Yours faithfully always, T. Carlyle



CLXXXIV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 17 June, 1870

My Dear Carlyle,—Two* unanswered letters filled and fragrant and potent with goodness will not let me procrastinate another minute, or I shall sink and deserve to sink into my dormouse condition. You are of the Anakim, and know nothing of the debility and postponement of the blonde constitution. Well, if you shame us by your reservoir inexhaustible of force, you indemnify and cheer some of us, or one of us, by charges of electricity.

———— * One seems to be missing. ————

Your letter of April came, as ever-more than ever, if possible— full of kindness, and making much of our small doings and writings, and seemed to drive me to instant acknowledgment; but the oppressive engagement of writing and reading eighteen lectures on Philosophy to a class of graduates in the College, and these in six successive weeks, was a task a little more formidable in prospect and in practice than any foregoing one. Of course, it made me a prisoner, took away all rights of friendship, honor, and justice, and held me to such frantic devotion to my work as must spoil that also.

Well, it is now ended, and has no shining side but this one, that materials are collected and a possibility shown me how a repetition of the course next year—which is appointed—will enable me partly out of these materials, and partly by large rejection of these, and by large addition to them, to construct a fair report of what I have read and thought on the subject. I doubt the experts in Philosophy will not praise my discourses;— but the topics give me room for my guesses, criticism, admirations and experiences with the accepted masters, and also the lessons I have learned from the hidden great. I have the fancy that a realist is a good corrector of formalism, no matter how incapable of syllogism or continuous linked statement. To great results of thought and morals the steps are not many, and it is not the masters who spin the ostentatious continuity.

I am glad to hear that the last sent book from me arrived safely. You were too tender and generous in your first notice of it, I fear. But with whatever deductions for your partiality, I know well the unique value of Carlyle's praise. Many things crowd to be said on this little paper. Though I could see no harm in the making known the bequest of books to Cambridge,—no harm, but sincere pleasure, and honor of the donor from all good men,—yet on receipt of your letter touching that, I went back to President Eliot, and told him your opinion on newspapers. He said it was necessarily communicated to the seven persons composing the Corporation, but otherwise he had been very cautious, and it would not go into print.

You are sending me a book, and Chapman's Homer it is? Are you bound by your Arabian bounty to a largess whenever you think of your friend? And you decry the book too. 'T-is long since I read it, or in it, but the apotheosis of Homer, in the dedication to Prince Henry, "Thousands of years attending," &c., is one of my lasting inspirations. The book has not arrived yet, as the letter always travels faster, but shall be watched and received and announced.

But since you are all bounty and care for me, where are the new volumes of the Library Edition of Carlyle? I received duly, as I wrote you in a former letter, nine Volumes,—Sartor; Life of Schiller; five Vols. of Miscellanies; French Revolution; these books oddly addressed to my name, but at Cincinnati, Massachusetts. Whether they went to Ohio, and came back to Boston, I know not. Two volumes came later, duplicates of two already received, and were returned at my request by Fields & Co. with an explanation. But no following volume has come. I write all this because you said in one letter that Mr. Chapman assured you that every month a book was despatched to my address.

But what do I read in our Boston Newspapers twice in the last three days? That "Thomas Carlyle is coming to America," and the tidings cordially greeted by the editors; though I had just received your letter silent to any such point. Make that story true, though it had never a verisimilitude since thirty odd years ago, and you shall make many souls happy and perhaps show you so many needs and opportunities for beneficent power that you cannot be allowed to grow old or withdraw. Was I not once promised a visit? This house entreats you earnestly and lovingly to come and dwell in it. My wife and Ellen and Edward E. are thoroughly acquainted with your greatness and your loveliness. And it is but ten days of healthy sea to pass.

