---
My Wife sends salutations to you and yours.
My Wife sends salutations to you and yours.
Thomas Carlyle
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? 214 Carlyle to Emerson.
hidden from bailifis, living sometimes " on the hares
of their domain" : such a state of things was never
witnessed under this sky before; and, one would
humbly expect, cannot last long ! -- What is to be
done? asks every one; incapable of hearing any
answer, were there even one ready for imparting to
him. " Blaclclead these two million idle beggars,"
I sometimes advised, "and sell them in Brazil as
Niggers, -- perhaps Parliament, on sweet constraint,
will allow you to advance them to be Niggers ! "
In fact, the Emancipation Societies should send
over a deputation or two to look at these immortal
Irish " Freemen," the ne plus ultra of their class :
it would perhaps moderate the windpipe of much
eloquence one hears on that subject! Is not
this the most illustrious of all "ages"; making
progress of the species at a grand rate indeed?
Peace be with it.
Waiting for me here, there was a Letter from
Miss Fuller in Rome, written about a month ago;
a dignified and interesting Letter; requesting
help with Booksellers for some "History of the
late Italian Revolution " she is about writing; and
elegiacally recognizing the worth of Mazzini and
other cognate persons and things. I instantly set
about doing what little seemed in my power towards
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? ' Carlyle to Emerson. 2 1 5
this object,--with what result is yet hidden,-
and have written to the heroic Margaret: " More
power to her elbow! " as the Irish say. She has a
beautiful enthusiasm; and is perhaps in the right
stage of insight for doing that piece of business
well. --Of other persons or interests I will say
nothing till a calmer opportunity; which surely
cannot be very long in coming.
In four days I am to rejoin my wife ; after which
some bits of visits are to be paid in this North
Country; necessary most of them, not likely to be
profitable almost any. In perhaps a month I ex-
pect to be back in Chelsea; whither direct a word
if you are still beneficent enough to think of such
a Castaway!
Yours ever,
T. CARLYLE.
I got Thoreau's Book; and meant well to read
it, but have not yet succeeded, though it went with
me through all Ireland: tell him so, please. Too
J ean-Paulish, I fO'l111d. it hitherto.
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? 216 Carlyle lo Emerson.
CXLII.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CnELSEA, 19 July, 1850.
MY DEAR EMERSON, My Friend, my Friend,--
You behold before you a remorseful man! It is
well-nigh a year now since I despatched some
hurried rag of paper to you out of Scotland, indi-
cating doubtless that I would speedily follow it
with a longer letter ; and here, when gray Autumn
is at hand again, I have still written nothing to
you, heard nothing from you! It is miserable to
think of : -- and yet it is a fact, and there is no de-
nying of it; and so we must let it lie. If it please
Heaven, the like shall not occur again. "Ohone
Arooh! " as the Irish taught me to say, "Ohone
Arooh! "
The fact is, my life has been black with care
and toil,--labor above board and far worse labor
below;--I have hardly had a heavier year (over-
loaded too with a kind of "health " which may be
called frightful): to "burn my own smoke" in
some measure, has really been all I was up to;
and except on sheer immediate compulsion I have
not written a word to any creature. --Yesternight
i
I
I
I
I.
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 217
I finished the last of these extraordinary Pam-
phlets ; am about running off somewhither into
the deserts, of Wales or Scotland, Scandinavia or
still remoter deserts ; --and my first signal of re-
vived reminiscence is to you.
Nay I have not at any time forgotten you, be
that justice done the unfortunate : and though I see
well enough what a great deep cleft divides us, in
our ways of practically looking at this world,--I
see also (as probably you do yourself) where the
rock-strata, miles deep, unite again ; and the two
poor souls are at one. Poor devils ! -- Nay if there
were no point of agreement at all, and I were more
intolerant " of ways of thinking " than I even am,
--yet has not the man Emerson, from old years,
been a Human Friend to me? Can I ever forget,
or think otherwise than lovingly of the man Emer-
son ? ------ ------ No more of this. Write to me in
your first good hour; and say that there is still a
brother-soul left to me alive in this world, and a
kind thought surviving far over the sea! --
Chapman, with due punctuality at the time of
publication, sent me the Representative Men; which
I read in the becoming manner: you now get the
Book offered you for a shilling, at all railway
stations; and indeed I perceive the word "repre-
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? 213 Carlyle to Emerson.
sentative man " (as applied to the late tragic loss
we have had in Sir Robert Peel) has been adopted
by the Able-Editors, and circulates through News-
papers as an appropriate household word, which is
some compensation to you for the piracy you suffer
from the Typographic 'Letter-of-marque men here.
