them. Pitiful temporary babble and balderdash, in comparison to what the Silences can say to one. Enough of all that: you perceive me sufficiently at this point of my Pilgrimage, as withdrawn to Hades for the time being; intending a month's walk there, till the muddy semi-solutions settle into sediment according to what laws they have, and there be perhaps a partial restoration of clearness. I have to go deeper into Scotland by and by, perhaps to try sailing, which generally agrees with me; but till the end of September I hope there will be no London farther. My poor Wife, who is again poorly since I left (and has had frightful sufferings, last year especially) will probably join me in this region before I leave it. And see here, This is authentically the way we figure in the eye of the Sun; and something like what your spectacles, could they reach across the Ocean into these nooks, would teach you of us. There are three Photographs which I reckon fairly like; these are properly what I had to send you today,—little thinking that so much surplusage would accumulate about them; to which I now at once put an end. Your friend Conway,* who is a boundless admirer of yours, used to come our way regularly now and then; and we always liked him well. A man of most gentlemanly, ingenious ways; turn of thought always loyal and manly, though tending to be rather winged than solidly ambulatory. He talked of coming to Scotland too; but it seems uncertain whether we shall meet. He is clearly rather a favorite among the London people,—and tries to explain America to them; I know not if with any success. As for me, I have entirely lost count and reckoning of your enormous element, and its enormous affairs and procedures for some time past; and can only wish (which no man more heartily does) that all may issue in as blessed a way as you hope. Fat—(if you know and his fat commonplace at all) amused me much by a thing he had heard of yours in some lecture a year or two ago. "The American Eagle is a mighty bird; but what is he to the American Peacock." At which all the audience had exploded into laughter. Very good. Adieu, old Friend.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

————- * Mr. Moncure D. Conway. ————-

CLXXIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 7 January, 1866

Dear Carlyle,—Is it too late to send a letter to your door to claim an old right to enter, and to scatter all your convictions that I had passed under the earth? You had not to learn what a sluggish pen mine is. Of course, the sluggishness grows on me, and even such a trumpet at my gate as a letter from you heralding-in noble books, whilst it gives me joy, cannot heal the paralysis. Yet your letter deeply interested me, with the account of your rest so well earned. You had fought your great battle, and might roll in the grass, or ride your pony, or shout to the Cumberland or Scotland echoes, with largest leave of men and gods. My lethargies have not dulled my delight in good books. I read these in the bright days of our new peace, which added a lustre to every genial work. Now first we had a right to read, for the very bookworms were driven out of doors whilst the war lasted. I found in the book no trace of age, which your letter so impressively claimed. In the book, the hand does not shake, the mind is ubiquitous. The treatment is so spontaneous, self-respecting, defiant,—liberties with your hero as if he were your client, or your son, and you were proud of him, and yet can check and chide him, and even put him in the corner when he is not a good boy, freedoms with kings, and reputations, and nations, yes, and with principles too,—that each reader, I suppose, feels complimented by the confidences with which he is honored by this free-tongued, masterful Hermes.—Who knows what the [Greek] will say next? This humor of telling the story in a gale,—bantering, scoffing, at the hero, at the enemy, at the learned reporters,—is a perpetual flattery to the admiring student,—the author abusing the whole world as mad dunces,—all but you and I, reader! Ellery Channing borrowed my Volumes V. and VI., worked slowly through them,—midway came to me for Volumes I., II., III., IV., which he had long already read, and at last returned all with this word, "If you write to Mr. Carlyle, you may say to him, that I have read these books, and they have made it impossible for me to read any other books but his."

'T is a good proof of their penetrative force, the influence on the new Stirling, who writes "The Secret of Hegel." He is quite as much a student of Carlyle to learn treatment, as of Hegel for his matter, and plays the same game on his essence-dividing German, which he has learned of you on Friedrich. I have read a good deal in this book of Stirling's, and have not done with it.

One or two errata I noticed in the last volumes of Friedrich, though the books are now lent, and I cannot indicate the pages. Fort Pulaski, which is near Savannah, is set down as near Charleston. Charleston, South Carolina, your printer has twice called Charlestown, which is the name of the town in Massachusetts in which Bunker Hill stands.—Bancroft told me that the letters of Montcalm are spurious. We always write and say Ticonderoga.

I am sorry that Jonathan looks so unamiable seen from your island. Yet I have too much respect for the writing profession to complain of it. It is a necessity of rhetoric that there should be shades, and, I suppose, geography and government always determine, even for the greatest wits, where they shall lay their shadows. But I have always 'the belief that a trip across the sea would have abated your despair of us. The world is laid out here in large lots, and the swing of natural laws is shared by the population, as it is not—or not as much—in your feudal Europe. My countrymen do not content me, but they are susceptible of inspirations. In the war it was humanity that showed itself to advantage,—the leaders were prompted and corrected by the intuitions of the people, they still demanding the more generous and decisive measure, and giving their sons and their estates as we had no example before. In this heat, they had sharper perceptions of policy, of the ways and means and the life of nations, and on every side we read or heard fate-words, in private letters, in railway cars, or in the journals. We were proud of the people and believed they would not go down from this height. But Peace came, and every one ran back into his shop again, and can hardly be won to patriotism more, even to the point of chasing away the thieves that are stealing not only the public gold, but the newly won rights of the slave, and the new muzzles we had contrived to keep the planter from sucking his blood.

Very welcome to me were the photographs,—your own, and Jane Carlyle's. Hers, now seen here for the first time, was closely scanned, and confirmed the better accounts that had come of her improved health. Your earlier tidings of her had not been encouraging. I recognized still erect the wise, friendly presence first seen at Craigenputtock. Of your own—the hatted head is good, but more can be read in the head leaning on the hand, and the one in a cloak.

At the end of much writing, I have little to tell you of myself. I am a bad subject for autobiography. As I adjourn letters, so I adjourn my best tasks…. My wife joins me in very kind regards to Mrs. Carlyle. Use your old magnanimity to me, and punish my stony ingratitudes by new letters from time to time.

Ever affectionately and gratefully yours,

R.W. Emerson

CLXXIV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 16 May, 1866

My Dear Carlyle,—I have just been shown a private letter from Moncure Conway to one of his friends here, giving some tidings of your sad return to an empty home. We had the first news last week. And so it is. The stroke long threatened has fallen at last, in the mildest form to its victim, and relieved to you by long and repeated reprieves. I must think her fortunate also in this gentle departure, as she had been in her serene and honored career. We would not for ourselves count covetously the descending steps after we have passed the top of the mount, or grudge to spare some of the days of decay. And you will have the peace of knowing her safe, and no longer a victim. I have found myself recalling an old verse which one utters to the parting soul,—

"For thou hast passed all chance of human life,

And not again to thee shall beauty die."

It is thirty-three years in July, I believe, since I first saw her, and her conversation and faultless manners gave assurance of a good and happy future. As I have not witnessed any decline, I can hardly believe in any, and still recall vividly the youthful wife, and her blithe account of her letters and homages from Goethe, and the details she gave of her intended visit to Weimar, and its disappointment. Her goodness to me and to my friends was ever perfect, and all Americans have agreed in her praise. Elizabeth Hoar remembers her with entire sympathy and regard.

I could heartily wish to see you for an hour in these lonely days. Your friends, I know, will approach you as tenderly as friends can; and I can believe that labor—all whose precious secrets you know—will prove a consoler,—though it cannot quite avail, for she was the rest that rewarded labor. It is good that you are strong, and built for endurance. Nor will you shun to consult the awful oracles which in these hours of tenderness are sometimes vouchsafed. If to any, to you.

