Chapter VI: Part 6

Dear Emerson,--Hardly above a week ago, I wrote you in immediate answer to some friendly inquiries produced by negligence of mine: the Letter is probably tumbling on the salt waves at this hour, in the belly of the "Great Western"; or perhaps it may be still on firm land waiting, in which case this will go along with it. I had written before out of Scotland a Letter of mere acknowledgment and postponement; you must have received that before now, I imagine. Our small piece of business is now become articulate, and I will despatch it in a paragraph. Pity my stupidity that I did not put the thing on this footing long ago! It never struck me till the other day that though no copy of our _Miscellanies_ would turn up for inspection here, and no Bookseller would bargain for a thing unseen, I myself might bargain, and leave their hesitations resting on their own basis. In fine, I have rejected all their schemes of printing _Miscellaneous Works_ here, printing _Sketches of German Literature,_ or printing anything whatever on the "half-profits system," which is like toilsomely scattering seed into the sea: and I settled yesterday with Fraser to give him the American sheets, and let them sell _themselves,_ on clear principles, or remain unsold if they like. I find it infinitely the best plan, and to all appearance the profitablest as to money that could have been devised for me.

What you have to do therefore is to get Two Hundred and Fifty copies (_in sheets_) of the whole Four Volumes, so soon as the second two are printed, and have them, with the proper title- page, sent off hither to Fraser's address; the sooner the better. The American title-page, instead of "Boston," &c. at the bottom, will require to bear, in three lines "London: / James Fraser, 215 Regent Street, / 1839." Fraser is anxious that you should not spell him with a z; your man can look on the Magazine and beware. I suppose also you should print _labels_ for the backs of the four volumes, to be used by the _half_-binder; they do the books in that way here now: but if it occasion any difficulty, never mind this; it was not spoken of to Fraser, and is my own conjecture merely; the thing can be managed in various other ways. Two Hundred and Fifty copies, then, of the entire book: there is nothing else to be attended to that you do not understand as well as I. Fraser will announce it in his Magazine: the eager, select public will wait. Probably, there is no chance before the middle of March or so? Do not hurry yourselves, or at all change your rate for _us:_ but so soon as the work is ready in the course of Nature, the earliest conveyance to the Port of London will bring a little cargo which one will welcome with a strange feeling! I declare myself delighted with the plan; an altogether romantic kind of plan, of romance and reality: fancy me riding on _Yankee_ withal, at the time, and considering what a curious world this is, that bakes bread for one beyond the great Ocean-stream, and how a poor man is not left after all to be trodden into the gutters, though the fight went sore against him, and he saw no backing anywhere. _Allah akbar!_ God is great; no saying truer than that.--And so now, by the blessing of Heaven, we will talk no more of business this day.

My employments, my outlooks, condition, and history here, were a long chapter; on which I could like so well to talk with you face to face; but as for writing of them, it is a mere mockery. In these four years, so full of pain and toil, I seem to have lived four decades. By degrees, the creature gets accustomed to its element; the salamander learns to live in fire, and be of the same temperature with it. Ah me! I feel as if grown old innumerable things are become weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable. And yet perhaps I am not old, only wearied, and there is a stroke or two of work in me yet. For the rest, the fret and agitation of this Babylon wears me down: it is the most unspeakable life; of sunbeams and miry clay; a contradiction which no head can reconcile. Pain and poverty are not wholesome; but praise and flattery along with them are poison: God deliver us from that; it carries madness in the very breath of it! On the whole, I say to myself, what thing is there so good as _rest?_ A sad case it is and a frequent one in my circle, to be entirely cherubic, _all_ face and wings. "Mes enfans," said a French gentleman to the cherubs in the Picture, "Mes enfans, asseyez-vous?"--"Monseigneur," answer they, "il n'y a pas de quoi!" I rejoice rather in my laziness; proving that I _can_ sit.--But, after all, ought I not to be thankful? I positively can, in some sort, exist here for the while; a thing I had been for many years ambitious of to no purpose. I shall have to lecture again in spring, Heaven knows on what; it will be a wretched fever for me; but once through it there will be board wages for another year. The wild Ishmael can hunt in _this_ desert too, it would seem. I say, I will be thankful; and wait quietly what farther is to come, or whether anything farther. But indeed, to speak candidly, I do feel sometimes as if another Book were growing in me,--though I almost tremble to think of it. Not for this winter, O no! I will write an Article merely, or some such thing, and read trash if better be not. This, I do believe, is my horoscope for the next season: an Article on something about New-Year's-day (the Westminster Editor, a good- natured, admiring swan-goose from the North Country, will not let me rest); then Lectures; then--what? I am for some practical subject too; none of your pictures in the air, or _aesthetisches Zeug_ (as Mullner's wife called it, Mullner of the _Midnight Blade_): nay, I cannot get up the steam on any such best; it is extremely irksome as well as fruitless at present. In the next _Westminster Review,_ therefore, if you see a small scrub of a paper signed "S.P." on one Varnhagen a German, say that it is by "Simon Pure," or by "Scissars and Paste," or even by "Soaped Pig"--whom no man shall _catch!_ Truly it is a secret which you must not mention: I was driven to it by the Swan-goose above mentioned, not Mill but another. Let this suffice for my winter's history: may the summer be more productive.