I found the Book a most finished clear and perfect
set of Engravings in the line manner; portraitures
full of likeness, and abounding in instruction and
materials for reflection to me: thanks always for
such a Book; and Heaven send us many more of
them. Plato, I think, though it is the most ad-
mired by many, did least for me: little save
Socrates with his clogs and big ears remains alive
with me from it. Swedenborg is excellent in like-
ness ; excellent in many respects ;. -- yet I said to
myself, on reaching yoii eneral conclusion about
the man and his struggles: issed the consum-
mate flower and divine ultimate lixir of Philoso-
phy, say you? -By Heaven, in clut ing at it, and
almost getting it, he has tumbled in Bedlam,-
which is a terrible miss, if it were neve so near!
A miss fully as good as a mile, I should \1y ! "--
-- In fact, I generally dissented a little 18-bou17
the end of all these Essays; which was noltable,
and not without instructive interest to me, as I
'\
\
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 2 1 9
had so lustily shouted "Hear, hear! " all the way
from the beginning up to that stage. --On the
whole, let us have another Book with your ear-
liest convenience: that is the modest request one
makes' of you on shutting this.
I know not what I am now going to set about:
the horrible barking of the universal dog-kennel
(awakened by these Pamphlets) must still itself
again; my poor nerves must recoverthemselves a
little:--I have much more to say; and by Heav-
en's blessing must try to get it said in some way if
I live. --
Bostonian Prescott is here, infinitely lionized by
a mob of gentlemen ; I have seen him in two places
or three (but forbore speech) : the Johnny-cake is
good, the twopence worth of currants in it too are
good; but if you offer it as a bit of baked Ambro-
sia, Ach Gott 1-
A_dieu, dear Emerson, forgive and love me a
little.
Yours ever,
T. CARLYLE.
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? 1320 Carlyle to Emerson.
CXLIII.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CHELSEA, 14 November, 1850.
DEAR EMERSON,--You are often enough present
to my thoughts; but yesterday there came a little
incident which has brought you rather vividly upon
the scene for me. A certain "Mr " from
Boston sends us, yesterday morning by post, a
Note of yours addressed to Mazzini, whom he can-
not find ; and indicates that he retains a similar one
addressed to myself, and (in the most courteous,
kindly, and dignified manner, if Mercy prevent
not) is about carrying it off with him again to
America! To give Mercy a chance, I by the first
opportunity get under way for Morley's Hotel, the
address of Mr. i; find there that Mr. ,
since morning, has been on the road towards Liver-
pool and America, and that the function of Mercy is
quite extinct in this instance! My reflections as I
wandered home again were none of the pleasantest.
Of this Mr. I had heard some tradition, as of
an intelligent, accomplished, and superior man;
such a man's acquaintance, of whatever complex-
ion he be, is and was always a precious thing to
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 22 1
me, well worth acquiring where possible; not to
say that any friend of yours, whatever his qualities
otherwise, carries with him an imperative key to all
bolts and locks of mine, real or imaginary. In fact
I felt punished ;--and who knows, if the case were
seen into, whether I deserve it? What "business "
it was that deprived me of a call from Mr. l ,
or of the possibility of calling on him, I know very
well,--and Z Z, the little dog, and others
know! But the fact in that matter is very far
different indeed from the superficial semblance; and
I appeal to all the gentlemen that are in America
for a candid interpretation of the same. " Eighteen
million bores,"--good Heavens don't I know how
many of that species we also have; and how with
us, as with you, the difference between them and
the Eighteen thousand noble-men and nowbores is
immeasurable and inconceivable; and how, with
us as with you, the latter small company, sons of
the Empyrean, will have to fling the former huge
one, sons of Mammon and Mud, into some kind of
chains again, reduce them to some kind of silence
again,--unless the old Mud-Demons are to rise
and devour us all? Truly it is so I construe it:
and if ---- ------ and the Eighteen millions are
well justified in their anger at me, Z and the
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? 222 Garlvle to Emerson. '
Eighteen thousand owe me thanks and new love.