I rejoice that she stayed to enjoy the knowledge of your good day at Edinburgh, which is a leaf we would not spare from your book of life. It was a right manly speech to be so made, and is a voucher of unbroken strength,—and the surroundings, as I learn, were all the happiest,—with no hint of change.

I pray you bear in mind your own counsels. Long years you must still achieve, and, I hope, neither grief nor weariness will let you "join the dim choir of the bards that have been," until you have written the book I wish and wait for,—the sincerest confessions of your best hours.

My wife prays to be remembered to you with sympathy and affection.

Ever yours faithfully,

R.W. Emerson

CLXXV. Carlyle to Emerson

Mentone, France, Alpes Maritimes 27 January, 1867

My Dear Emerson,—It is along time since I last wrote to you; and a long distance in space and in fortune,—from the shores of the Solway in summer 1865, to this niche of the Alps and Mediterranean today, after what has befallen me in the interim. A longer interval, I think, and surely by far a sadder, than ever occurred between us before, since we first met in the Scotch moors, some five and thirty years ago. You have written me various Notes, too, and Letters, all good and cheering to me,— almost the only truly human speech I have heard from anybody living;—and still my stony silence could not be broken; not till now, though often looking forward to it, could I resolve on such a thing. You will think me far gone, and much bankrupt in hope and heart;—and indeed I am; as good as without hope and without fear; a gloomily serious, silent, and sad old man; gazing into the final chasm of things, in mute dialogue with "Death, Judgment, and Eternity" (dialogue mute on both sides!), not caring to discourse with poor articulate-speaking fellow creatures on their sorts of topics. It is right of me; and yet also it is not right. I often feel that I had better be dead than thus indifferent, contemptuous, disgusted with the world and its roaring nonsense, which I have no thought farther of lifting a finger to help, and only try to keep out of the way of, and shut my door against. But the truth is, I was nearly killed by that hideous Book on Friedrich,—twelve years in continuous wrestle with the nightmares and the subterranean hydras;—nearly killed, and had often thought I should be altogether, and must die leaving the monster not so much as finished! This is one truth, not so evident to any friend or onlooker as it is to myself: and then there is another, known to myself alone, as it were; and of which I am best not to speak to others, or to speak to them no farther. By the calamity of April last, I lost my little all in this world; and have no soul left who can make any corner of this world into a home for me any more. Bright, heroic, tender, true and noble was that lost treasure of my heart, who faithfully accompanied me in all the rocky ways and climbings; and I am forever poor without her. She was snatched from me in a moment,—as by a death from the gods. Very beautiful her death was; radiantly beautiful (to those who understand it) had all her life been quid plura? I should be among the dullest and stupidest, if I were not among the saddest of all men. But not a word more on all this.

All summer last, my one solacement in the form of work was writing, and sorting of old documents and recollections; summoning out again into clearness old scenes that had now closed on me without return. Sad, and in a sense sacred; it was like a kind of worship; the only devout time I had had for a great while past. These things I have half or wholly the intention to burn out of the way before I myself die:—but such continues still mainly my employment,—so many hours every forenoon; what I call the "work" of my day;—to me, if to no other, it is useful; to reduce matters to writing means that you shall know them, see them in their origins and sequences, in their essential lineaments, considerably better than you ever did before. To set about writing my own Life would be no less than horrible to me; and shall of a certainty never be done. The common impious vulgar of this earth, what has it to do with my life or me? Let dignified oblivion, silence, and the vacant azure of Eternity swallow me; for my share of it, that, verily, is the handsomest, or one handsome way, of settling my poor account with the canaille of mankind extant and to come. "Immortal glory," is not that a beautiful thing, in the Shakespeare Clubs and Literary Gazettes of our improved Epoch?—I did not leave London, except for fourteen days in August, to a fine and high old Lady- friend's in Kent; where, riding about the woods and by the sea- beaches and chalk cliffs, in utter silence, I felt sadder than ever, though a little less miserably so, than in the intrusive babblements of London, which I could not quite lock out of doors. We read, at first, Tennyson's Idyls, with profound recognition of the finely elaborated execution, and also of the inward perfection of vacancy,—and, to say truth, with considerable impatience at being treated so very like infants, though the lollipops were so superlative. We gladly changed for one Emerson's English Traits; and read that, with increasing and ever increasing satisfaction every evening; blessing Heaven that there were still Books for grown-up people too! That truly is a Book all full of thoughts like winged arrows (thanks to the Bowyer from us both):—my Lady-friend's name is Miss Davenport Bromley; it was at Wooton, in her Grandfather's House, in Staffordshire, that Rousseau took shelter in 1760; and one hundred and six years later she was reading Emerson to me with a recognition that would have pleased the man, had he seen it.

About that same time my health and humors being evidently so, the Dowager Lady Ashburton (not the high Lady you saw, but a Successor of Mackenzie-Highland type), who wanders mostly about the Continent since her widowhood, for the sake of a child's health, began pressing and inviting me to spend the blade months of Winter here in her Villa with her;—all friends warmly seconding and urging; by one of whom I was at last snatched off, as if by the hair of the head, (in spite of my violent No, no!) on the eve of Christmas last, and have been here ever since,— really with improved omens. The place is beautiful as a very picture, the climate superlative (today a sun and sky like very June); the hospitality of usage beyond example. It is likely I shall be here another six weeks, or longer. If you please to write me, the address is on the margin; and I will answer. Adieu.

—T. Carlyle

CLXXVI. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 18 November, 1869

Dear Emerson,—It is near three years since I last wrote to you; from Mentone, under the Ligurian Olive and Orange trees, and their sombre foreign shadows, and still more sombre suggestings and promptings; the saddest, probably, of all living men. That you made no answer I know right well means only, "Alas, what can I say to him of consolatory that he does not himself know!" Far from a fault, or perhaps even a mistake on your part;—nor have I felt it otherwise. Sure enough, among the lights that have gone out for me, and are still going, one after one, under the inexorable Decree, in this now dusky and lonely world, I count with frequent regret that our Correspondence (not by absolute hest of Fate) should have fallen extinct, or into such abeyance: but I interpret it as you see; and my love and brotherhood to you remain alive, and will while I myself do. Enough of this. By lucky chance, as you perceive, you are again to get one written Letter from me, and I a reply from you, before the final Silence come. The case is this.

For many years back, a thought, which I used to check again as fond and silly, has been occasionally present to me,—Of testifying my gratitude to New England (New England, acting mainly through one of her Sons called Waldo Emerson), by bequeathing to it my poor Falstaf Regiment, latterly two Falstaf Regiments of Books, those I purchased and used in writing Cromwell, and ditto those on Friedrich the Great. "This could be done," I often said to myself; "this could perhaps; and this would be a real satisfaction to me. But who then would march through Coventry with such a set!" The extreme insignificance of the Gift, this and nothing else, always gave me pause.

Last Summer, I was lucky enough to meet with your friend C.E. Norton, and renew many old Massachusetts recollections, in free talk with [him]….; to him I spoke of the affair; candidly describing it, especially the above questionable feature of it, so far as I could; and his answer, then, and more deliberately afterwards, was so hopeful, hearty, and decisive, that—in effect it has decided me; and I am this day writing to him that such is the poor fact, and that I need farther instructions on it so soon as you two have taken counsel together.

To say more about the infinitesimally small value of the Books would be superfluous: nay, in truth, many or most of them are not without intrinsic value, one or two are even excellent as Books; and all of them, it may perhaps be said, have a kind of symbolic or biographic value; and testify (a thing not useless) on what slender commissariat stores considerable campaigns, twelve years long or so, may be carried on in this world. Perhaps you already knew of me, what the Cromwell and Friedrich collection might itself intimate, that much buying of Books was never a habit of mine,—far the reverse, even to this day!