As for Concord and New England, alas! my Friend, I should but deface your Idyllion with an ugly contradiction, did I come in such mood as mine is. I am older in years than you; but in humor I am older by centuries. What a hope is in that ever young heart, cheerful, healthful as the morning! And as for me, you have no conception what a crabbed, sulky piece of sorrow and dyspepsia I am grown; and growing, if I do not draw bridle. Let me gather heart a little! I have not forgotten Concord or the West; no, it lies always beautiful in the blue of the horizon, afar off and yet attainable; it is a great possession to me; should it even never be attained. But I have got to consider lately that it is you who are coming hither first. That is the right way, is it not? New England is becoming more than ever part of Old England; why, you are nearer to us now than Yorkshire was a hundred years ago; this is literally a fact: you can come _without_ making your will. It is one of my calculations that all Englishmen from all zones and hemispheres will, for a good while yet, resort occasionally to the Mother- Babel, and see a thing or two there. Come if you dare; I said there was a room, house-room and heart-room, constantly waiting you here, and you shall see blockheads by the million. _Pickwick_ himself shall be visible; innocent young Dickens reserved for a questionable fate. The great Wordsworth shall talk till you yourself pronounce him to be a bore. Southey's complexion is still healthy mahogany-brown, with a fleece of white hair, and eyes that seem running at full gallop. Leigh Hunt, "man of genius in the shape of a Cockney," is my near neighbor, full of quips and cranks, with good humor and no common sense. Old Rogers with his pale head, white, bare, and cold as snow, will work on you with those large blue eyes, cruel, sorrowful, and that sardonic shelf-chin:--This is the Man, O Rogers, that wrote the German Poetry in American Prose; consider him well!--But whither am I running? My sheet is done! My Brother John returns again almost immediately to Italy. He has got appointed Traveling Doctor to a certain Duke of Buccleuch, the chief of our Scotch Dukes: an excellent position for him as far as externals go. His departure will leave me lonelier; but I must reckon it for the best: especially I must begin working. Harriet Martineau is coming hither this evening; with beautiful enthusiasm for the Blacks and others. She is writing a Novel. The first American book proved generally rather wearisome, the second not so; we have since been taught (not I) "How to observe." Suppose you and I promulgate a treatise next, "How to see"? The old plan was, to have a pair of _eyes _first of all, and then to open them: and endeavor with your whole strength to _look._ The good Harriet! But "God," as the Arabs say, "has given to every people a Prophet (or Poet) in its own speech": and behold now Unitarian mechanical Formalism was to have its Poetess too; and stragglings of genius were to spring up even through that like grass through a Macadam highway!--Adieu, my Friend, I wait still for your heterodox Speech; and love you always.

--T. Carlyle

An English _Sartor_ goes off to you this day; through Kennet, to C.C. Little and J. Brown of Boston; the likeliest conveyance. It is correctly printed, and that is all. Its fate here (the fate of the publication, I mean) remains unknown; "unknown and unimportant."

XXXI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 2 December, 1838

My Dear Emerson,--Almost the very day after my last Letter went off, the long-expected two volumes of _Miscellanies_ arrived. The heterodox pamphlet has never yet come to hand. I am now to write you again about that _Miscellany_ concern the fourth letter, I do believe; but it is confirmatory of the foregoing three, and will be the last, we may hope.

Fraser is charmed with the look of your two volumes; declares them unsurpassable by art of his; and wishes (what is the main part of this message) that you would send his cargo in the _bound_ state, bound and lettered as these are, with the sole difference that the leaves be _not_ cut, or shaved on the sides, our English fashion being to have them _rough._ He is impatient that the Book were here; desires further that it be sent to the Port of London rather than another Port, and that it be packed in _boxes_ "to keep the covers of the volumes safe,"--all which I doubt not the Packers and the Shippers of New England have dexterity enough to manage for the best, without desire of his. If you have printed off nothing yet, I will desire for my own behoof that Two hundred and _Sixty_ be the number sent; I find I shall need some ten to give away: if your first sheet is printed off, let the number stand as it was. It would be an improvement if you could print our title-pages on paper a little stronger; that would stand ink, I mean: the fly leaves in the same, if you have such paper convenient; if not, not. Farther as to the matter of the title-page, it seems to me your Printer might give a bolder and a broader type to the words "Critical and Miscellaneous," and add after "Essays" with a colon (:), the line "Collected and Republished," with a colon also; then the "By," &c. "In Four Volumes, Vol. I.," &c. I mean that we want, in general, a little more ink and decisiveness: show your man the title-page of the English _French Revolution,_ or look at it your self, and you will know. R.W.E.'s "Advertisement," friendly and good, as all his dealings are to me ward, will of course be suppressed in the English copies. I see not that with propriety I can say anything by way of substitute: silence and the New England _imprint_ will tell the story as eloquently as there is need.

