Chapter III: Part 3

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

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

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

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

Yours ever,
T. Carlyle

XCV. Emerson to Carlyle

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

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

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

Yours with love,
R.W. Emerson

XCVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 November, 1844

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

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

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

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

--T. Carlyle

XCVII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 December, 1844

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

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

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

--R.W. Emerson

XCVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 January, 1845

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

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

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

Affectionately yours,
R.W. Emerson

XCIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 16 February, 1845

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

You have made another brave bargain for me with the Philadelphia people; to all of which I can say nothing but _"Euge! Papae!"_ It seems to me strange, in the present state of Copyright, how my sanction or the contrary can be worth L50 to any American Bookseller; but so it is, to all appearance; let it be so, therefore, with thanks and surprise. The Messrs. Carey and Lea distinguish themselves by the beauty of their Editions; a poor Author does not go abroad among his friends in dirty paper, full of misprints, under their guidance; this is as handsome an item of the business as any. As to the Portrait too, I will be as "amiable" as heart could wish; truly it will be worth my while to take a little pains that the kind Philadelphia Editors do once for all get a faithful Portrait of me, since they are about it, and so prevent counterfeits from getting into circulation. I will endeavor to do in that matter whatsoever they require of me; to the extent even of sitting two days for a Crayon Sketch such as may be engraved,--though this new sacrifice of patience will not be needed as matters are. It stands thus: there is no Painter, of the numbers who have wasted my time and their own with trying, that has indicated any capability of catching a true Likeness, but one Samuel Lawrence; a young Painter of real talent, not quite so young now, but still only struggling for complete mastership in the management of colors. He does crayon sketches in a way to please almost himself; but his oil paintings, at least till within a year or two, have indicated only a great faculty still crude in that particular. His oil portrait of me, which you speak of, is almost terrible to behold! It has the look of a Jotun, of a Scandinavian Demon, grim, sad, as the angel of Death;--and the coloring is so _brick_ish, the finishing so coarse, it reminds you withal of a flayed horse's head! _"Dinna speak o't."_ But the preparatory crayon-sketch of this, still in existence, is admired by some judges; poor John Sterling bought it from the Painter, and it is now here in the hands of his Brother, who will readily allow any authorized person to take a drawing of it. Lawrence himself, I imagine, would be the fittest man to employ; or your Mr. Ingham [Inman], if he be here and a capable person: one or both of these might superintend the Engraving of it here, and not part with the plate till it were pronounced satisfactory. In short, I am willing to do "anything in reason"! Only if a Portrait is to be, I confess I should rather avoid going abroad under the hands of bunglers, at least of bunglers sanctioned by myself. There is a Portrait of me in some miserable farrago called _Spirit of the Age;_* a farrago unknown to me, but a Portrait known, for poor Lawrence brought it down to me with sorrow in his face; it professes to be from his painting; is a "Lais _without_ the beauty" (as Charles Lamb used to say); a flayed horse's head without the spiritualism, good or bad,--and simply figures on my mind as a detestability; which I had much rather never have seen. These poor _Spirit of the Age_ people applied to me; I described myself as "busy," &c.; shoved them off me; and this monster of iniquity, resembling Nothing in the Earth or under it, is the result. In short, I am willing, I am willing; and so let us not waste another drop of ink on it at present!--On the whole, are not you a strange fellow? You apologize as if with real pain for "trouble" I had, or indeed am falsely supposed to have had, with Chapman here; and forthwith engage again in correspondences, in speculations, and negotiations, and I know not what, on my behalf! For shame, for shame! Nay, you have done one very ingenious thing; to set Clark upon the Boston Booksellers' accounts: it is excellent; Michael Scott setting the Devil to twist ropes of sand, "There, my brave one; see if you don't find work there for a while!" I never think of this Clark without love and laughter. Once more, _Euge!_ Chapman is fast selling your Books here; striking off a new Five Hundred from his Stereotypes. You are wrong as to your Public in this Country; it is a very pretty public; extends pretty much, I believe, through all ranks, and is a growing one,--and a truly _aristocratic,_ being of the bravest inquiring minds we have. All things are breaking up here, like Swedish Frost in the end of March; _gachis epouvantable._ Deep, very serious eternal instincts, are at work; but as yet no serious word at all that I hear, except what reaches me from Concord at intervals. Forward, forward! And you do not know what I mean by calling you "unpractical," "theoretic." _0 caeca corda!_ But I have no room for such a theme at present.

---------- * "A new Spirit of the Age. Edited by R.H. Horne." In Two Volumes. London, 1844. ----------

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

--T. Carlyle

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

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

C. Emerson to Carlyle*

Concord, June 29, 1845

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

--------- ** From the rough draft. ---------

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

CI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 29 August, 1845

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

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

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

Yours always,
T. Carlyle

CII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 15 September, 1845

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

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

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

--R.W. Emerson

CIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 September, 1845

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

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

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

--R.W. Emerson

CIV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 11 November, 1846

My Dear Emerson,--I have had two Letters from you since I wrote any; the latest of them was lying here for me when I returned, about three weeks ago; the other I had received in Scotland: it was only the last that demanded a special answer;--which, alas, I meant faithfully to give it, but did not succeed! With meet despatch I made the Bookseller get ready for you a Copy of the unpublished _Cromwell_ Book; hardly complete as yet, it was nevertheless put together, and even some kind of odious rudiments of a _Portrait_ were bound up with it; and the Packet inscribed with your address was put into Wiley and Putnam's hands in time for the Mail Steamer;--and I hope has duly arrived? If it have not, pray set the Booksellers a-hunting. Wiley and Putnam was the Carrier's name; this is all the indication I can give, but this, I hope, if indeed any prove needful, will be enough. One may hope you have the Book already in your hands, a fortnight before this reaches you, a month before any other Copy can reach America. In which case the Parcel, _without_ any Letter, must have seemed a little enigmatic to you! The reason was this: I miscounted the day of the month, unlucky that I was. Sitting down one morning with full purpose to write at large, and all my tools round me, I discover that it is no longer the third of November; that it is already the _fourth,_ and the American Mail-Packet has already lifted anchor! Irrevocable, irremediable! Nothing remained but to wait for the 18th;--and now, as you see, to take Time by the forelock,-- _queue,_ as we all know, he has none.

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

The Book on Cromwell is not to come out till the 22d of this month. For many weeks it has been a real weariness to me; my hope, always disappointed, that now is the last time I shall have any trade with it. Even since I began writing, there has been an Engraver here, requiring new indoctrination,--poor fellow! Nay, in about ten days it _must_ be over: let us not complain. I feel it well to be worth _nothing,_ except for the little fractions or intermittent fits of pious industry there really were in it; and my one wish is that the human species would be pleased to take it off my hands, and honestly let me hear no more about it! If it please Heaven, I will rest awhile still, and then try something better.

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

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

--T.C.

CV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 January, 1846

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

--------- * Missing ---------

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

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

CVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 February, 1848

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

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

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

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

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

Yours ever,
T. Carlyle

CVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 March, 1846

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

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

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