Well, my Friend, you will have a meeting with Norton so soon as handy; and let me know what is next to be done. And that, in your official capacity, is all I have to say to you at present.

Unofficially there were much,—much that is mournful, but perhaps also something that is good and blessed, and though the saddest, also the highest, the lovingest and best; as beseems Time's sunset, now coming nigh. At present I will say only that, in bodily health, I am not to be called Ill, for a man who will be seventy-four next month; nor, on the spiritual side, has anything been laid upon me that is quite beyond my strength. More miserable I have often been; though as solitary, soft of heart, and sad, of course never.

Publisher Chapman, when I question him whether you for certain get your Monthly Volume of what they call "The Library Edition," assures me that "it is beyond doubt":—I confess I should still like to be better assured. If all is right, you should, by the time this Letter arrives, be receiving or have received your thirteenth Volume, last of the Miscellanies. Adieu, my Friend.

Ever truly yours,

T. Carlyle

CLXXVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 4 January, 1870

Dear Emerson,—A month ago or more I wrote, by the same post, to you and to Norton about those Books for Harvard College; and in late days have been expecting your joint answer. From Norton yesternight I receive what is here copied for your perusal; it has come round by Florence as you see, and given me real pleasure and instruction. From you, who are possibly also away from home, I have yet nothing; but expect now soon to have a few words. There did arrive, one evening lately, your two pretty volumes of Collected Works, a pleasant salutation from you—which set me upon reading again what I thought I knew well before:—but the Letter is still to come.

Norton's hints are such a complete instruction to me that I see my way straight through the business, and might, by Note of "Bequest" and memorandum for the Barings, finish it in half an hour: nevertheless I will wait for your Letter, and punctually do nothing till your directions too are before me. Pray write, therefore; all is lying ready here. Since you heard last, I have got two Catalogues made out, approximately correct; one is to lie here till the Bequest be executed; the other I thought of sending to you against the day? This is my own invention in regard to the affair since I wrote last. Approve of it, and you shall have your copy by Book-post at once. "Approximately correct"; absolutely I cannot get it to be. But I need not doubt the Pious Purpose will be piously and even sacredly fulfilled;—and your Catalogue will be a kind of evidence that it is. Adieu, dear Emerson, till your Letter come.

Yours ever,

Thomas Carlyle

CLXXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 23 January, 1870*

My Dear Carlyle,—'T is a sad apology that I have to offer for delays which no apology can retrieve. I received your first letter with pure joy, but in the midst of extreme inefficiency. I had suddenly yielded to a proposition of Fields & Co. to manufacture a book for a given day. The book was planned, and going on passably, when it was found better to divide the matter, and separate, and postpone the purely literary portion (criticism chiefly), and therefore to modify and swell the elected part. The attempt proved more difficult than I had believed, for I only write by spasms, and these ever more rare,—and daemons that have no ears. Meantime the publication day was announced, and the printer at the door. Then came your letter in the shortening days. When I drudged to keep my word, invita Minerva.

————- * This letter is printed from an imperfect rough draft. ————-

I could not write in my book, and I could not write a letter. Tomorrow and many morrows made things worse, for we have indifferent health in the house, and, as it chanced, unusual strain of affairs,—which always come when they should not. For one thing—I have just sold a house which I once built opposite my own. But I will leave the bad month, which I hope will not match itself in my lifetime. Only 't is pathetic and remorseful to me that any purpose of yours, especially, a purpose so inspired, should find me imbecile.

Heartily I delight in your proposed disposition of the books. It has every charm of surprise, and nobleness, and large affection. The act will deeply gratify a multitude of good men, who will see in it your real sympathy with the welfare of the country. I hate that there should be a moment of delay in the completing of your provisions,—and that I of all men should be the cause! Norton's letter is perfect on his part, and needs no addition, I believe, from me. You had not in your first letter named Cambridge, and I had been meditating that he would probably have divided your attention between Harvard and the Boston Public Library,—now the richest in the country, at first founded by the gifts of Joshua Bates (of London), and since enriched by the city and private donors, Theodore Parker among them. But after conversation with two or three friends, I had decided that Harvard College was the right beneficiary, as being the mother real or adoptive of a great number of your lovers and readers in America, and because a College is a seat of sentiment and cosmical relations. The Library is outgrown by other libraries in the Country, counts only 119,000 bound volumes in 1868; the several departments of Divinity, Law, Medicine, and Natural Science in the University having special libraries, that together add some 40,000 more. The College is newly active (with its new President Eliot, a cousin of Norton's) and expansive in all directions. And the Library will be relieved through subscriptions now being collected among the Alumni with the special purpose of securing to it an adequate fund for annual increase.

I shall then write to Norton at once that I concur with him in the destination of the books to Harvard College, and approve entirely his advices in regard to details. And so soon as you send me the Catalogue I shall, if you permit, communicate your design to President Eliot and the Corporation.

One thing I shall add to the Catalogue now or later (perhaps only by bequest), your own prized gift to me, in 1848, of Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, which I have lately had rebound, and in which every pen and pencil mark of yours is notable.

The stately books of the New Edition have duly come from the unforgetting friend. I have Sartor, Schiller, French Revolution, 3 vols., Miscellanies, Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,—ten volumes in all, excellently printed and dressed, and full of memories and electricity.

I have much to say, but of things not opportune at this moment, and in spite of my long contumacy dare believe that I shall quickly write again my proper letter to my friend, whose every word I watchfully read and remember.

CLXXIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Melchet Court, Romsey, 14 February, 1870

Dear Emerson,—Three days ago I at last received your Letter; with very great pleasure and thankfulness, as you may suppose. Indeed, it is quite strangely interesting to see face to face my old Emerson again, not a feature of him changed, whom I have known all the best part of my life.

I am very glad, withal, to find that you agree completely with

Norton and myself in regard to that small Harvard matter.

This is not Chelsea, as you perceive, this is a hospitable mansion in Hampshire; but I expect to be in Chelsea within about a week; once there, I shall immediately despatch to you one of the three Catalogues I have, with a more deliberate letter than I at present have the means of writing or dictating.

Yours ever truly,

T. Carlyle

CLXXX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 24 February, 1870

Dear Emerson,—At length I have got home from those sumptuous tumults ("Melchet Court" is the Dowager Lady Ashburton's House, whose late Husband, an estimable friend of mine, and half American, you may remember here); and I devote to ending of our small Harvard Business, small enough, but true and kindly,—the first quiet hour I have.

Your Copy of the Catalogue, which accompanies by Book-Post of today, is the correctest I could manage to get done; all the Books mentioned in it I believe to be now here (and indeed, except five or six tiny articles, have seen them all, in one or other of the three rooms where my Books now stand, and where I believe the insignificant trifle of "tinies" to be): all these I can expect will be punctually attended to when the time comes, and proceeded with according to Norton's scheme and yours;—and if any more "tinies," which I could not even remember, should turn up (which I hardly think there will), these also will class themselves (as Cromwelliana or Fredericana), and be faith fully sent on with the others. For benefit of my Survivors and Representatives here, I retain an exact Copy of the Catalogue now put into your keeping; so that everything may fall out square between them and you when the Time shall arrive.

I mean to conform in every particular to the plan sketched out by Norton and you,—unless, in your next Letter, you have something other or farther to advise:—and so soon as I hear from you that Harvard accepts my poor widow's mite of a Bequest, I will proceed to put it down in due form, and so finish this small matter, which for long years has hovered in my thoughts as a thing I should like to do. And so enough for this time.