For the rest you must tell Mr. Loring, and all men who had a hand in it along with you, that I am altogether right well pleased with this edition, and find it far beyond my expectation. To my two young Friends, Henry S. McKean (be so good as write these names more indisputably for me) and Charles Stearns Wheeler, in particular, I will beg you to express emphatically my gratitude; they have stood by me with right faithfulness, and made the correctest printing; a _great_ service had I known that there were such eyes and heads acting in behalf of me there, I would have scraped out the Editorial blotches too (notes of admiration, dashes, "We think"s, &c., &c., common in Jeffrey's time in the _Edinburgh Review_) and London misprints; which are almost the only deformities that remain now. It is _extremely_ correct printing wherever I have looked, and many things are silently amended; it is the most fundamental service of all. I have not the other _Articles_ by me at present; I think they are of themselves a little more correct; at all events there are nothing but _misprints_ to deal with;--the Editors, by this time, had got bound up to let me alone. In the _Life of Scott,_ fourth page of it (p. 296 of our edition), there is a sentence to be deleted. "It will tell us, say they, little new and nothing pleasing to know": out with this, for it is nonsense, and was marked for erasure in the manuscript, I dare say. I know with certainty no more at present.

Fraser is to sell the Four Volumes at Two Guineas here. On studying accurately your program of the American mercantile method, I stood amazed to contrast it with our English one. The Bookseller here admits that he could, by diligent bargaining, get up such a book for something like the same cost or a _little_ more; but the "laws of the trade" deduct from the very front of the selling price--how much think you--_forty percent_ and odd, when your man has only _fifteen;_ for the mere act of vending! To cover all, they charge that enormous price. (A man, while I stood consulting with Fraser, came in and asked for Carlyle's _Revolution;_ they showed it him, he asked the price; and exclaimed, "Guinea and a half! I can get it from America for nine shillings!" and indignantly went his way; not without reason.) There are "laws of the trade" which ought to be _repealed;_ which I will take the liberty of contravening to all lengths by all opportunities--if I had but the power! But if this joint-stock American plan prosper, it will answer rarely. Fraser's first _French Revolution,_ for instance, will be done, he calculates, about New-Year's-day; and a second edition wanted; mine to do with what I like. If you in America wanted more also--? I leave you to think of this.--And now enough, enough!

My Brother went from us last Tuesday; ought to be in Paris yesterday. I am yet writing nothing; feel forsaken, sad, sick, --not unhappy. In general Death seems beautiful to me; sweet and great. But Life also is beautiful, is great and divine, were it never to be joyful any more. I read Books, my wife sewing by me, with the light of a sinumbra, in a little apartment made snug against the winter; and am happiest when all men leave me alone, or nearly all,--though many men love me rather, ungrateful that I am. My present book is _Horace Walpole;_ I get endless stuff out of it; epic, tragic, lyrical, didactic: all inarticulate indeed. An old blind Schoolmaster in Annan used to ask with endless anxiety when a new scholar was offered him, "But are ye sure _he's not a Dunce?_" It is really the one thing needful in a man; for indeed (if we will candidly understand it) all else is presupposed in that. Horace Walpole is no dunce, not a fibre of him is duncish.

Your Friend Sumner was here yesterday, a good while, for the first time: an ingenious, cultivated, courteous man; a little sensitive or so, and with no other fault that I discerned. He borrowed my copy of your Dartmouth business, and bound himself over to return with it soon. Some approve of that here, some condemn: my Wife and another lady call it better even than the former, I not so good. And now the Heterodox, the Heterodox, where is that? Adieu, my dear Friend. Commend me to the Concord Household; to the little Boy, to his Grandmother, and Mother, and Father; we must all meet some day,--or _some no-day_ then (as it shall please God)! My Wife heartily greets you all.

Ever yours,
T. Carlyle

I sent your book, message, and address to Sterling; he is in Florence or Rome. Read the article _Simonides_ by him in the _London and Westminster_--brilliant prose, translations--wooden? His signature is L (Pounds Sterling!).--_Now_ you are to write _soon?_ I always forgot to tell you, there came long since two packages evidently in your hand, marked "One printed sheet," and "one Newspaper," for which the Postman demanded about Fifteen shillings: _rejected._ After considerable correspondence the Newspaper was again offered me at _ten pence;_ the _sheet_ unattainable altogether: "No," even at tenpence. The fact is, it was wrong wrapped, that Newspaper. Leave it open at the ends, and try me again, once; I think it will come almost gratis. Steam and Iron are making all the Planet into one Village.--A Mr. Dwight wrote to me about the dedicating of some German translations: _Yes._ What are they or he?*--Your _Sartor_ is off through Kennet. Could you send me two copies of the American _Life of Schiller,_ if the thing is fit for making a present of, and easy to be got? If not, do not mind it at all.--Addio!