So wishes heartily and affectionately, R.W. Emerson



CLXXXV. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 28 September, 1870

Dear Emerson,—Your Letter, dated 15 June, never got to me till about ten days ago; when my little Niece and I returned out of Scotland, and a long, rather empty Visit there! It had missed me here only by two or three days; and my highly infelicitous Selectress of Letters to be forwarded had left it carefully aside as undeserving that honor,—good faithful old Woman, one hopes she is greatly stronger on some sides than in this literary-selective one. Certainly no Letter was forwarded that had the hundredth part of the right to be so; certainly, of all the Letters that came to me, or were left waiting here, this was, in comparison, the one which might not with propriety have been left to lie stranded forever, or to wander on the winds forever!—

One of my first journeys was to Chapman, with vehement rebuke of this inconceivable "Cincinnati-Massachusetts" business. Stupiditas stupiditatum; I never in my life, not even in that unpunctual House, fell in with anything that equaled it. Instant amendment was at once undertaken for, nay it seems had been already in part performed: "Ten volumes, following the nine you already had, were despatched in Field & Co.'s box above two months ago," so Chapman solemnly said and asseverated to me; so that by this time you ought actually to have in hand nineteen volumes; and the twentieth (first of Friedrich), which came out ten days ago, is to go in Field & Co.'s Box this week, and ought, not many days after the arrival of this Letter, to be in Boston waiting for you there. The Chapman's Homer (two volumes) had gone with that first Field Packet; and would be handed to you along with the ten volumes which were overdue. All this was solemnly declared to me as on Affidavit; Chapman also took extract of the Massachusetts passage in your Letter, in order to pour it like ice-cold water on the head of his stupid old Chief-Clerk, the instant the poor creature got back from his rustication: alas, I am by no means certain that it will make a new man of him, nor, in fact, that the whole of this amendatory programme will get itself performed to equal satisfaction! But you must write to me at once if it is not so; and done it shall be in spite of human stupidity itself. Note, withal, these things: Chapman sends no Books to America except through Field & Co.; he does not regularly send a Box at the middle of the month; but he does "almost monthly send one Bog"; so that if your monthly Volume do not start from London about the 15th, it is due by the very next Chapman-Field box; and if it at any time don't come, I beg of you very much to make instant complaint through Field & Co., or what would be still more effectual, direct to myself. My malison on all Blockheadisms and torpid stupidities and infidelities; of which this world is full!—

Your Letter had been anxiously enough waited for, a month before my departure; but we will not mention the delay in presence of what you were engaged with then. Faustum sit; that truly was and will be a Work worth doing your best upon; and I, if alive, can promise you at least one reader that will do his best upon your Work. I myself, often think of the Philosophies precisely in that manner. To say truth, they do not otherwise rise in esteem with me at all, but rather sink. The last thing I read of that kind was a piece by Hegel, in an excellent Translation by Stirling, right well translated, I could see, for every bit of it was intelligible to me; but my feeling at the end of it was, "Good Heavens, I have walked this road before many a good time; but never with a Cannon-ball at each ankle before!" Science also, Science falsely so called, is—But I will not enter upon that with you just now.

The Visit to America, alas, alas, is pure Moonshine. Never had I, in late years, the least shadow of intention to undertake that adventure; and I am quite at a loss to understand how the rumor originated. One Boston Gentleman (a kind of universal Undertaker, or Lion's Provider of Lecturers I think) informed me that "the Cable" had told him; and I had to remark, "And who the devil told the Cable?" Alas, no, I fear I shall never dare to undertake that big Voyage; which has so much of romance and of reality behind it to me; zu spat, zu spat. I do sometimes talk dreamily of a long Sea-Voyage, and the good the Sea has often done me,—in times when good was still possible. It may have been some vague folly of that kind that originated this rumor; for rumors are like dandelion-seeds; and the Cable I dare say welcomes them all that have a guinea in their pocket.

Thank you for blocking up that Harvard matter; provided it don't go into the Newspapers, all is right. Thank you a thousand times for that thrice-kind potential welcome, and flinging wide open your doors and your hearts to me at Concord. The gleam of it is like sunshine in a subterranean place. Ah me, Ah me! May God be with you all, dear Emerson.

Yours ever, T. Carlyle



CLXXXVI. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 15 October, 1870

My Dear Carlyle,—I am the ignoblest of all men in my perpetual short-comings to you. There is no example of constancy like yours, and it always stings my stupor into temporary recovery and wonderful resolution to accept the noble challenge. But "the strong hours conquer us," and I am the victim of miscellany,— miscellany of designs, vast debility, and procrastination.