That is my decided opinion, in spite of you all!
And so, along with i, probably in the same ship
with him, there shall go my protest against the
conduct of Z-; and the declaration that to the
last I will protest! Which will wind up the matter
(without any word of yours on it) at this time. --
-- For the rest, though ---- sent me his Pam-
phlet, it is a fact I have not read a word of it, nor
shall ever read. My Wife read it; but I was away,
with far other things in my head; and it was "lent
to various persons " till it died 1 -- Enough and ten
times more than enough of all that. Let me on
this last slip of paper give you some response to
the Letter 1 I got in Scotland, under the silence of
the bright autumn sun, in my Mother's house, and
read there.
You are bountiful abundantly in your reception
of those Latter Day Pamphlets; and right in all
you say of them ;--and yet withal you are not right,
my Friend, but I am! Truly it does behove a man
to know the inmost resources of this universe, and,
for the sake both of his peace and of his dignity,
to possess his soul in patience, and look nothing
doubting (nothing wincing even, if that be his hu-
1 This letter is missing.
4
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? ' Carlyle to Emerson. 2 2 3
mor) upon all things. For it is most indubitable
there is good in all ;--and if you even see an Oliver
Cromwell assassinated, it is certain you may get a
cartload of turnips from his carcass. Ah me, and
I suppose we had too much forgotten all this, or
there had not been a man like you sent to show it
us so emphatically! Let us well remember it; and
yet remember too that it is not good always, or
ever, to be "at ease in Zion"; good often to be
in fierce rage in Zion; and that the vile Pythons
of this Mud-World do verily require to have sun-
arrows shot into them and red-hot pokers struck
through them, according to occasion: woe to the
man that carries either of these weapons, and
does not use it in their presence! Here, at this
moment, a miserable Italian organ-grinder has
struck up the Marseillaise under my window, for
example: was the Marseillaise fought out on a bed
of down, or is it worth nothing when fought? On
those wretched Pamphlets I set no value at all, or
even less than none: to me their one benefit is,
my own heart is clear of them (a benefit not to
be despised, I assure you! )--and in the Public,
athwart this storm of curses, and emptyings of
vessels of dishonor, I can already perceive that it
is all well enough there too in reference to them;
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? 224 Carlyle to Emerson.
and the controversy of the Eighteen millions versus
the Eighteen thousands, or Eighteen units, is going
on very handsomely in that quarter of it, for aught
I can see! And so, Peace to the brave that are
departed; and, To-morrow to fresh fields and pas-
tures new! -
I was in Wales, as well as Scotland, during Au-
tumn time; lived three weeks within wind of St.
Germanus's old "College" (Fourteen Hundred years
of age or so) and also not far from Merthyr Tyalvil,
Cyclops' Hell, sootiest and horridest avatar of the
Industrial Mammon I had ever anywhere seen;--
went through the Severn Valley; at Bath stayed a
night with Landor (a proud and high old man, who
charged me with express remembrances for you);
saw Tennyson too, in Cumberland, with his new
Wife ; and other beautiful recommendable and
questionable things ;--and was dreadfully tossed
about, and torn almost to tatters by the mani-
fold brambles of my way: and so at length am
here, a much-lamed man indeed! Oh my Friend,
have tolerance for me, have sympathy with me;
you know not quite (I imagine) what a burden
mine is, or perhaps you would find this duty, which
you always do, a little easier done! Be happy, be
busy beside your still waters, and think kindly of
!
1
!
I
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 2 2 5
me there. My nerves, health I call them, are in a
sad state of disorder: alas, that is nine tenths of
all the battle in this world. Courage, courage!
---
My Wife sends salutations to you and yours. Good
be with you all always.
Your affectionate
T. CARLYLE.
iii
GXLIV.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CHELSEA, 8 July, 1851.