I meant to write a longish Letter, touching on many other points,—though you see I am reduced to pencil, and "write" with such difficulty (never yet could learn to "dictate," though my little Niece here is promptitude itself, and is so swift and legible,—useful here as a cheerful rushlight in this now sombre element, sombre, sad, but also beautiful and tenderly solemn more and more, in which she bears me company, good little "Mary"!). But, in bar of all such purposes, Publisher Chapman has come in, with Cromwell Engravings and their hindrances, with money accounts, &c., &c.; and has not even left me a moment of time, were nothing else needed!

Vol. XIV. (Cromwell, I.) ought to be at Concord about as soon as this. In our Newspapers I notice your Book announced, "half of the Essays new,"—which I hope to get quam primum, and illuminate some evenings with,—so as nothing else can, in my present common mood.

Adieu, dear old Friend. I am and remain yours always,

—T. Carlyle

CLXXXI. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 21 March, 1870

My Dear Carlyle,—On receiving your letter and catalogue I wrote out a little history of the benefaction and carried it last Tuesday to President Eliot at Cambridge, who was heartily gratified, and saw everything rightly, and expressed an anxiety (most becoming in my eyes after my odious shortcomings) that there should be no moment of delay on our part. "The Corporation would not meet again for a fortnight:—but he would not wait,— would call a special meeting this week to make the communication to them." He did so: the meeting was held on Saturday and I have received this (Monday) morning from him enclosed letter and record.

It is very amiable and noble in you to have kept this surprise for us in your older days. Did you mean to show us that you could not be old, but immortally young? and having kept us all murmuring at your satires and sharp homilies, will now melt us with this manly and heart-warming embrace? Nobody could predict and none could better it. And you shall even go your own gait henceforward with a blessing from us all, and a trust exceptional and unique. I do not longer hesitate to talk to such good men as I see of this gift, and it has in every ear a gladdening effect. People like to see character in a gift, and from rare character the gift is more precious. I wish it may be twice blest in continuing to give you the comfort it will give us.

I think I must mend myself by reclaiming my old right to send you letters. I doubt not I shall have much to tell you, could I overcome the hesitation to attempt a reasonable letter when one is driven to write so many sheets of mere routine as sixty-six (nearly sixty-seven) years enforce. I shall have to prate of my daughters;—Edith Forbes, with her two children at Milton; Ellen Emerson at home, herself a godsend to this house day by day; and my son Edward studying medicine in Boston,—whom I have ever meant and still mean to send that he may see your face when that professional curriculum winds up.

I manage to read a few books and look into more. Herman Grimm sent me lately a good one, Goethe's Unterhaltungen with Muller,—which set me on Varnhagen and others. My wife sends old regards, and her joy in this occasion.

Yours ever,

R.W. Emerson

P.S. Mr. Eliot took my rough counting of Volumes as correct. When he sends me back the catalogue, I will make it exact.—I sent you last week a little book by book-post.

CLXXXII. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 24 March, 1870

My Dear Emerson,—The day before yesterday, I heard incidentally of an unfortunate Mail Steamer, bound for America, which had lost its screw or some essential part of it; and so had, instead of carrying its Letters forward to America, been drifting about like a helpless log on the shores of Ireland till some three days ago, when its Letters and Passengers were taken out, and actually forwarded, thither. By industrious calculation, it appears probable to us here that my Letter to you may have been tumbling about in that helpless Steamer, instead of getting to Concord; where, if so, said Letter cannot now arrive till the lingering of it have created some astonishment there.

I hastily write this, however, to say that a Letter was duly forwarded a few days after yours [of January 23] arrived,— enclosing the Harvard Catalogue, with all necessary et ceteras; indorsing all your proposals; and signifying that the matter should be authentically completed the instant I should hear from you again. I may add now that the thing is essentially completed,—all signed and put on paper, or all but a word or two, which, for form's sake, waits the actual arrival of your Letter.

I have never yet received your Book;* and, if it linger only a few days more, mean to provide myself with a copy such as the Sampson and Low people have on sale everywhere.

I had from Norton, the other day, a very kind and friendly Letter.

This is all of essential that I had to say. I write in utmost haste. But am always, dear Emerson,

Yours sincerely,

T. Carlyle

———— * "Society and Solitude." ————

CLXXXIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 6 April, 1870

Dear Emerson,—The day before yesterday your welcome Letter came to hand, with the welcome news in it; yesterday I put into my poor Document here the few words still needed; locked everything into its still repository (your Letter, President Eliot's, Norton's, &c., &c.); and walked out into the sunshine, piously thankful that a poor little whim, which had long lain fondly in my heart, had realized itself with an emphasis I could never hope, and was become (thanks to generous enthusiasm on New England's part) a beautiful little fact, lying done there, so far as I had to do with it. Truly your account of matters threw a glow of life into my thoughts which is very rare there now; altogether a gratifying little Transaction to me,—and I must add a surprising, for the enthusiasm of good-will is evidently great, and the occasion is almost infinitesimally small! Well, well; it is all finished off and completed,—(you can tell Mr. Eliot, with many thanks from me, that I did introduce the proper style, "President and Fellows," &c., and have forgotten nothing of what he said, or of what he did);—and so we will say only, Faustum sit, as our last word on the subject;—and to me it will be, for some days yet, under these vernal skies, something that is itself connected with THE SPRING in a still higher sense; a little white and red-lipped bit of Daisy pure and poor, scattered into TIME's Seedfield, and struggling above ground there, uttering its bit of prophecy withal, among the ox-hoofs and big jungles that are everywhere about and not prophetic of much!—

One thing only I regret, that you have spoken of the affair! For God's sake don't; and those kindly people to whom you have,- -swear them to silence for love of me! The poor little _Daisy_kin will get into the Newspapers, and become the nastiest of Cabbages:—silence, silence, I beg of you to the utmost stretch of your power! Or is the case already irremediable? I will hope not. Talk about such things, especially Penny Editor's talk, is like vile coal-smoke filling your poor little world; silence alone is azure, and has a sky to it.—But, enough now.

The "little Book" never came; and, I doubt, never will: it is a fate that seems to await three fourths of the Books that attempt to reach me by the American Post; owing to some informality in wrapping (I have heard);—it never gave me any notable regret till now. However, I had already bought myself an English copy, rather gaudy little volume (probably intended for the railways, as if it were a Book to be read there), but perfectly printed, ready to be read anywhere by the open eye and earnest mind;— which I read here, accordingly, with great attention, clear assent for most part, and admiring recognition. It seems to me you are all your old self here, and something more. A calm insight, piercing to the very centre; a beautiful sympathy, a beautiful epic humor; a soul peaceably irrefragable in this loud-jangling world, of which it sees the ugliness, but notices only the huge new opulences (still so anarchic); knows the electric telegraph, with all its vulgar botherations and impertinences, accurately for what it is, and ditto ditto the oldest eternal Theologies of men. All this belongs to the Highest Class of thought (you may depend upon it); and again seemed to me as, in several respects, the one perfectly Human Voice I had heard among my fellow-creatures for a long time. And then the "style," the treatment and expression,—yes, it is inimitable, best—Emersonian throughout. Such brevity, simplicity, softness, homely grace; with such a penetrating meaning, soft enough, but irresistible, going down to the depths and up to the heights, as silent electricity goes. You have done very well; and many will know it ever better by degrees.—Only one thing farther I will note: How you go as if altogether on the "Over-Soul," the Ideal, the Perfect or Universal and Eternal in this life of ours; and take so little heed of the frightful quantities of friction and perverse impediment there everywhere are; the reflections upon which in my own poor life made me now and then very sad, as I read you. Ah me, ah me; what a vista it is, mournful, beautiful, unfathomable as Eternity itself, these last fifty years of Time to me.—

Let me not forget to thank you for that fourth page of your Note; I should say it was almost the most interesting of all. News from yourself at first hand; a momentary glimpse into the actual Household at Concord, face to face, as in years of old! True, I get vague news of you from time to time; but what are these in comparison?—If you will, at the eleventh hour, turn over a new leaf, and write me Letters again,—but I doubt you won't. And yet were it not worth while, think you? [Greek]— will be here anon.—My kindest regards to your wife. Adieu, my ever-kind Old Friend.

