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;—bothUniversities 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 theessentialfact 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 asfixed,—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 usstupid,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 yourAmericanPoems: 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 soabstruseand _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 hadgotinto 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 forsleepin 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 thereisno 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 canspeakwith 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 fetidJewhoodin 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 tomeat 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 thewhen?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,retainedamong 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 Househiddenunder 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 ishere;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."
————— * SeeEnglish Traits,Ch. XVI.; andLife 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 thekleinstadtlichtraits 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 lovingR.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 ofEssays: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 genialhumor,or as it werehidden 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, altogetherinarticulatelyin these days. My respect forsilence,my distrust ofSpeech,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'sDomesday Bookand 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 beautifulDilettante,—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 evenyours(for they know all our domesticities here, and are very intimate, especially Madam withMydame); 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 toseeand get into flowing talk with; a man of much sharpness of faculty, well tempered by several inches of "Christianfat" 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 atask;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 entirelyidle,—I dare not even say, too abstruselyoccupied;for I have merely beenlookingat 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 theMassachusetts 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 moralfiresthat the place will yield; and is in factyourroom, 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 themboth!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 thesilentone, 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,ascendedalas?) 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 CarlyleMonday, 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 hisEnglish 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. Questionfirst,therefore: Is there by nature abitterfinal 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 groundhere,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 berejectedin making the meal? Pray ask some philosophic Miller, if Mrs. Emerson or you do not know;—and as a corollary thissecondquestion: What is the essential difference betweenwhite(or brown-gray-white) Indian Meal andyellow(the kind we now have; beautiful as new Guineas, but with an ineffaceable tastekin ofsootin it)?—And questionthird,which includes all: How to cookmushrightly, 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, forspeech,inadequate mockery of one's poor meaning, is quite a burden to me just now!
————- * The reader of Carlyle'sReminiscences,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 theDante,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 hisRecollections,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'sDante,* 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.
————- * TheInfernoof 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 grainsweet,among the sweetest, with a touch even of the taste ofnutsin it, and profess with contrition that properly we have never tasted Indian Corn before. Millers of due faculty (with millstones ofiron) 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 inFraser'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 noMythof Athene or Herakles equal to thisfact;—which I supposewillfind 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 preservingthe mealin 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 almostbrown,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 verygrim,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 ofCromwell;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. Thestuporof my fellow blockheads, for Centuries back, presses too heavy upon that,—as upon many things, O Heavens! People are about setting up someStatue 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 beendiscoveredswindling. I advise all men not to erect a statue for Cromwell just now. Macaulay'sHistoryis 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 thepedantmethod of treating Ireland. Thebeginning,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) aSlavedestitute of aMaster;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 ofbutter,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 (forhiddengenius lodged in it) I had ever heard; so sent it to theExaminer,from which it went to theTimesand 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. YoursecondBarrel 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," calledTime), 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 myearliestleisure, 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 fromspeechon 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 evennoxious,exceptadmirein 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, ofLaissez-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"hasfallen 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 thatitsgoings 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 ofone halfof 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 ofhearingany answer, were there even one ready for imparting to him. "Blackleadthese 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 attheseimmortal Irish "Freemen," thene plus ultraof 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 EmersonChelsea, 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 extraordinaryPamphlets;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 theRepresentative 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 ofEngravings in the line manner;portraitures full oflikeness,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.Swedenborgis excellent inlikeness;excellent in many respects;—yet I said to myself, on reaching your general conclusion about the man and his struggles: "Missedthe consummate flower and divine ultimate elixir of Philosophy, say you? By Heaven, in clutching atit,and almost getting it, he has tumbled into Bedlam,—which is a terriblemiss,if it were never sonear!A miss fully as good as a mile, I should say!" —In fact, I generally dissented a little about theendof 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 thesePamphlets) 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, infinitelylionizedby 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 beenon 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 thegentlementhat 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, thelattersmall 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 thoseLatter 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 isnotgood 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 theMarseillaiseunder my window, for example: was theMarseillaisefought out on a bed of down, or is it worth nothing when fought? On those wretchedPamphletsI 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 millionsversusthe 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!—