Already many days before your letter came, Fields sent me a package from you, which he said he had found a little late, because they were covered up in a box of printed sheets of other character, and this treasure was not at first discovered. They are,—Life of Sterling; Latter Day Pamphlets; Past and Present; Heroes; 5 Vols. Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. Unhappily, Vol. II. of Cromwell is wanting, and there is a duplicate of Vol. V. instead of it. Now, two days ago came your letter, and tells me that the good old gods have also inspired you to send me Chapman's Homer! and that it came—heroes with heroes—in the same enchanted box. I went to Fields yesterday and demanded the book. He ignored all,—even to the books he had already sent me; called Osgood to council, and they agreed that it must be that all these came in a bog of sheets of Dickens from Chapman, which was sent to the Stereotypers at Cambridge; and the box shall be instantly explored. We will see what tomorrow shall find. As to the duplicates, I will say here, that I have received two: first, the above-mentioned Vol. II. of Cromwell; and, second, long before, a second copy of Sartor Resartus, apparently instead of the Vol. I. of the French Revolution, which did not come. I proposed to Fields to send back to Chapman these two duplicates. But he said, "No, it will cost as much as the price of the books." I shall try to find in New York who represents Chapman and sells these books, and put them to his credit there, in exchange for the volumes I lack. Meantime, my serious thanks for all these treasures go to you,—steadily good to my youth and my age.

Your letter was most welcome, and most in that I thought I read, in what you say of not making the long-promised visit hither, a little willingness to come. Think again, I pray you, of that Ocean Voyage, which is probably the best medicine and restorative which remains to us at your age and mine. Nine or ten days will bring you (and commonly with unexpected comfort and easements on the way) to Boston. Every reading person in America holds you in exceptional regard, and will rejoice in your arrival. They have forgotten your scarlet sins before or during the war. I have long ceased to apologize for or explain your savage sayings about American or other republics or publics, and am willing that anointed men bearing with them authentic charters shall be laws to themselves as Plato willed. Genius is but a large infusion of Deity, and so brings a prerogative all its own. It has a right and duty to affront and amaze men by carrying out its perceptions defiantly, knowing well that time and fate will verify and explain what time and fate have through them said. We must not suggest to Michel Angelo, or Machiavel, or Rabelais, or Voltaire, or John Brown of Osawatomie (a great man), or Carlyle, how they shall suppress their paradoxes and check their huge gait to keep accurate step with the procession on the street sidewalk. They are privileged persons, and may have their own swing for me.

I did not mean to chatter so much, but I wish you would come out hither and read our possibilities now being daily disclosed, and our actualities which are not nothing. I shall like to show you my near neighbors, topographically or practically. A near neighbor and friend, E. Rockwood Hoar, whom you saw in his youth, is now an inestimable citizen in this State, and lately, in President Grant's Cabinet, Attorney-General of the United States. He lives in this town and carries it in his hand. Another is John M. Forbes, a strictly private citizen, of great executive ability, and noblest affections, a motive power and regulator essential to our City, refusing all office, but impossible to spare; and these are men whom to name the voice breaks and the eye is wet. A multitude of young men are growing up here of high promise, and I compare gladly the social poverty of my youth with the power on which these draw. The Lowell race, again, in our War yielded three or four martyrs so able and tender and true, that James Russell Lowell cannot allude to them in verse or prose but the public is melted anew. Well, all these know you well, have read and will read you, yes, and will prize and use your benefaction to the College; and I believe it would add hope, health, and strength to you to come and see them.

In my much writing I believe I have left the chief things unsaid. But come! I and my house wait for you.

Affectionately, R.W. Emerson



CLXXXVIa. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 10 April, 1871

My Dear Friend,—I fear there is no pardon from you, none from myself, for this immense new gap in our correspondence. Yet no hour came from month to month to write a letter, since whatever deliverance I got from one web in the last year served only to throw me into another web as pitiless. Yet what gossamer these tasks of mine must appear to your might! Believe that the American climate is unmanning, or that one American whom you know is severely taxed by Lilliput labors. The last hot summer enfeebled me till my young people coaxed me to go with Edward to the White Hills, and we climbed or were dragged up Agiocochook, in August, and its sleet and snowy air nerved me again for the time. But the booksellers, whom I had long ago urged to reprint Plutarch's Morals, claimed some forgotten promise, and set me on reading the old patriarch again, and writing a few pages about him, which no doubt cost me as much time and pottering as it would cost you to write a History. Then an "Oration" was due to the New England Society in New York, on the 250th anniversary of the Plymouth Landing,—as I thought myself familiar with the story, and holding also some opinions thereupon. But in the Libraries I found alcoves full of books and documents reckoned essential; and, at New York, after reading for an hour to the great assembly out of my massy manuscript, I refused to print a line until I could revise and complete my papers;—risking, of course, the nonsense of their newspaper reporters. This pill swallowed and forgotten, it was already time for my Second "Course on Philosophy" at Cambridge,—which I had accepted again that I might repair the faults of the last year. But here were eighteen lectures, each to be read sixteen miles away from my house, to go and come,—and the same work and journey twice in each week,—and I have just got through the doleful ordeal.