DEAR EMERSON, --Don't you still remember very
well that there is such a man? I know you do,
and will do. But it is a ruinously long while since
we have heard a word from each other;--a state
of matters that ought immediately to cease. It was
your turn, I think, to write? It was somebody's
turn! Nay I heard lately you complained of bad
eyes; and were grown abstinent of writing. Pray
contradict me this. I cannot do without some re-
gard from you while we are both hero. Spite of
your many sins, you are among the most human
of all the beings I now know in the world ; -- who
voL. 11. 15
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? 226 Carlyle to Emerson.
are a very select set, and are growing ever more
so, I can inform you !
In late months, feeling greatly broken and with-
out heart for anything weighty, I have been upon a
Life of John Sterling ; which will not be good for
much, but will as usual gratify me by taking itself
off my hands: it was one of the things I felt a
kind of obligation to do, and so am thankful to
have done. Here is a patch of it lying by me, if
you will look at a specimen. There are four hun-
dred or more pages (prophesies the Printer), a
good many Letters and Excerpts in the latter por-
tion of the volume. Already half printed, wholly
written; but not to come out for a couple of months
yet,--all trade being at a stand till this sublime
" Crystal Palace" go its ways again. --And now
since we are upon the business, I wish you would
mention it_to E. P. Clark (is not that the name? )
next time you go to Boston : if that friendly clear-
eyed man have anything to say in reference to
it and American Booksellers, let him say and
do; he may have a Copy for anybody in about a
month : if he have nothing to say, then let there be
nothing anywhere said. For, mark O Philosopher,
I expressly and with emphasis prohibit you at
this stage of our history, and henceforth, unless I
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 227
grow poor again. Indeed, indeed, the commercial
mandate of the thing (N ature's little order on that
behalf) being once fulfilled (by speaking to Clark),
I do not care a snuff of tobacco how it goes, and
will prefer, here as elsewhere, my night's rest to
any amount of superfluous money.
This summer, as you may conjecture, has been
very noisy with us, and productive of little,-- the
" Wind-dust-ry of all Nations " involving everything
in one inane tornado. The very shopkeepers com-
plain that there is no trade. Such a sanhedrim of
windy fools from all countries of the Globe were
surely never gathered in one city before. But they
will go their ways again, they surely will! One
sits quiet in that faith ; -- nay, looks abroad with a
kind of pathetic grandfatherly feeling over this
universal Children's Ball which the British Nation
in these extraordinary circumstances is giving it-
self! Silence above all, silence is very behove-
full-
I read lately a small old brown French duodeci-
mo, which I mean to send you by the first chance
there is. The writer is a Capitaine _Bossu; the
production, a Journal of his experiences in "La
Louisiane," "Oyo" (Ohio), and those regions,which
looks very genuine, and has a strange interest to
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? 228 Carlyle to Emerson.
me,like some fractional Odyssey or letter} Only a
hundred years ago, and the Mississippi has changed
as never valley did: in 1751 older and stranger,
looked at from its present date, than Balbec or
Nineveh! Say what we will, Jonathan is doing
miracles (of a sort) under the sun in these times
now passing. --Do you know Bartram's Travels?
This is of the Seventies (1770) or so; treats of
Florida chiefly, has a wondrous kind of flounder-
ing elolluence in it; and has also grown immeasu-
rably old. All American libraries ought to provide
themselves with that kind of book; and keep them
as a kind of future biblical article. --Finally on this
head, can you tell me of any good Book on Cali-
fornia? Good: I have read several bad. But that
too is worthy of some wonder ; that too, like the
Old Bucaniers, hungers and thirsts (in ingenuous
minds) to have some true record and description
given of it.
And poor Miss Fuller, was there any Life ever
published of her ? or is any competent hand engaged
on it? Poor Margaret, I often remember her ; and
think how she is asleep now under the surges of
1 Bossu wrote two books which are known to the student of
the history of the settlement of America ; one, " Nouveaux Voyages
aux lndes occidentales," Paris, 1768 ; the other, " Nouveaux Voy-
ages dans l'Ame? rique septentrionale," Amsterdam (Paris), 1777.
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 229
the sea. Mazzini, as you perhaps know, is with us
this summer; comes across once in the week or
so, and tells me, or at least my Wife, all his news.
The Roman revolution has made a man of him,--
quite brightened up ever since ; --and the best
friend he ever saw, I believe, was that same Quack-
President of France, who relieved him while it was
still time.