------------- * Mr. John S. Dwight, whose volume of _Select Minor Poems from the German of Goethe and Schiller,_ published in 1839, was dedicated to Carlyle. It was the third volume of _Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature, edited by George Ripley. Beside Mr. Dwight's own excellent versions, it contained translations by Mr. Bancroft, Dr. Hedge, Dr. Frothingham, and others. For many years Mr. Dwight rendered a notable public service as the editor of _Dwight's Journal of Music,_--a publication which did more than any other to raise and to maintain high the standard of musical taste and culture in America. ---------

XXXII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 13 January, 1839

My Dear Friend,--I am not now in any Condition to write a letter, having neither the facts from the booksellers which you would know touching our future plans, nor yet a satisfactory account balanced and settled of our past dealings; and lastly, no time to write what I would say,--as my poor lectures are in full course, and absorb all my wits; but as the "Royal William" will not wait, and as I have a hundred pounds to send on account of the sales of the _French Revolution,_ I must steal a few minutes to send my salutation. I have received all your four good letters: and you are a good and generous man to write so many. Two came on the 2d and 3d of January, and the last on the 9th. If the bookselling Munroe had answered me yesterday, as he ought, I should be able to satisfy you as to the time when to expect our cargo of _Miscellanies._ The third and fourth volumes are now printing: 't is a fortnight since we began. You shall have two hundred and fifty copies,--I am not quite sure you can have more,--bound, and _entitled,_ and directed as you desire, at least according to the best ability of our printer as far as the typography is concerned, and we will speed the work as fast as we can; but as we have but a single copy of _Fraser's Magazine_--we do not get on rapidly. The _French Revolution_ was all sold more than a month since. We should be glad of more copies, but the bookseller thinks not of enough copies to justify a new edition yet. I should not be surprised, however, to see that some bold brother of the trade had undertaken it. Now, what does your question point at in reference to your new edition, asking "if we want more"? Could you send us out a part of your edition at American prices, and at the same time to your advantage? I wish I knew the precise answer to this question, then perhaps I could keep all pirates out of our bay.

I shall convey in two days your message to Stearns Wheeler, who is now busy in correcting the new volumes. He is now Greek Tutor in Harvard College.*--Kindest thanks to Jane Carlyle for her generous remembrances, which I will study to deserve. Has the heterodoxy arrived in Chelsea, and quite destroyed us even in the charity of our friend? I am sorry to have worried you so often about the summer letter. Now am I your debtor four times. The parish commotion, too, has long ago subsided here, and my course of Lectures on "Human Life" finds a full attendance. I wait for the coming of the _Westminster,_ which has not quite yet arrived here, though I have seen the London advertisement. It sounds prosperously in my ear what you say of Dr. Carlyle's appointments. I was once very near the man in Rome, but did not see him. I will atone as soon as I can for this truncated epistle. You must answer it immediately, so far as to acknowledge the receipt of the enclosed bill of exchange, and soon I will send you the long promised _account_ of the _French Revolution,_ and also such moral account of the same as is over due.

Yours affectionately,
R.W. Emerson

--------- * This promising young scholar edited with English notes the first American edition of Herodotus. He went to Europe to pursue his studies, and died, greatly regretted, at Rome, of a fever, in 1848. ---------

XXXIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 8 February, 1859

My Dear Friend,--Your welcome little Letter, with the astonishing inclosure, arrived safe four days ago; right welcome, as all your Letters are, and bringing as these usually do the best news I get here. The miraculous draught of Paper I have just sent to a sure hand in Liverpool, there to lie till in due time it have ripened into a crop of a hundred gold sovereigns! On this subject, which gives room for so many thoughts, there is little that can be said, that were not an impertinence more or less. The matter grows serious to me, enjoins me to be silent and reflect. I will say, at any rate, there never came money into my hands I was so proud of; the promise of a blessing looks from the face of it; nay, it _will_ be _twice_ blessed. So I will ejaculate, with the Arabs, _Allah akbar!_ and walk silent by the shore of the many-sounding Babel-tumult, meditating on much. Thanks to the mysterious all-bounteous Guide of men, and to you my true Brother, far over the sea!--For the rest, I showed Fraser this Nehemiah document, and said I hoped he would blush very deep;--which indeed the poor creature did, till I was absolutely sorry for him.

But now first as to this question, What I mean? You must know poor Fraser, a punctual but most pusillanimous mortal, has been talking louder and louder lately of a "second edition" here; whereupon, as labor-wages are not higher here than with you, and printing-work, if well bargained for, ought to be about the same price, it struck me that, as in the case of the _Miscellanies,_ so here inversely the supply of both the New and the Old England might be profitably combined. Whether aught can come of this, now that it is got close upon us, I yet know not. Fraser has only seventy-five copies left; but when these will be done his prophecy comprehends not,--"surely within the year"! For the present I have set him to ascertain, and will otherwise ascertain for myself, what the exact cost of _stereotyping_ the Book were, in the same letter and style as yours; it is not so much more than printing, they tell me: I should then have done with it forever and a day. You on your side, and we on ours, might have as many copies as were wanted for all time coming. This is, in these very days, under inquisition; but there are many points to be settled before the issue.