I have abundance of good readings and some honest writing on the leading topics,—but in haste and confusion they are misplaced and spoiled. I hope the ruin of no young man's soul will here or hereafter be charged to me as having wasted his time or confounded his reason.

Now I come to the raid of a London bookseller, Hotten, (of whom I believe I never told you,) on my forgotten papers in the old Dials, and other pamphlets here. Conway wrote me that he could not be resisted,—would certainly steal good and bad,—but might be guided in the selection. I replied that the act was odious to me, and I promised to denounce the man and his theft to any friends I might have in England; but if, instead of printing then, he would wait a year, I would make my own selection, with the addition of some later critical papers, and permit the book. Mr. Ireland in Manchester, and Conway in London, took the affair kindly in hand, and Hotten acceded to my change. And that is the next task that threatens my imbecility. But now, ten days ago or less, my friend John M. Forbes has come to me with a proposition to carry me off to California, the Yosemite, the Mammoth trees, and the Pacific, and, after much resistance, I have surrendered for six weeks, and we set out tomorrow. And hence this sheet of confession,—that I may not drag a lengthening chain. Meantime, you have been monthly loading me with good for evil. I have just counted twenty-three volumes of Carlyle's Library Edition, in order on my shelves, besides two, or perhaps three, which Ellery Channing has borrowed. Add, that the precious Chapman's Homer came safely, though not till months after you had told me of its departure, and shall be guarded henceforward with joy.

Wednesday, 13, Chicago.—Arrived here and can bring this little sheet to the post-office here. My daughter Edith Forbes, and her husband William H. Forbes, and three other friends, accompany me, and we shall overtake Mr. Forbes senior tomorrow at Burlington, Iowa.

The widow of one of the noblest of our young martyrs in the War, Col. Lowell,* cousin [nephew] of James Russell Lowell, sends me word that she wishes me to give her a note of introduction to you, confiding to me that she has once written a letter to you which procured her the happiest reply from you, and I shall obey her, and you will see her and own her rights. Still continue to be magnanimous to your friend,

—R.W. Emerson

————- * Charles Russell Lowell, to be remembered always with honor in company with his brother James Jackson Lowell and his cousin William Lowell Putnam,—a shining group among the youths who have died for their country. ————-



CLXXXVII. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 4 June, 1871

Dear Emerson,—Your Letter gave me great pleasure. A gleam of sunshine after a long tract of lowering weather. It is not you that are to blame for this sad gap in our correspondence; it is I, or rather it is my misfortunes, and miserable inabilities, broken resolutions, etc., etc. The truth is, the winter here was very unfriendly to me; broke ruinously into my sleep; and through that into every other department of my businesses, spiritual and temporal; so that from about New-Year's Day last I have been, in a manner, good for nothing,—nor am yet, though I do again feel as if the beautiful Summer weather might perhaps do something for me. This it was that choked every enterprise; and postponed your Letter, week after week, through so many months. Let us not speak of it farther!

Note, meanwhile, I have no disease about me; nothing but the gradual decay of any poor digestive faculty I latterly had,—or indeed ever had since I was three and twenty years of age. Let us be quiet with it; accept it as a mode of exit, of which always there must be some mode.

I have got done with all my press-correctings, editionings, and paltry bother of that kind: Vol. 30 will embark for you about the middle of this month; there are then to follow ("uniform," as the printers call it, though in smaller type) a little volume called General Index; and three more volumes of Translations from the German; after which we two will reckon and count; and if there is any lacuna on the Concord shelf, at once make it good. Enough, enough on that score.

