Yours ever truly, T. Carlyle



XC. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 29 February, 1844

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

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

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

—R.W. Emerson



XCI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 8 April, 1844

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



XCII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 5 August, 1844

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

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

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

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

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

Ever Yours, T. Carlyle

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



XCIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Boston, 1 September, 1844

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

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

Yours affectionately, R.W. Emerson



XCIV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 29 September, 1844

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours ever, T. Carlyle



XCV. Emerson to Carlyle

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

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

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

Yours with love, R.W. Emerson



XCVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 November, 1844

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

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

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

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

—T. Carlyle



XCVII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 December, 1844

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

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

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

—R.W. Emerson



XCVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 January, 1845

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

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

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

Affectionately yours, R.W. Emerson



XCIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 16 February, 1845

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

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

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

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

—T. Carlyle

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

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



C. Emerson to Carlyle*

Concord, June 29, 1845

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

————- ** From the rough draft. ————-

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



CI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 29 August, 1845

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

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

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

Yours always, T. Carlyle



CII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 15 September, 1845

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

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

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

—R.W. Emerson



CIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 September, 1845

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

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

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

—R.W. Emerson



CIV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 11 November, 1846

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

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

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

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

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

—T.C.



CV. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 January, 1846

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

————- * Missing ————-

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

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



CVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 February, 1848

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

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

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

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

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

Yours ever, T. Carlyle



CVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 3 March, 1846

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ever your affectionate, T. Carlyle



CVIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 18 April, 1846

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

—————- * Missing. —————

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

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

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

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

Ever yours, T. Carlyle

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

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



CIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 30 April, 1846

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

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

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

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

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

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

—T.C.

————— * The engraved portrait in the first volume of this Correspondence is from a photograph taken from this daguerrotype. —————



CX. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 14 May, 1846

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

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

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

—R.W. Emerson



CXI. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 May, 1846

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

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

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

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

Ever yours, R.W. Emerson



CXII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 18 June, 1846

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

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

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

Yours ever, T. Carlyle



CXIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 15 July, 1846

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