I have not yet succeeded in finding a Bookseller of any fitness, but am waiting for one always. And even had I found such a one, I mean an energetic seller that would sell on other terms than forty percent for his trouble, it were still a question whether one ought to venture on such a speculation: "quitting the old highways," as I say, "in indignation at the excessive tolls, with hope that you will arrive cheaper in the steeple-chase way!" It is clear, however, that said highways are of the corduroy sort, said tolls an anomaly that must be remedied soon; and also that in all England there is no Book in a likelier case to adventure it with than this same,--which did not sell at all for two months, as I hear, which all Booksellers got terrified for, and which has crept along mainly by its own gravitation ever since. We will consider well, we shall see. You can understand that such a thing, for your market too, is in agitation; if any pirate step in before us in the meanwhile, we cannot help it.

Thanks again for your swift attention to the _Miscellanies;_ poor Fraser is in great haste to see them; hoping for his forty- per-cent division of the spoil. If you have not yet got to the very end with your printing, I will add a few errata; if they come too late, never mind; they are of small moment....

This foggy Babylon tumbles along as it was wont; and, as for my particular case, uses me not worse, but better, than of old. Nay, there are many in it that have a real friendliness for me. For example, the other night, a massive portmanteau of Books, sent according to my written list, from the Cambridge University Library, from certain friends there whom I have never seen; a gratifying arrival. For we have no Library here, from which we can borrow books home; and are only in these weeks striving to get one:* think of that! The worst is the sore tear and wear of this huge roaring Niagara of things on such a poor excitable set of nerves as mine. The velocity of all things, of the very word you hear on the streets, is at railway rate: joy itself is unenjoyable, to be avoided like pain; there is no wish one has so pressing as for quiet. Ah me! I often swear I will be buried at least in free breezy Scotland, out of this insane hubbub, where Fate tethers me in life! If Fate always tether me;--but if ever the smallest competence of worldly means be mine, I will fly this whirlpool as I would the Lake of _Malebolge,_ and only visit it now and then! Yet perhaps it is the proper place after all, seeing all places are improper: who knows? Meanwhile I lead a most dyspeptic, solitary, self-shrouded life: consuming, if possible in silence, my considerable daily allotment of pain; glad when any strength is left in me for working, which is the only use I can see in myself,--too rare a case of late. The ground of my existence is black as Death; too black, when all void too but at times there paint themselves on it pictures of gold and rainbow and lightning; all the brighter for the black ground, I suppose. Withal I am very much of a fool.--Some people will have me write on _Cromwell,_ which I have been talking about. I do read on that and English subjects, finding that I know nothing and that nobody knows anything of that: but whether anything will come of it remains to be seen. Mill, the _Westminster_ friend, is gone in bad health to the Continent, and has left a rude Aberdeen Longear, a great admirer of mine too, with whom I conjecture I cannot act at all: so good-bye to that. The wisest of all, I do believe, were that I bought my nag _Yankee_ and set to galloping about the elevated places here! A certain Mr. Coolidge,** a Boston man of clear iron visage and character, came down to me the other day with Sumner; he left a newspaper fragment, containing "the Socinian Pope's denunciation of Emerson."

--------- * The beginning of the London Library, a most useful institution, from which books may be borrowed. It served Carlyle well in later years, and for a long time he was President of it.

** The late Mr. Joseph Coolidge. ---------

The thing denounced had not then arrived, though often asked for at Kennet's; it did not arrive till yesterday, but had lain buried in bales of I know not what. We have read it only once, and are not yet at the bottom of it. Meanwhile, as I judge, the Socinian "tempest in a washbowl" is all according to nature, and will be profitable to you, not hurtful. A man is called to let his light shine before men; but he ought to understand better and better what medium it is through, what retinas it falls on: wherefore look _there._ I find in this, as in the two other Speeches, that noblest self-assertion, and believing originality, which is like sacred fire, the _beginning_ of whatsoever is to flame and work; and for young men especially one sees not what could be more vivifying. Speak, therefore, while you feel called to do it; and when you feel called. But for yourself, my friend, I prophesy it will not do always: a faculty is in you for a _sort_ of speech which is itself _action,_ an artistic sort. You _tell_ us with piercing emphasis that man's soul is great; _show_ us a great soul of a man, in some work symbolic of such: this is the seal of such a message, and you will feel by and by that you are called to this. I long to see some concrete Thing, some Event, Man's Life, American Forest, or piece of Creation, which this Emerson loves and wonders at, well _Emersonized,_ depictured by Emerson, filled with the life of Emerson, and cast forth from him then to live by itself. If these Orations balk me of this, how profitable soever they be for others. I will not love them.--And yet, what am I saying? How do I know what is good for _you,_ what authentically makes your own heart glad to work in it? I speak from _without,_ the friendliest voice must speak from without; and a man's ultimate monition comes only from _within._ Forgive me, and love me, and write soon. _A Dieu!_

--T. Carlyle

My Wife, very proud of your salutation, sends a sick return of greeting. After a winter of unusual strength, she took cold the other day, and coughs again; though she will not call it serious yet. One likes none of these things. She has a brisk heart and a stout, but too weak a frame for this rough life of mine. I will not get sad about it.

One of the strangest things about these New England Orations is a fact I have heard, but not yet seen, that a certain W. Gladstone, an Oxford crack Scholar, Tory M.P., and devout Churchman of great talent and hope, has contrived to insert a piece of you (_first_ Oration it must be) in a work of his on _Church and State,_ which makes some figure at present! I know him for a solid, serious, silent-minded man; but how with his Coleridge Shovel-Hattism he has contrived to relate himself to _you,_ there is the mystery. True men of all creeds, it _would_ seem, are Brothers.