The Hotten who has got hold of you here is a dirty little pirate, who snatches at everybody grown fat enough to yield him a bite (paltry, unhanged creature); so that in fact he is a symbol to you of your visible rise in the world here; and, with Conway's vigilance to help, will do you good and not evil. Glad am I, in any case, to see so much new spiritual produce still ripening around you; and you ought to be glad, too. Pray Heaven you may long keep your right hand steady: you, too, I can perceive, will never, any more than myself, learn to "write by dictation" in a manner that will be supportable to you. I rejoice, also, to hear of such a magnificent adventure as that you are now upon. Climbing the backbone of America; looking into the Pacific Ocean too, and the gigantic wonders going on there. I fear you won't see Brigham Young, however? He also to me is one of the products out there;—and indeed I may confess to you that the doings in that region are not only of a big character, but of a great;—and that in my occasional explosions against "Anarchy," and my inextinguishable hatred of it, I privately whisper to myself, "Could any Friedrich Wilhelm, now, or Friedrich, or most perfect Governor you could hope to realize, guide forward what is America's essential task at present faster or more completely than 'anarchic America' herself is now doing?" Such "Anarchy" has a great deal to say for itself,—(would to Heaven ours of England had as much!)—and points towards grand anti-Anarchies in the future; in fact, I can already discern in it huge quantities of Anti-Anarchy in the "impalpable-powder" condition; and hope, with the aid of centuries, immense things from it, in my private mind!

Good Mrs. —- has never yet made her appearance; but shall be welcome whenever she does.

Did you ever hear the name of an aged, or elderly, fantastic fellow-citizen of yours, called J. Lee Bliss, who designates himself O.F. and A.K., i.e. "Old Fogey" and "Amiable Kuss"? He sent me, the other night, a wonderful miscellany of symbolical shreds and patches; which considerably amused me; and withal indicated good-will on the man's part; who is not without humor, in sight, and serious intention or disposition. If you ever did hear of him, say a word on the subject next time you write.

And above all things write. The instant you get home from California, or see this, let me hear from you what your adventures have been and what the next are to be. Adieu, dear Emerson.

Yours ever affectionately, T. Carlyle

Mrs. —- sends a note from Piccadilly this new morning (June 5th); call to be made there today by Niece Mary, card left, etc., etc. Promises to be an agreeable Lady.

Did you ever hear of such a thing as this suicidal Finis of the French "Copper Captaincy"; gratuitous Attack on Germany, and ditto Blowing-up of Paris by its own hand! An event with meanings unspeakable,—deep as the. Abyss.—

If you ever write to C. Norton in Italy, send him my kind remembrances.

—T. C. (with about the velocity of Engraving—on lead!)*

————- * The letter was dictated, but the postscript, from the first signature, was written in a tremulous hand by Carlyle himself. ————-



CLXXXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 June, 1871

My Dear Carlyle,—'T is more than time that you should hear from me whose debts to you always accumulate. But my long journey to California ended in many distractions on my return home. I found Varioloid in my house... and I was not permitted to enter it for many days, and could only talk with wife, son, and daughter from the yard.... I had crowded and closed my Cambridge lectures in haste, and went to the land of Flowers invited by John M. Forbes, one of my most valued friends, father of my daughter Edith's husband. With him and his family and one or two chosen guests, the trip was made under the best conditions of safety, comfort, and company, I measuring for the first time one entire line of the Country.

California surprises with a geography, climate, vegetation, beasts, birds, fishes even, unlike ours; the land immense; the Pacific sea; Steam brings the near neighborhood of Asia; and South America at your feet; the mountains reaching the altitude of Mont Blanc; the State in its six hundred miles of latitude producing all our Northern fruits, and also the fig, orange, and banana. But the climate chiefly surprised me. The Almanac said April; but the day said June;—and day after day for six weeks uninterrupted sunshine. November and December are the rainy months. The whole Country, was covered with flowers, and all of them unknown to us except in greenhouses. Every bird that I know at home is represented here, but in gayer plumes.

