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 theDial,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 Channing's then unpublished poems.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 ofSomething,but of mere Idleness, Confusion, Inaction, Inarticulation, ofNothingin 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 theDial.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 reprintedEmerson's Essayson 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 theDialwhich 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, alltransfigured,—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 theindubitablestbenefits I could think of in regard to it.
————- * A criticism by Emerson ofPast and Present,in theDialfor 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 isimpossible.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 theirCollections,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 printedCommons 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 thelastline 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 theEssays,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'sPoemsare also a kind gift from you. I have read the piecesyou had cut up for me:worthy indeed of reading! That Poemon Deathis 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 accusativebeforethe 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 theshortestway, and I will so cheerfully excuse theomissionof 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 tospeakwhat he means, beforesingingis 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 enormousheatfrom 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 theirflight,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 OldEnglishages 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 JanuaryDiala 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 thisDialfor 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) ofEmerson'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 straightwaypaid;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 ofThe Gallery of Literary Portraits.—————-
John Sterling'sDialshall 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 theHistory of Cromwellis 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 inBlackwoodon 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 youfasterabroad, if the world have any use for you;—oftenest it only thinks it has. YourEssays,the PiratedEssays,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 poorLife of Schiller,but I put the due spoke in his wheel. They have sent me Lowell'sPoems;they are bringing out Jean Paul's Life, &c., &c.; the hungryCanaille.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 theEssay on ConsciousnessinBlackwood.The writer of those Papers is one Ferrier, a Nephew of the Edinburgh Miss Ferrier who wroteMarriageand 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 certainyoungpublic wanted me to be that Professor there, but I knew better,—Is this enough about Ferrier?
I will not add another word; the time beingpast,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 outletthere.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 Autumnherethis time.—Get your Book ready; there are readers ready for it! And be busy and victorious!
Ever Yours,T. Carlyle
MyHistoryis 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 AmericanManuscriptshad 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 sayingimprimaturif 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! alittleway 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 firsthalf- sheet, in Proof, of theEssayshas 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 Clarklikehis 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 benettofrom the first. Why should I plague poor Clark with them, if it be any plague to him? The Booksellers will neverknowbut 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 ofEssays,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 hehasobtained 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 EssayNew 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 asermonto me, as all your other deliberate utterances are; a realword,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 forwords!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 aSoliloquizeron 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,—whichtranscendall 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 verybrief;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 squarebag of duck-shotheld 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 ofyourletters—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 yourMiscellanies,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 calledSpirit 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 "Laiswithoutthe 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 poorSpirit of the Agepeople 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 trulyaristocratic,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 TwoVolumes. 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 ownLetters and SpeechesI 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, inPast 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 yourMiscellanies.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 onCromwell'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 shallit,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 reallypiouslabor: 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 vastimperfectionof 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; ratherindicatedas if by straggling symbols, thanspokenor visually expressed! Poor fellow! So the great rule is, That hehavea 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 goodwords) 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 bespeakingat 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.