To write soon!

XXXIV. Emerson to Carlyle*

Concord, 15 March, 1839

My Dear Friend,--I will spare you my apologies for not writing, they are so many. You have been very generous, I very promising and dilatory. I desired to send you an Account of the sales of the _History,_ thinking that the details might be more intelligible to you than to me, and might give you some insight into literary and social, as well as bibliopolical relations. But many details of this account will not yet settle themselves into sure facts, but do dance and mystify me as one green in ledgers. Bookseller says nine hundred and ninety-one copies came from Binder, nine remaining imperfect, and so not bound. But in all my reckonings of the particulars of distribution I make either more or less than nine hundred and ninety-one copies. And some of my accounts are with private individuals at a distance, and they have their uncertainties and misrememberings also. But the facts will soon show themselves, and I count confidently on a small balance against the world to your credit.

---------- * This letter appeared in the _Athenaeum,_ July 22, 1882. ----------

The _Miscellanies_ go forward too slowly, at about the rate of seventy-two pages a week, as I understand. Of the _Fraser_ articles and of some others we have but a single copy, (such are the tough limits of some English immortalities and editorial renowns,) but we expect the end of the printing in six weeks. The first two volumes, with title-pages, are gone to the binder-- two hundred and sixty copies--with strait directions; and I presume will go to sea very soon. We shall send the last two volumes by a later ship. You will pay nothing for the books we send except freight. We shall deduct the cost of the books from the credit side of your account here. We print of the second series twelve hundred and fifty copies, with the intention of printing a second edition of the first series of five hundred, if we see fit hereafter to supply the place of the emigrating portion of the first. You express some surprise at the cheapness of our work. The publishers, I believe, generally get more profits. They grumbled a little at the face of the account on the 1st of January; so in the new contract for the new volumes I have allowed them nine cents more on each copy sold by them. So that you should receive ninety-one cents on a copy instead of one dollar. When the two hundred and fifty copies of our first two volumes are gone to you, I think they will have but about one hundred copies more to sell.

Your books are read. I hear, I think, more gratitude expressed for the _Miscellanies_ than for the _History._ Young men at all our colleges study them in closets, and the Copernican is eradicating the Ptolemaic lore. I have frequent and cordial testimonies to the good working of the leaven, and continual inquiry whether the man will come hither. _Speriamo._

I was a fool to tell you once you must not come if I did tell you so. I knew better at the time, and did steadily believe, as far as I was concerned, that no polemical mud, however much was thrown, could by any possibility stick to me; for I was purely an observer; had not the smallest personal or _partial_ interest; and merely spoke to the question as a historian; and I knew whoever could see me must see that. But, at the moment, the little pamphlet made much stir and excitement in the newspapers; and the whole thousand copies were bought up. The ill wind has blown over. I advertised, as usual, my winter course of Lectures, and it prospered very well. Ten Lectures: I. Doctrine of the Soul; II. Home; III. The School; IV. Love; V. Genius; VI. The Protest; VII. Tragedy; VIII. Comedy; IX. Duty; X. Demonology. I designed to add two more, but my lungs played me false with unseasonable inflammation, so I discoursed no more on "Human Life." Now I am well again.--But, as I said, as I could not hurt myself, it was foolish to flatter myself that I could mix your cause with mine and hurt you. Nothing is more certain than that you shall have all our ears, whenever you wish for them, and free from that partial position which I deprecated. Yet I cannot regret my letter, which procured me so affectionate and magnanimous a reply.

Thanks, too, for your friendliest invitation. But I have a new reason why I should not come to England,--a blessed babe, named Ellen, almost three weeks old,--a little, fair, soft lump of contented humanity, incessantly sleeping, and with an air of incurious security that says she has come to stay, has come to be loved, which has nothing mean, and quite piques me.

Yet how gladly should I be near you for a time. The months and years make me more desirous of an unlimited conversation with you; and one day, I think, the God will grant it, after whatever way is best. I am lately taken with _The Onyx Ring,_ which seemed to me full of knowledge, and good, bold, true drawing. Very saucy, was it not? in John Sterling to paint Collins; and what intrepid iconoclasm in this new Alcibiades to break in among your Lares and disfigure your sacred Hermes himself in Walsingham.* To me, a profane man, it was good sport to see the Olympic lover of Frederica, Lili, and so forth, lampooned. And by Alcibiades too, over whom the wrath of Pericles must pause and brood ere it falls. I delight in this Sterling, but now that I know him better I shall no longer expect him to write to me. I wish I could talk to you on the grave questions, graver than all literature, which the trifles of each day open. Our doing seems to be a gaudy screen or popinjay to divert the eye from our nondoing. I wish, too, you could know my friends here. A man named Bronson Alcott is a majestic soul, with whom conversation is possible. He is capable of truth, and gives me the same glad astonishment that he should exist which the world does.