Yours faithfully always,

T. Carlyle

CLXXXIV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 17 June, 1870

My Dear Carlyle,—Two* unanswered letters filled and fragrant and potent with goodness will not let me procrastinate another minute, or I shall sink and deserve to sink into my dormouse condition. You are of the Anakim, and know nothing of the debility and postponement of the blonde constitution. Well, if you shame us by your reservoir inexhaustible of force, you indemnify and cheer some of us, or one of us, by charges of electricity.

———— * One seems to be missing. ————

Your letter of April came, as ever-more than ever, if possible— full of kindness, and making much of our small doings and writings, and seemed to drive me to instant acknowledgment; but the oppressive engagement of writing and reading eighteen lectures on Philosophy to a class of graduates in the College, and these in six successive weeks, was a task a little more formidable in prospect and in practice than any foregoing one. Of course, it made me a prisoner, took away all rights of friendship, honor, and justice, and held me to such frantic devotion to my work as must spoil that also.

Well, it is now ended, and has no shining side but this one, that materials are collected and a possibility shown me how a repetition of the course next year—which is appointed—will enable me partly out of these materials, and partly by large rejection of these, and by large addition to them, to construct a fair report of what I have read and thought on the subject. I doubt the experts in Philosophy will not praise my discourses;— but the topics give me room for my guesses, criticism, admirations and experiences with the accepted masters, and also the lessons I have learned from the hidden great. I have the fancy that a realist is a good corrector of formalism, no matter how incapable of syllogism or continuous linked statement. To great results of thought and morals the steps are not many, and it is not the masters who spin the ostentatious continuity.

I am glad to hear that the last sent book from me arrived safely. You were too tender and generous in your first notice of it, I fear. But with whatever deductions for your partiality, I know well the unique value of Carlyle's praise. Many things crowd to be said on this little paper. Though I could see no harm in the making known the bequest of books to Cambridge,—no harm, but sincere pleasure, and honor of the donor from all good men,—yet on receipt of your letter touching that, I went back to President Eliot, and told him your opinion on newspapers. He said it was necessarily communicated to the seven persons composing the Corporation, but otherwise he had been very cautious, and it would not go into print.

You are sending me a book, and Chapman's Homer it is? Are you bound by your Arabian bounty to a largess whenever you think of your friend? And you decry the book too. 'T-is long since I read it, or in it, but the apotheosis of Homer, in the dedication to Prince Henry, "Thousands of years attending," &c., is one of my lasting inspirations. The book has not arrived yet, as the letter always travels faster, but shall be watched and received and announced.

But since you are all bounty and care for me, where are the new volumes of the Library Edition of Carlyle? I received duly, as I wrote you in a former letter, nine Volumes,—Sartor; Life of Schiller; five Vols. of Miscellanies; French Revolution; these books oddly addressed to my name, but at Cincinnati, Massachusetts. Whether they went to Ohio, and came back to Boston, I know not. Two volumes came later, duplicates of two already received, and were returned at my request by Fields & Co. with an explanation. But no following volume has come. I write all this because you said in one letter that Mr. Chapman assured you that every month a book was despatched to my address.

But what do I read in our Boston Newspapers twice in the last three days? That "Thomas Carlyle is coming to America," and the tidings cordially greeted by the editors; though I had just received your letter silent to any such point. Make that story true, though it had never a verisimilitude since thirty odd years ago, and you shall make many souls happy and perhaps show you so many needs and opportunities for beneficent power that you cannot be allowed to grow old or withdraw. Was I not once promised a visit? This house entreats you earnestly and lovingly to come and dwell in it. My wife and Ellen and Edward E. are thoroughly acquainted with your greatness and your loveliness. And it is but ten days of healthy sea to pass.

So wishes heartily and affectionately,

R.W. Emerson

CLXXXV. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 28 September, 1870

Dear Emerson,—Your Letter, dated 15 June, never got to me till about ten days ago; when my little Niece and I returned out of Scotland, and a long, rather empty Visit there! It had missed me here only by two or three days; and my highly _in_felicitous Selectress of Letters to be forwarded had left it carefully aside as undeserving that honor,—good faithful old Woman, one hopes she is greatly stronger on some sides than in this literary-selective one. Certainly no Letter was forwarded that had the hundredth part of the right to be so; certainly, of all the Letters that came to me, or were left waiting here, this was, in comparison, the one which might not with propriety have been left to lie stranded forever, or to wander on the winds forever!—

One of my first journeys was to Chapman, with vehement rebuke of this inconceivable "Cincinnati-Massachusetts" business. Stupiditas stupiditatum; I never in my life, not even in that unpunctual House, fell in with anything that equaled it. Instant amendment was at once undertaken for, nay it seems had been already in part performed: "Ten volumes, following the nine you already had, were despatched in Field & Co.'s box above two months ago," so Chapman solemnly said and asseverated to me; so that by this time you ought actually to have in hand nineteen volumes; and the twentieth (first of Friedrich), which came out ten days ago, is to go in Field & Co.'s Box this week, and ought, not many days after the arrival of this Letter, to be in Boston waiting for you there. The Chapman's Homer (two volumes) had gone with that first Field Packet; and would be handed to you along with the ten volumes which were overdue. All this was solemnly declared to me as on Affidavit; Chapman also took extract of the Massachusetts passage in your Letter, in order to pour it like ice-cold water on the head of his stupid old Chief-Clerk, the instant the poor creature got back from his rustication: alas, I am by no means certain that it will make a new man of him, nor, in fact, that the whole of this amendatory programme will get itself performed to equal satisfaction! But you must write to me at once if it is not so; and done it shall be in spite of human stupidity itself. Note, withal, these things: Chapman sends no Books to America except through Field & Co.; he does not regularly send a Box at the middle of the month; but he does "almost monthly send one Bog"; so that if your monthly Volume do not start from London about the 15th, it is due by the very next Chapman-Field box; and if it at any time don't come, I beg of you very much to make instant complaint through Field & Co., or what would be still more effectual, direct to myself. My malison on all Blockheadisms and torpid stupidities and infidelities; of which this world is full!—

Your Letter had been anxiously enough waited for, a month before my departure; but we will not mention the delay in presence of what you were engaged with then. Faustum sit; that truly was and will be a Work worth doing your best upon; and I, if alive, can promise you at least one reader that will do his best upon your Work. I myself, often think of the Philosophies precisely in that manner. To say truth, they do not otherwise rise in esteem with me at all, but rather sink. The last thing I read of that kind was a piece by Hegel, in an excellent Translation by Stirling, right well translated, I could see, for every bit of it was intelligible to me; but my feeling at the end of it was, "Good Heavens, I have walked this road before many a good time; but never with a Cannon-ball at each ankle before!" Science also, Science falsely so called, is—But I will not enter upon that with you just now.