My Brother is in Annandale, working hard over
Dante at last; talks of coming up hither shortly;
I am myself very ill and miserable in the liver re-
gions ; very tough otherwise,-- though I have now
got spectacles for small print in the twilight.
Eheu fugaces,-- and yet why Eheu ? In fact it is
better to be silent. --Adieu, dear Emerson; I ex-
pect to get a great deal brisker by and by,--and in
the first place to have a Missive from Boston again.
My Wife sends you many regards. I am as ever,
--- affectionately Yours
T. CARLYLE.
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? 230 Ihnerson to Carlyle.
CXLV.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
Conconn, 28 July, 1851.
MY DEAR CARLYLE, -- You must always thank
me for silence, be it never so long, and must put
on it the most generous interpretations. For I am
too sure of your genius and goodness, and too glad
that they shine steadily for all, to importune you to
make assurance sure by a private beam very often.
There is very little in this village to be said to you,
and, with all my love of your letters, I think it the
kind part to defend you from our imbecilities,--
my own, and other men's. Besides, my eyes are
bad, and prone to mutiny at any hint of white
paper.
And yet I owe you all my story, if story I have.
I have been something of a traveller the last
year, and went down the Ohio River to its mouth;
walked nine miles into, and nine miles out of the
Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky,--walked or sailed,
for we crossed small underground streams,--and
lost one day's light; then steamed up the Missis-
sippi, five days, to Galena. In the Upper Missis-
sippi, you are always in a lake with many islands.
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 2 31
"The Far West" is the right name for these
verdant deserts. On all the shores, interminable
silent forest. If you land, there is prairie behind
prairie, forest behind forest, sites of nations, no
nations. The raw bullion of nature; what we call
"moral" value not yet stamped on it. But in a
thousand miles the immense material values will
show twenty or fifty Californias; that a good cipher-
ing head will make one where he is. Thus at
Pittsburg, on the Ohio, the Iron City, whither, from
want of railroads, few Yankees have penetrated,
every acre of land has three or four bottoms; first
of rich soil; then nine feet of bituminous coal;
a little lower, fourteen feet of coal; then iron, or
-salt; salt springs, with a valuable oil called petro-
leum floating on their surface. Yet this acre sells
for the price of any tillage acre in Massachusetts;
and, in a year, the railroads will reach it, east and
west. --I came home by the great Northern Lakes
and Niagara.
No books, a few lectures, each winter, I write
and read. In the spring, the abomination of our
Fugitive Slave Bill drove me to some writing and
speech-making, without hope of effect, but to clear
my own skirts. I am sorry I did not print whilst
it was yet time. I am now told that the time will
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? 2 32 Emerson to Carlyle.
come again, more 's the pity. Now I am trying to
make a sort of memoir of Margaret Fuller, or my
part in one;--for Channing and Ward are to do
theirs. Without either beauty or genius, she had a
certain wealth and generosity of nature which have
left a kind of claim on our consciences to build
her a cairn. And this reminds me that I am to
write a note to Mazzini on this matter; and, as
you say you see him, you must charge yourself
with delivering it. What we do must be ended by
October.
You too are working for Sterling. It is right
and kind. I learned so much from the New York
Tribune, and, a few days after, was on the point of
writing to you, provoked by a foolish paragraph
which appeared in Rufus Griswold's Journal, (New
York,) purporting that R. W". E. possessed impor-
tant letters of Sterling, without which Thomas
Carlyle could not write the Life. What scrap of
hearsay about contents of Sterling's letters to
me, or that I had letters, this paltry journalist
swelled into this puff-ball, I know not. He once
came to my house, and,,since that time, may have
known Margaret Fuller in New York; but probably
never saw any letter of Sterling's or heard the con-
tents of any. I have not read again Sterling's
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 2 3 3
letters, which I keep as good Lares in a special
niche, but I have no recollection of anything that
would be valuable to you. For the American Pub-
lic for the Book, I think it important that you
should take the precise step of sending Phillips
and Sampson the early copy, and at the earliest. I
saw them, and also E. P. Clark, and put them in
communication, and Clark is to write you at once.
Having got so far in my writing to you, I do not
know but I shall gain heart, and write more letters
over sea. You will think my sloth suicidal enough.