-------- * Collins and Walsingham, two characters in _The Onyx Ring,_ are partly drawn, not very felicitously, from Carlyle and Goethe. In his _Life of Sterling,_ Carlyle says of the story: "A tale still worth reading, in which, among the imaginary characters, various friends of Sterling's are shadowed forth not always in the truest manner." It is reprinted in the second volume of Sterling's Essays and Tales, edited by Julius Hare. ---------

As I hear not yet of your reception of the bill of exchange, which went by the "Royal William" in January, I enclose the duplicate. And now all success to the Lectures of April or May! A new Kingdom with new extravagances of power and splendor I know. Unless you can keep your own secret better in _Rahel,_ &c., you must not give it me to keep. The London _Sartor_ arrived in my hands March 5th, dated the 15th of November, so long is the way from Kennet to Little & Co. The book is welcome, and awakens a sort of nepotism in me,--my brother's child.

--R.W. Emerson

I rejoice in the good accounts you give me of your household; in your wife's health; in your brother's position. My wife wishes to be affectionately remembered to you and yours. And the lady must continue to love her _old_ Transatlantic friend.

XXXV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 19 March, 1839

My Dear Friend,--Only last Saturday I despatched a letter to you containing a duplicate of the bill of exchange sent in January, and all the facts I knew of our books; and now comes to me a note from Wheeler, at Cambridge, saying that the printers, on reckoning up their amount of copy, find that nowise can they make 450 pages per volume, as they have promised, for these two last of the _Miscellanies._ They end the third volume with page 390, and they have not but 350 or less pages for the fourth. They ask, What shall be done? Nothing is known to me but to give them _Rahel,_ though I grudge it, for I vastly prefer to end with _Scott._ _Rahel,_ I fancy, cost you no night and no morning, but was writ in that gentle after-dinner hour so friendly to good digestion. Stearns Wheeler dreams that it is possible to draw at this eleventh hour some possible manuscript out of the unedited treasures of Teufelsdrockh's cabinets. If the manuscripts were ready, all fairly copied out by foreseeing scribes in your sanctuary at Chelsea, the good goblin of steam would--with the least waiting, perhaps a few days--bring the packet to our types in time. I have little hope, almost none, from a sally so desperate on possible portfolios; but neither will I be wanting to my sanguine co-editor, your good friend. So I told him I would give you as instant notice as Mr. Rogers at the Merchants' Exchange Bar can contrive, and tell you plainly that we shall proceed to print _Rahel_ when we come so far on; and with that paper end; unless we shall receive some contrary word from you. And if we can obtain any manuscript from you before we have actually bound our book, we will cancel our last sheets and insert it. And so may the friendly Heaven grant a speedy passage to my letter and to yours! I fear the possibility of our success is still further reduced by the season of the year, as the Lectures must shortly be on foot. Well, the best speed to them also. When I think of you as speaking and not writing them, I remember Luther's words, "He that can speak well, the same is a man."

I hope you liked John Dwight's translations of Goethe, and his notes. He is a good, susceptible, yearning soul, not so apt to create as to receive with the freest allowance, but I like his books very much.

Do think to say in a letter whether you received _from me_ a copy of our edition of your _French Revolution._ I ordered a copy sent to you,--probably wrote your name in it,--but it does not appear in the bookseller's account. Farewell.

--R.W. Emerson

XXXVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 13 April, 1839

My Dear Emerson,--Has anything gone wrong with you? How is it that you do not write to me? These three or four weeks, I know not whether _duly_ or not so long, I have been in daily hope of some sign from you; but none comes; not even a Newspaper,--open at the ends. The German Translator, Mr. Dwight, mentioned, at the end of a Letter I had not long ago, that you had given a brilliant course of Lectures at Boston, but had been obliged to _intermit it on account of illness._ Bad news indeed, that latter clause; at the same time, it was thrown in so cursorily I would not let myself be much alarmed; and since that, various New England friends have assured me here that there was nothing of great moment in it, that the business was all well over now, and you safe at Concord again. Yet how is it that I do not hear? I will tell you my guess is that those Boston Carlylean _Miscellanies_ are to blame. The Printer is slack and lazy as Printers are; and you do not wish to write till you can send some news of him? I will hope and believe that only this is it, till I hear worse.

I sent you a Dumfries Newspaper the other week, for a sign of my existence and anxiety. A certain Mr. Ellis of Boston is this day packing up a very small memorial of me to your Wife; a poor Print rolled about a bit of wood: let her receive it graciously in defect of better. It comes under your address. Nay, properly it is my Wife's memorial to your Wife. It is to be hung up in the Concord drawing-room. The two Households, divided by wide seas, are to understand always that they are united nevertheless.