The Visit to America, alas, alas, is pure Moonshine. Never had I, in late years, the least shadow of intention to undertake that adventure; and I am quite at a loss to understand how the rumor originated. One Boston Gentleman (a kind of universal Undertaker, or Lion's Provider of Lecturers I think) informed me that "the Cable" had told him; and I had to remark, "And who the devil told the Cable?" Alas, no, I fear I shall never dare to undertake that big Voyage; which has so much of romance and of reality behind it to me; zu spat, zu spat. I do sometimes talk dreamily of a long Sea-Voyage, and the good the Sea has often done me,—in times when good was still possible. It may have been some vague folly of that kind that originated this rumor; for rumors are like dandelion-seeds; and the Cable I dare say welcomes them all that have a guinea in their pocket.

Thank you for blocking up that Harvard matter; provided it don't go into the Newspapers, all is right. Thank you a thousand times for that thrice-kind potential welcome, and flinging wide open your doors and your hearts to me at Concord. The gleam of it is like sunshine in a subterranean place. Ah me, Ah me! May God be with you all, dear Emerson.

Yours ever,

T. Carlyle

CLXXXVI. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 15 October, 1870

My Dear Carlyle,—I am the ignoblest of all men in my perpetual short-comings to you. There is no example of constancy like yours, and it always stings my stupor into temporary recovery and wonderful resolution to accept the noble challenge. But "the strong hours conquer us," and I am the victim of miscellany,— miscellany of designs, vast debility, and procrastination.

Already many days before your letter came, Fields sent me a package from you, which he said he had found a little late, because they were covered up in a box of printed sheets of other character, and this treasure was not at first discovered. They are,—Life of Sterling; Latter Day Pamphlets; Past and Present; Heroes; 5 Vols. Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. Unhappily, Vol. II. of Cromwell is wanting, and there is a duplicate of Vol. V. instead of it. Now, two days ago came your letter, and tells me that the good old gods have also inspired you to send me Chapman's Homer! and that it came—heroes with heroes—in the same enchanted box. I went to Fields yesterday and demanded the book. He ignored all,—even to the books he had already sent me; called Osgood to council, and they agreed that it must be that all these came in a bog of sheets of Dickens from Chapman, which was sent to the Stereotypers at Cambridge; and the box shall be instantly explored. We will see what tomorrow shall find. As to the duplicates, I will say here, that I have received two: first, the above-mentioned Vol. II. of Cromwell; and, second, long before, a second copy of Sartor Resartus, apparently instead of the Vol. I. of the French Revolution, which did not come. I proposed to Fields to send back to Chapman these two duplicates. But he said, "No, it will cost as much as the price of the books." I shall try to find in New York who represents Chapman and sells these books, and put them to his credit there, in exchange for the volumes I lack. Meantime, my serious thanks for all these treasures go to you,—steadily good to my youth and my age.

Your letter was most welcome, and most in that I thought I read, in what you say of not making the long-promised visit hither, a little willingness to come. Think again, I pray you, of that Ocean Voyage, which is probably the best medicine and restorative which remains to us at your age and mine. Nine or ten days will bring you (and commonly with unexpected comfort and easements on the way) to Boston. Every reading person in America holds you in exceptional regard, and will rejoice in your arrival. They have forgotten your scarlet sins before or during the war. I have long ceased to apologize for or explain your savage sayings about American or other republics or publics, and am willing that anointed men bearing with them authentic charters shall be laws to themselves as Plato willed. Genius is but a large infusion of Deity, and so brings a prerogative all its own. It has a right and duty to affront and amaze men by carrying out its perceptions defiantly, knowing well that time and fate will verify and explain what time and fate have through them said. We must not suggest to Michel Angelo, or Machiavel, or Rabelais, or Voltaire, or John Brown of Osawatomie (a great man), or Carlyle, how they shall suppress their paradoxes and check their huge gait to keep accurate step with the procession on the street sidewalk. They are privileged persons, and may have their own swing for me.

I did not mean to chatter so much, but I wish you would come out hither and read our possibilities now being daily disclosed, and our actualities which are not nothing. I shall like to show you my near neighbors, topographically or practically. A near neighbor and friend, E. Rockwood Hoar, whom you saw in his youth, is now an inestimable citizen in this State, and lately, in President Grant's Cabinet, Attorney-General of the United States. He lives in this town and carries it in his hand. Another is John M. Forbes, a strictly private citizen, of great executive ability, and noblest affections, a motive power and regulator essential to our City, refusing all office, but impossible to spare; and these are men whom to name the voice breaks and the eye is wet. A multitude of young men are growing up here of high promise, and I compare gladly the social poverty of my youth with the power on which these draw. The Lowell race, again, in our War yielded three or four martyrs so able and tender and true, that James Russell Lowell cannot allude to them in verse or prose but the public is melted anew. Well, all these know you well, have read and will read you, yes, and will prize and use your benefaction to the College; and I believe it would add hope, health, and strength to you to come and see them.

In my much writing I believe I have left the chief things unsaid.

But come! I and my house wait for you.

Affectionately,

R.W. Emerson

CLXXXVIa. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 10 April, 1871

My Dear Friend,—I fear there is no pardon from you, none from myself, for this immense new gap in our correspondence. Yet no hour came from month to month to write a letter, since whatever deliverance I got from one web in the last year served only to throw me into another web as pitiless. Yet what gossamer these tasks of mine must appear to your might! Believe that the American climate is unmanning, or that one American whom you know is severely taxed by Lilliput labors. The last hot summer enfeebled me till my young people coaxed me to go with Edward to the White Hills, and we climbed or were dragged up Agiocochook, in August, and its sleet and snowy air nerved me again for the time. But the booksellers, whom I had long ago urged to reprint Plutarch's Morals, claimed some forgotten promise, and set me on reading the old patriarch again, and writing a few pages about him, which no doubt cost me as much time and pottering as it would cost you to write a History. Then an "Oration" was due to the New England Society in New York, on the 250th anniversary of the Plymouth Landing,—as I thought myself familiar with the story, and holding also some opinions thereupon. But in the Libraries I found alcoves full of books and documents reckoned essential; and, at New York, after reading for an hour to the great assembly out of my massy manuscript, I refused to print a line until I could revise and complete my papers;—risking, of course, the nonsense of their newspaper reporters. This pill swallowed and forgotten, it was already time for my Second "Course on Philosophy" at Cambridge,—which I had accepted again that I might repair the faults of the last year. But here were eighteen lectures, each to be read sixteen miles away from my house, to go and come,—and the same work and journey twice in each week,—and I have just got through the doleful ordeal.

I have abundance of good readings and some honest writing on the leading topics,—but in haste and confusion they are misplaced and spoiled. I hope the ruin of no young man's soul will here or hereafter be charged to me as having wasted his time or confounded his reason.

Now I come to the raid of a London bookseller, Hotten, (of whom I believe I never told you,) on my forgotten papers in the old Dials, and other pamphlets here. Conway wrote me that he could not be resisted,—would certainly steal good and bad,—but might be guided in the selection. I replied that the act was odious to me, and I promised to denounce the man and his theft to any friends I might have in England; but if, instead of printing then, he would wait a year, I would make my own selection, with the addition of some later critical papers, and permit the book. Mr. Ireland in Manchester, and Conway in London, took the affair kindly in hand, and Hotten acceded to my change. And that is the next task that threatens my imbecility. But now, ten days ago or less, my friend John M. Forbes has come to me with a proposition to carry me off to California, the Yosemite, the Mammoth trees, and the Pacific, and, after much resistance, I have surrendered for six weeks, and we set out tomorrow. And hence this sheet of confession,—that I may not drag a lengthening chain. Meantime, you have been monthly loading me with good for evil. I have just counted twenty-three volumes of Carlyle's Library Edition, in order on my shelves, besides two, or perhaps three, which Ellery Channing has borrowed. Add, that the precious Chapman's Homer came safely, though not till months after you had told me of its departure, and shall be guarded henceforward with joy.