On the plains we saw multitudes of antelopes, hares, gophers,— even elks, and one pair of wolves on the plains; the grizzly bear only in a cage. We crossed one region of the buffalo, but only saw one captive. We found Indians at every railroad station,—the squaws and papooses begging, and the "bucks," as they wickedly call them, lounging. On our way out, we left the Pacific Railroad for twenty-four hours to visit Salt Lake; called on Brigham Young—just seventy years old—who received us with quiet uncommitting courtesy, at first,—a strong-built, self-possessed, sufficient man with plain manners. He took early occasion to remark that "the one-man-power really meant all- men's-power." Our interview was peaceable enough, and rather mended my impression of the man; and, after our visit, I read in the Descret newspaper his Speech to his people on the previous Sunday. It avoided religion, but was full of Franklinian good sense. In one point, he says: "Your fear of the Indians is nonsense. The Indians like the white men's food. Feed them well, and they will surely die." He is clearly a sufficient ruler, and perhaps civilizer of his kingdom of blockheads ad interim; but I found that the San Franciscans believe that this exceptional power cannot survive Brigham.

I have been surprised—but it is months ago—by a letter from Lacy Garbett, the Architect, whom I do not know, but one of whose books, about "Design in Architecture," I have always valued. This letter, asking of me that Americans shall join Englishmen in a Petition to Parliament against pulling down Ancient Saxon buildings, is written in a way so wild as to suggest insanity, and I have not known how to answer it. At my "Saturday Club" in Boston I sat at dinner by an English lord,—whose name I have forgotten,—from whom I tried to learn what laws Parliament had passed for the repairs of old religious Foundations, that could make them the victims of covetous Architects. But he assured me there were none such, and that he himself was President of a Society in his own County for the protection of such buildings. So that I am left entirely in the dark in regard to the fact and Garbett's letter. He claims to speak both for Ruskin and himself.

I grieve to hear no better account of your health than your last letter gives. The only contradiction of it, namely, the power of your pen in this reproduction of thirty books,—and such books,— is very important and very consoling to me. A great work to be done is the best insurance, and I sleep quietly, notwithstanding these sad bulletins,—believing that you cannot be spared.

Fare well, dear friend, R.W. Emerson



CLXXXIX. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 4 September, 1871

My Dear Carlyle,—I hope you will have returned safely from the Orkneys in time to let my son Edward W.E. see your face on his way through London to Germany, whither he goes to finish his medical studies,—no, not finish, but prosecute. Give him your blessing, and tell him what he should look for in his few days in London, and what in your Prussia. He is a good youth, and we can spare him only for this necessity. I should like well to accompany him as far as to your hearthstone, if only so I could persuade you that it is but a ten-days ride for you thence to mine,—a little farther than the Orkneys, and the outskirts of land as good, and bigger. I read gladly in your letters some relentings toward America,—deeper ones in your dealing with Harvard College; and I know you could not see without interest the immense and varied blossoming of our possibilities here,—of all nationalities, too, besides our own. I have heard from Mrs. —- twice lately, who exults in your kindness to her.

Always affectionately, Yours, R.W. Emerson



CXC. Emerson to Carlyle

Baltimore, Md., 5 January, 1872

My Dear Carlyle,—I received from you through Mr. Chapman, just before Christmas, the last rich instalment of your Library Edition; viz. Vols. IV.-X. Life of Friedrich; Vols. L-III. Translations from German; one volume General Index; eleven volumes in all,—and now my stately collection is perfect. Perfect too is your Victory. But I clatter my chains with joy, as I did forty years ago, at your earliest gifts. Happy man you should be, to whom the Heaven has allowed such masterly completion. You shall wear your crown at the Pan-Saxon Games with no equal or approaching competitor in sight,—well earned by genius and exhaustive labor, and with nations for your pupils and praisers. I count it my eminent happiness to have been so nearly your contemporary, and your friend,—permitted to detect by its rare light the new star almost before the Easterners had seen it, and to have found no disappointment, but joyful confirmation rather, in coming close to its orb. Rest, rest, now for a time; I pray you, and be thankful. Meantime, I know well all your perversities, and give them a wide berth. They seriously annoy a great many worthy readers, nations of readers sometimes,—but I heap them all as style, and read them as I read Rabelais's gigantic humors which astonish in order to force attention, and by and by are seen to be the rhetoric of a highly virtuous gentleman who swears. I have been quite too busy with fast succeeding jobs (I may well call them), in the last year, to have read much in these proud books; but I begin to see daylight coming through my fogs, and I have not lost in the least my appetite for reading,—resolve, with my old Harvard professor, "to retire and read the Authors."