So many men as I learned to value in your country,
--so many as offered me opportunities of inter-
course,--and I lose them all by silence. Arthur
Helps is a chief benefactor of mine. I wrote him
a letter by Ward,--who brought the letter back.
I ought to thank John Carlyle, not only for me, but
for a multitude of good men and women here who
read his Inferno duly. W. E. Forster sent me his
Penn Pamphlet; I sent it to Bancroft, who liked
it well, only he thought Forster might have made a
still stronger case. Clough I prize at a high rate,
the man and his poetry, but write not. Wilkinson
I thought a man of prodigious talent, who somehow
held it and so taught others to hold it cheap, as
we do one of those bushel-basket memories which
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? 2 34 Carlyle lo Emerson.
school-boys and school-girls often show,--and we
stop their mouths lest they be troublesome with
their alarming profusion". But there is no need of
beginning to count the long catalogue. Kindest,
kindest remembrance to 'my benefactress also in
your house, and health and strength and victory
to you.
Your affectionate
WALDO EMERsoN.
CXLVI.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
GREAT MALVERN, Woncasrnnsnmn, 25 August, 1851.
DEAR EMERsoN,-- Many thanks for your Letter,
which found me here about a week ago, and gave a
full solution to my bibliopolic difliculties. How-
ever sore your eyes, or however taciturn your mood,
there is . no delay of writing when any service is to
be done by it! In fact you are very good to me,
and always were, in all manner of ways ; for which
I do, as I ought, thank the Upper Powers and you.
That truly has been and is one of the possessions
of my life in this perverse epoch of the world. . . .
? 214 Carlyle to Emerson.
hidden from bailifis, living sometimes " on the hares
of their domain" : such a state of things was never
witnessed under this sky before; and, one would
humbly expect, cannot last long ! -- What is to be
done? asks every one; incapable of hearing any
answer, were there even one ready for imparting to
him. " Blaclclead these two million idle beggars,"
I sometimes advised, "and sell them in Brazil as
Niggers, -- perhaps Parliament, on sweet constraint,
will allow you to advance them to be Niggers ! "
In fact, the Emancipation Societies should send
over a deputation or two to look at these immortal
Irish " Freemen," the ne plus ultra of their class :
it would perhaps moderate the windpipe of much
eloquence one hears on that subject! Is not
this the most illustrious of all "ages"; making
progress of the species at a grand rate indeed?
Peace be with it.
Waiting for me here, there was a Letter from
Miss Fuller in Rome, written about a month ago;
a dignified and interesting Letter; requesting
help with Booksellers for some "History of the
late Italian Revolution " she is about writing; and
elegiacally recognizing the worth of Mazzini and
other cognate persons and things. I instantly set
about doing what little seemed in my power towards
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? ' Carlyle to Emerson. 2 1 5
this object,--with what result is yet hidden,-
and have written to the heroic Margaret: " More
power to her elbow! " as the Irish say. She has a
beautiful enthusiasm; and is perhaps in the right
stage of insight for doing that piece of business
well. --Of other persons or interests I will say
nothing till a calmer opportunity; which surely
cannot be very long in coming.
In four days I am to rejoin my wife ; after which
some bits of visits are to be paid in this North
Country; necessary most of them, not likely to be
profitable almost any. In perhaps a month I ex-
pect to be back in Chelsea; whither direct a word
if you are still beneficent enough to think of such
a Castaway!
Yours ever,
T. CARLYLE.
I got Thoreau's Book; and meant well to read
it, but have not yet succeeded, though it went with
me through all Ireland: tell him so, please. Too
J ean-Paulish, I fO'l111d. it hitherto.
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? 216 Carlyle lo Emerson.
CXLII.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CnELSEA, 19 July, 1850.
MY DEAR EMERSON, My Friend, my Friend,--
You behold before you a remorseful man! It is
well-nigh a year now since I despatched some
hurried rag of paper to you out of Scotland, indi-
cating doubtless that I would speedily follow it
with a longer letter ; and here, when gray Autumn
is at hand again, I have still written nothing to
you, heard nothing from you! It is miserable to
think of : -- and yet it is a fact, and there is no de-
nying of it; and so we must let it lie. If it please
Heaven, the like shall not occur again. "Ohone
Arooh! " as the Irish taught me to say, "Ohone
Arooh! "
The fact is, my life has been black with care
and toil,--labor above board and far worse labor
below;--I have hardly had a heavier year (over-
loaded too with a kind of "health " which may be
called frightful): to "burn my own smoke" in
some measure, has really been all I was up to;
and except on sheer immediate compulsion I have
not written a word to any creature. --Yesternight
i
I
I
I
I.