Wednesday, 13, Chicago.—Arrived here and can bring this little sheet to the post-office here. My daughter Edith Forbes, and her husband William H. Forbes, and three other friends, accompany me, and we shall overtake Mr. Forbes senior tomorrow at Burlington, Iowa.

The widow of one of the noblest of our young martyrs in the War, Col. Lowell,* cousin [nephew] of James Russell Lowell, sends me word that she wishes me to give her a note of introduction to you, confiding to me that she has once written a letter to you which procured her the happiest reply from you, and I shall obey her, and you will see her and own her rights. Still continue to be magnanimous to your friend,

—R.W. Emerson

————- * Charles Russell Lowell, to be remembered always with honor in company with his brother James Jackson Lowell and his cousin William Lowell Putnam,—a shining group among the youths who have died for their country. ————-

CLXXXVII. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 4 June, 1871

Dear Emerson,—Your Letter gave me great pleasure. A gleam of sunshine after a long tract of lowering weather. It is not you that are to blame for this sad gap in our correspondence; it is I, or rather it is my misfortunes, and miserable inabilities, broken resolutions, etc., etc. The truth is, the winter here was very unfriendly to me; broke ruinously into my sleep; and through that into every other department of my businesses, spiritual and temporal; so that from about New-Year's Day last I have been, in a manner, good for nothing,—nor am yet, though I do again feel as if the beautiful Summer weather might perhaps do something for me. This it was that choked every enterprise; and postponed your Letter, week after week, through so many months. Let us not speak of it farther!

Note, meanwhile, I have no disease about me; nothing but the gradual decay of any poor digestive faculty I latterly had,—or indeed ever had since I was three and twenty years of age. Let us be quiet with it; accept it as a mode of exit, of which always there must be some mode.

I have got done with all my press-correctings, editionings, and paltry bother of that kind: Vol. 30 will embark for you about the middle of this month; there are then to follow ("uniform," as the printers call it, though in smaller type) a little volume called General Index; and three more volumes of Translations from the German; after which we two will reckon and count; and if there is any lacuna on the Concord shelf, at once make it good. Enough, enough on that score.

The Hotten who has got hold of you here is a dirty little pirate, who snatches at everybody grown fat enough to yield him a bite (paltry, unhanged creature); so that in fact he is a symbol to you of your visible rise in the world here; and, with Conway's vigilance to help, will do you good and not evil. Glad am I, in any case, to see so much new spiritual produce still ripening around you; and you ought to be glad, too. Pray Heaven you may long keep your right hand steady: you, too, I can perceive, will never, any more than myself, learn to "write by dictation" in a manner that will be supportable to you. I rejoice, also, to hear of such a magnificent adventure as that you are now upon. Climbing the backbone of America; looking into the Pacific Ocean too, and the gigantic wonders going on there. I fear you won't see Brigham Young, however? He also to me is one of the products out there;—and indeed I may confess to you that the doings in that region are not only of a big character, but of a great;—and that in my occasional explosions against "Anarchy," and my inextinguishable hatred of it, I privately whisper to myself, "Could any Friedrich Wilhelm, now, or Friedrich, or most perfect Governor you could hope to realize, guide forward what is America's essential task at present faster or more completely than 'anarchic America' herself is now doing?" Such "Anarchy" has a great deal to say for itself,—(would to Heaven ours of England had as much!)—and points towards grand anti-Anarchies in the future; in fact, I can already discern in it huge quantities of Anti-Anarchy in the "impalpable-powder" condition; and hope, with the aid of centuries, immense things from it, in my private mind!

Good Mrs. —- has never yet made her appearance; but shall be welcome whenever she does.

Did you ever hear the name of an aged, or elderly, fantastic fellow-citizen of yours, called J. Lee Bliss, who designates himself O.F. and A.K., i.e. "Old Fogey" and "Amiable Kuss"? He sent me, the other night, a wonderful miscellany of symbolical shreds and patches; which considerably amused me; and withal indicated good-will on the man's part; who is not without humor, in sight, and serious intention or disposition. If you ever did hear of him, say a word on the subject next time you write.

And above all things write. The instant you get home from California, or see this, let me hear from you what your adventures have been and what the next are to be. Adieu, dear Emerson.

Yours ever affectionately,

T. Carlyle

Mrs. —- sends a note from Piccadilly this new morning (June 5th); call to be made there today by Niece Mary, card left, etc., etc. Promises to be an agreeable Lady.

Did you ever hear of such a thing as this suicidal Finis of the French "Copper Captaincy"; gratuitous Attack on Germany, and ditto Blowing-up of Paris by its own hand! An event with meanings unspeakable,—deep as the. Abyss.—

If you ever write to C. Norton in Italy, send him my kind remembrances.

—T. C. (with about the velocity of Engraving—on lead!)*

————- * The letter was dictated, but the postscript, from the first signature, was written in a tremulous hand by Carlyle himself. ————-

CLXXXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 June, 1871

My Dear Carlyle,—'T is more than time that you should hear from me whose debts to you always accumulate. But my long journey to California ended in many distractions on my return home. I found Varioloid in my house… and I was not permitted to enter it for many days, and could only talk with wife, son, and daughter from the yard…. I had crowded and closed my Cambridge lectures in haste, and went to the land of Flowers invited by John M. Forbes, one of my most valued friends, father of my daughter Edith's husband. With him and his family and one or two chosen guests, the trip was made under the best conditions of safety, comfort, and company, I measuring for the first time one entire line of the Country.

California surprises with a geography, climate, vegetation, beasts, birds, fishes even, unlike ours; the land immense; the Pacific sea; Steam brings the near neighborhood of Asia; and South America at your feet; the mountains reaching the altitude of Mont Blanc; the State in its six hundred miles of latitude producing all our Northern fruits, and also the fig, orange, and banana. But the climate chiefly surprised me. The Almanac said April; but the day said June;—and day after day for six weeks uninterrupted sunshine. November and December are the rainy months. The whole Country, was covered with flowers, and all of them unknown to us except in greenhouses. Every bird that I know at home is represented here, but in gayer plumes.

On the plains we saw multitudes of antelopes, hares, gophers,— even elks, and one pair of wolves on the plains; the grizzly bear only in a cage. We crossed one region of the buffalo, but only saw one captive. We found Indians at every railroad station,—the squaws and papooses begging, and the "bucks," as they wickedly call them, lounging. On our way out, we left the Pacific Railroad for twenty-four hours to visit Salt Lake; called on Brigham Young—just seventy years old—who received us with quiet uncommitting courtesy, at first,—a strong-built, self-possessed, sufficient man with plain manners. He took early occasion to remark that "the one-man-power really meant all- men's-power." Our interview was peaceable enough, and rather mended my impression of the man; and, after our visit, I read in the Descret newspaper his Speech to his people on the previous Sunday. It avoided religion, but was full of Franklinian good sense. In one point, he says: "Your fear of the Indians is nonsense. The Indians like the white men's food. Feed them well, and they will surely die." He is clearly a sufficient ruler, and perhaps civilizer of his kingdom of blockheads ad interim; but I found that the San Franciscans believe that this exceptional power cannot survive Brigham.