I am impatient to deserve your grand Volumes by reading in them with all the haughty airs that belong to seventy years which I shall count if I live till May, 1873. Meantime I see well that you have lost none of your power, and I wish that you would let in some good Eckermann to dine with you day by day, and competent to report your opinions,—for you can speak as well as you can write, and what the world to come should know...

Affectionately, R.W. Emerson



CXCI. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 2 April, 1872

Dear Emerson,—I am covered with confusion, astonishment, and shame to think of my long silence. You wrote me two beautiful letters; none friendlier, brighter, wiser could come to me from any quarter of the world; and I have not answered even by a sign. Promptly and punctually my poor heart did answer; but to do it outwardly,—as if there had lain some enchantment on me,— was beyond my power. The one thing I can say in excuse or explanation is, that ever since Summer last, I have been in an unusually dyspeptic, peaking, pining, and dispirited condition; and have no right hand of my own for writing, nor, for several months, had any other that was altogether agreeable to me. But in fine I don't believe you lay any blame or anger on me at all; and I will say no more about it, but only try to repent and do better next time.

Your letter from the Far West was charmingly vivid and free; one seemed to attend you personally, and see with one's own eyes the notabilia, human and other, of those huge regions, in your swift flight through them to and from. I retain your little etching of Brigham Young as a bit of real likeness; I have often thought of your transit through Chicago since poor Chicago itself vanished out of the world on wings of fire. There is something huge, painful, and almost appalling to me in that wild Western World of yours;—and especially I wonder at the gold-nuggeting there, while plainly every gold-nuggeter is no other than a criminal to Human Society, and has to steal the exact value of his gold nugget from the pockets of all the posterity of Adam, now and for some time to come, in this world. I conclude it is a bait used by All-wise Providence to attract your people out thither, there to build towns, make roads, fell forests (or plant forests), and make ready a Dwelling-place for new Nations, who will find themselves called to quite other than nugget-hunting. In the hideous stew of Anarchy, in which all English Populations present themselves to my dismal contemplation at this day, it is a solid consolation that there will verily, in another fifty years, be above a hundred million men and women on this Planet who can all read Shakespeare and the English Bible and the (also for a long time biblical and noble) history of their Mother Country,—and proceed again to do, unless the Devil be in them, as their Forebears did, or better, if they have the heart!—

Except that you are a thousand times too kind to me, your second Letter also was altogether charming....

Do you read Ruskin's Fors Clavigera, which he cheerily tells me gets itself reprinted in America? If you don't, do, I advise you. Also his Munera Pulveris, Oxford-Lectures on Art, and whatever else he is now writing,—if you can manage to get them (which is difficult here, owing to the ways he has towards the bibliopolic world!). There is nothing going on among us as notable to me as those fierce lightning-bolts Ruskin is copiously and desperately pouring into the black world of Anarchy all around him. No other man in England that I meet has in him the divine rage against iniquity, falsity, and baseness that Ruskin has, and that every man ought to have. Unhappily he is not a strong man; one might say a weak man rather; and has not the least prudence of management; though if he can hold out for another fifteen years or so, he may produce, even in this way, a great effect. God grant it, say I. Froude is coming to you in October. You will find him a most clear, friendly, ingenious, solid, and excellent man; and I am very glad to find you among those who are to take care of him when he comes to your new Country. Do your best and wisest towards him, for my sake, withal. He is the valuablest Friend I now have in England, nearly though not quite altogether the one man in talking with whom I can get any real profit or comfort. Alas, alas, here is the end of the paper, dear Emerson; and I had still a whole wilderness of things to say. Write to me, or even do not write, and I will surely write again.

I remain as ever Your Affectionate Friend, T. Carlyle



In November, 1872, Emerson went to England, and the two friends met again. After a short stay he proceeded to the Continent and Egypt, returning to London in the spring of 1873. For the last time Carlyle and he saw each other. In May, Emerson returned home. After this time no letters passed between him and Carlyle. They were both old men. Writing had become difficult to them; and little was left to say.

Carlyle died, eighty-five years old, on the 5th of February, 1881. Emerson died, seventy-nine years old, on the 27th of April, 1882.

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THE END