My special cause for writing this day rather than another is the old story, book business. You have brought that upon yourself, my friend; and must do the best you can with it. After all, why should not Letters be on business too? Many a kind thought, uniting man with man, in gratitude and helpfulness, is founded on business. The speaker at Dartmouth College seems to think it ought to be so. Nor do I dissent.--But the case is this, Fraser and I are just about bargaining for a second edition of the _Revolution._ He will print fifteen hundred for the English market, in a somewhat closer style, and sell them here at twenty- four shillings a copy. His first edition is all gone but some handful; and the man is in haste, and has taken into a mood of hope,--for he is weak and aguish, alternating from hot to cold; otherwise, I find, a very accurate creature, and deals in his unjust trade as justly as any other will. He has settled with me; his half-profits amount to some L130, which by charging me for every presentation copy he cuts down to somewhere about L110; _not_ the lion's share in the gross produce, yet a great share compared with an expectancy no higher than _zero!_ We continue on the same system for this second adventure; I cannot go hawking about in search of new terms; I might go farther and fare worse. And now comes your part of the affair; in which I would fain have had your counsel; but must ask your help, proceeding with my own light alone. After Fraser's fifteen hundred are printed off, the types remain standing, and I for my own behoof throw off five hundred more, designed for your market. Whether five hundred are too many or too few, I can only guess; if too many, we can retain them here and turn them to account; if too few, there is no remedy. At all events, costing me only the paper and press-work, there is surely no Pirate in the Union that can _undersell_ us! Nay, it seems they have a drawback on our taxed paper, sufficient or nearly so to land the cargo at Boston without more charge. You see, therefore, how it is. Can you find me a Bookseller, as for yourself; he and you can fix what price the ware will carry when you see it. Meanwhile I must have his Title-page; I must have his directions (if any be needed); nay, for that matter, you might write a Preface if you liked,--though I see not what you have to say, and recommend silence rather! The book is to be in three volumes duodecimo, and we will take care it be fit to show its face in your market. A few errors of the press; and one correction (about the sinking of the _Vengeur,_ which I find lately to be an indisputable falsehood); these are all the changes. We are to have done printing, Fraser predicts, "in two months";--say two and a half! I suppose you decipher the matter out of this plastering and smearing; and will do what is needful in it. "Great inquiry" is made for the _Miscellanies,_ Fraser says; though he suspects it may perhaps be but one or two men inquiring _often,_--the dog!

I am again upon the threshold of extempore lecturing: on "the Revolutions of Modern Europe"; Protestantism, 2 lectures; Puritanism, 2; French Revolution, 2. I almost regret that I had undertaken the thing this year at all, for I am no longer driven by Poverty as heretofore. Nay, I am richer than I have been for ten years; and have a kind of prospect, for the first time this great while, of being allowed to subsist in this world for the future: a great blessing, perhaps the greatest, when it comes as a novelty! However, I thought it right to keep this Lecture business open, come what might. I care less about it than I did; it is not agony and wretched trembling to the marrow of the bone, as it was the last two times. I believe, in spite of all my perpetual indigestions and nervous woes, I am actually getting into better health; the weary heart of me is quieter; I wait in silence for the new chapter,--feeling truly that we are at the end of one period here. I count it _two_ in my autobiography: we shall see what the _third_ is; [if] third there be. But I am in small haste for a third. How true is that of the old Prophets, "The _word of the Lord_ came unto" such and such a one! When it does not come, both Prophet and Prosaist ought to be thankful (after a sort), and rigorously hold their tongue.--Lord Durham's people have come over with golden reports of the Americans, and their brotherly feelings. One Arthur Buller preaches to me, with emphasis, on a quite personal topic till one explodes in laughter to hear him, the good soul: That I, namely, am the most esteemed, &c., and ought to go over and Lecture in all great towns of the Union, and make, &c., &c.! I really do begin to think of it in this interregnum that I am in. But then my Lectures must be written; but then I must become a _hawker, --ach Gott!_

The people are beginning to quote you here: _tant pis pour eux!_ I have found you in two Cambridge books. A certain Mr. Richard M. Milnes, M.P., a beautiful little Tory dilettante poet and politician whom I love much, applied to me for _Nature_ (the others he has) that he might write upon it. Somebody has stolen _Nature_ from me, or many have thumbed it to pieces; I could not find a copy. Send me one, the first chance you have. And see Miss Martineau in the last _Westminster Review:_--these things you are old enough to stand? They are even of benefit? Emerson is not without a select public, the root of a select public on this side of the water too.--Popular Sumner is off to Italy, the most popular of men,--inoffensive, like a worn sixpence that has no physiognomy left. We preferred Coolidge to him in this circle; a square-cut iron man, yet with clear symptoms of a heart in him. Your people will come more and more to their maternal Babylon, will they not, by the steamers?-- Adieu, my dear friend. My Wife joins me in all good prayers for you and yours.

--Thomas Carlyle

XXXVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 17 April, 1839

Dear Friend,--Some four days ago I wrote you a long Letter, rather expressive of anxiety about you; it will probably come to hand along with this. I had heard vaguely that you were unwell, and wondered why you did not write. Happily, that point is as good as settled now, even by your silence about it. I have, half an hour ago, received your Concord Letter of the 19th of March. The Letter you speak of there as "written last Saturday" has not yet made its appearance, but may be looked for now shortly: as there is no mention here of any mischance, except the shortcoming of Printers' copy, I infer that all else is in a tolerably correct state; I wait patiently for the "last Saturday" tidings, and will answer as to the matters of copy, in good heart, without loss of a moment.