I have been surprised—but it is months ago—by a letter from Lacy Garbett, the Architect, whom I do not know, but one of whose books, about "Design in Architecture," I have always valued. This letter, asking of me that Americans shall join Englishmen in a Petition to Parliament against pulling down Ancient Saxon buildings, is written in a way so wild as to suggest insanity, and I have not known how to answer it. At my "Saturday Club" in Boston I sat at dinner by an English lord,—whose name I have forgotten,—from whom I tried to learn what laws Parliament had passed for the repairs of old religious Foundations, that could make them the victims of covetous Architects. But he assured me there were none such, and that he himself was President of a Society in his own County for the protection of such buildings. So that I am left entirely in the dark in regard to the fact and Garbett's letter. He claims to speak both for Ruskin and himself.

I grieve to hear no better account of your health than your last letter gives. The only contradiction of it, namely, the power of your pen in this reproduction of thirty books,—and such books,— is very important and very consoling to me. A great work to be done is the best insurance, and I sleep quietly, notwithstanding these sad bulletins,—believing that you cannot be spared.

Fare well, dear friend,

R.W. Emerson

CLXXXIX. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 4 September, 1871

My Dear Carlyle,—I hope you will have returned safely from the Orkneys in time to let my son Edward W.E. see your face on his way through London to Germany, whither he goes to finish his medical studies,—no, not finish, but prosecute. Give him your blessing, and tell him what he should look for in his few days in London, and what in your Prussia. He is a good youth, and we can spare him only for this necessity. I should like well to accompany him as far as to your hearthstone, if only so I could persuade you that it is but a ten-days ride for you thence to mine,—a little farther than the Orkneys, and the outskirts of land as good, and bigger. I read gladly in your letters some relentings toward America,—deeper ones in your dealing with Harvard College; and I know you could not see without interest the immense and varied blossoming of our possibilities here,—of all nationalities, too, besides our own. I have heard from Mrs. —- twice lately, who exults in your kindness to her.

Always affectionately, Yours,

R.W. Emerson

CXC. Emerson to Carlyle

Baltimore, Md., 5 January, 1872

My Dear Carlyle,—I received from you through Mr. Chapman, just before Christmas, the last rich instalment of your Library Edition; viz. Vols. IV.-X. Life of Friedrich; Vols. L-III. Translations from German; one volume General Index; eleven volumes in all,—and now my stately collection is perfect. Perfect too is your Victory. But I clatter my chains with joy, as I did forty years ago, at your earliest gifts. Happy man you should be, to whom the Heaven has allowed such masterly completion. You shall wear your crown at the Pan-Saxon Games with no equal or approaching competitor in sight,—well earned by genius and exhaustive labor, and with nations for your pupils and praisers. I count it my eminent happiness to have been so nearly your contemporary, and your friend,—permitted to detect by its rare light the new star almost before the Easterners had seen it, and to have found no disappointment, but joyful confirmation rather, in coming close to its orb. Rest, rest, now for a time; I pray you, and be thankful. Meantime, I know well all your perversities, and give them a wide berth. They seriously annoy a great many worthy readers, nations of readers sometimes,—but I heap them all as style, and read them as I read Rabelais's gigantic humors which astonish in order to force attention, and by and by are seen to be the rhetoric of a highly virtuous gentleman who swears. I have been quite too busy with fast succeeding jobs (I may well call them), in the last year, to have read much in these proud books; but I begin to see daylight coming through my fogs, and I have not lost in the least my appetite for reading,—resolve, with my old Harvard professor, "to retire and read the Authors."

I am impatient to deserve your grand Volumes by reading in them with all the haughty airs that belong to seventy years which I shall count if I live till May, 1873. Meantime I see well that you have lost none of your power, and I wish that you would let in some good Eckermann to dine with you day by day, and competent to report your opinions,—for you can speak as well as you can write, and what the world to come should know…

Affectionately,

R.W. Emerson

CXCI. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 2 April, 1872

Dear Emerson,—I am covered with confusion, astonishment, and shame to think of my long silence. You wrote me two beautiful letters; none friendlier, brighter, wiser could come to me from any quarter of the world; and I have not answered even by a sign. Promptly and punctually my poor heart did answer; but to do it outwardly,—as if there had lain some enchantment on me,— was beyond my power. The one thing I can say in excuse or explanation is, that ever since Summer last, I have been in an unusually dyspeptic, peaking, pining, and dispirited condition; and have no right hand of my own for writing, nor, for several months, had any other that was altogether agreeable to me. But in fine I don't believe you lay any blame or anger on me at all; and I will say no more about it, but only try to repent and do better next time.

Your letter from the Far West was charmingly vivid and free; one seemed to attend you personally, and see with one's own eyes the notabilia, human and other, of those huge regions, in your swift flight through them to and from. I retain your little etching of Brigham Young as a bit of real likeness; I have often thought of your transit through Chicago since poor Chicago itself vanished out of the world on wings of fire. There is something huge, painful, and almost appalling to me in that wild Western World of yours;—and especially I wonder at the gold-nuggeting there, while plainly every gold-nuggeter is no other than a criminal to Human Society, and has to steal the exact value of his gold nugget from the pockets of all the posterity of Adam, now and for some time to come, in this world. I conclude it is a bait used by All-wise Providence to attract your people out thither, there to build towns, make roads, fell forests (or plant forests), and make ready a Dwelling-place for new Nations, who will find themselves called to quite other than nugget-hunting. In the hideous stew of Anarchy, in which all English Populations present themselves to my dismal contemplation at this day, it is a solid consolation that there will verily, in another fifty years, be above a hundred million men and women on this Planet who can all read Shakespeare and the English Bible and the (also for a long time biblical and noble) history of their Mother Country,—and proceed again to do, unless the Devil be in them, as their Forebears did, or better, if they have the heart!—

Except that you are a thousand times too kind to me, your second

Letter also was altogether charming….

Do you read Ruskin's Fors Clavigera, which he cheerily tells me gets itself reprinted in America? If you don't, do, I advise you. Also his Munera Pulveris, Oxford-Lectures on Art, and whatever else he is now writing,—if you can manage to get them (which is difficult here, owing to the ways he has towards the bibliopolic world!). There is nothing going on among us as notable to me as those fierce lightning-bolts Ruskin is copiously and desperately pouring into the black world of Anarchy all around him. No other man in England that I meet has in him the divine rage against iniquity, falsity, and baseness that Ruskin has, and that every man ought to have. Unhappily he is not a strong man; one might say a weak man rather; and has not the least prudence of management; though if he can hold out for another fifteen years or so, he may produce, even in this way, a great effect. God grant it, say I. Froude is coming to you in October. You will find him a most clear, friendly, ingenious, solid, and excellent man; and I am very glad to find you among those who are to take care of him when he comes to your new Country. Do your best and wisest towards him, for my sake, withal. He is the valuablest Friend I now have in England, nearly though not quite altogether the one man in talking with whom I can get any real profit or comfort. Alas, alas, here is the end of the paper, dear Emerson; and I had still a whole wilderness of things to say. Write to me, or even do not write, and I will surely write again.

I remain as ever Your Affectionate Friend,

T. Carlyle

In November, 1872, Emerson went to England, and the two friends met again. After a short stay he proceeded to the Continent and Egypt, returning to London in the spring of 1873. For the last time Carlyle and he saw each other. In May, Emerson returned home. After this time no letters passed between him and Carlyle. They were both old men. Writing had become difficult to them; and little was left to say.

Carlyle died, eighty-five years old, on the 5th of February, 1881. Emerson died, seventy-nine years old, on the 27th of April, 1882.

——————-

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Table of Contents

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II

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