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 217
I finished the last of these extraordinary Pam-
phlets ; am about running off somewhither into
the deserts, of Wales or Scotland, Scandinavia or
still remoter deserts ; --and my first signal of re-
vived reminiscence is to you.
Nay I have not at any time forgotten you, be
that justice done the unfortunate : and though I see
well enough what a great deep cleft divides us, in
our ways of practically looking at this world,--I
see also (as probably you do yourself) where the
rock-strata, miles deep, unite again ; and the two
poor souls are at one. Poor devils ! -- Nay if there
were no point of agreement at all, and I were more
intolerant " of ways of thinking " than I even am,
--yet has not the man Emerson, from old years,
been a Human Friend to me? Can I ever forget,
or think otherwise than lovingly of the man Emer-
son ? ------ ------ No more of this. Write to me in
your first good hour; and say that there is still a
brother-soul left to me alive in this world, and a
kind thought surviving far over the sea! --
Chapman, with due punctuality at the time of
publication, sent me the Representative Men; which
I read in the becoming manner: you now get the
Book offered you for a shilling, at all railway
stations; and indeed I perceive the word "repre-
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? 213 Carlyle to Emerson.
sentative man " (as applied to the late tragic loss
we have had in Sir Robert Peel) has been adopted
by the Able-Editors, and circulates through News-
papers as an appropriate household word, which is
some compensation to you for the piracy you suffer
from the Typographic 'Letter-of-marque men here.
I found the Book a most finished clear and perfect
set of Engravings in the line manner; portraitures
full of likeness, and abounding in instruction and
materials for reflection to me: thanks always for
such a Book; and Heaven send us many more of
them. Plato, I think, though it is the most ad-
mired by many, did least for me: little save
Socrates with his clogs and big ears remains alive
with me from it. Swedenborg is excellent in like-
ness ; excellent in many respects ;. -- yet I said to
myself, on reaching yoii eneral conclusion about
the man and his struggles: issed the consum-
mate flower and divine ultimate lixir of Philoso-
phy, say you? -By Heaven, in clut ing at it, and
almost getting it, he has tumbled in Bedlam,-
which is a terrible miss, if it were neve so near!
A miss fully as good as a mile, I should \1y ! "--
-- In fact, I generally dissented a little 18-bou17
the end of all these Essays; which was noltable,
and not without instructive interest to me, as I
'\
\
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 2 1 9
had so lustily shouted "Hear, hear! " all the way
from the beginning up to that stage. --On the
whole, let us have another Book with your ear-
liest convenience: that is the modest request one
makes' of you on shutting this.
I know not what I am now going to set about:
the horrible barking of the universal dog-kennel
(awakened by these Pamphlets) must still itself
again; my poor nerves must recoverthemselves a
little:--I have much more to say; and by Heav-
en's blessing must try to get it said in some way if
I live. --
Bostonian Prescott is here, infinitely lionized by
a mob of gentlemen ; I have seen him in two places
or three (but forbore speech) : the Johnny-cake is
good, the twopence worth of currants in it too are
good; but if you offer it as a bit of baked Ambro-
sia, Ach Gott 1-
A_dieu, dear Emerson, forgive and love me a
little.
Yours ever,
T. CARLYLE.
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? 1320 Carlyle to Emerson.
CXLIII.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CHELSEA, 14 November, 1850.
DEAR EMERSON,--You are often enough present
to my thoughts; but yesterday there came a little
incident which has brought you rather vividly upon
the scene for me. A certain "Mr " from
Boston sends us, yesterday morning by post, a
Note of yours addressed to Mazzini, whom he can-
not find ; and indicates that he retains a similar one
addressed to myself, and (in the most courteous,
kindly, and dignified manner, if Mercy prevent
not) is about carrying it off with him again to
America! To give Mercy a chance, I by the first
opportunity get under way for Morley's Hotel, the
address of Mr. i; find there that Mr. ,
since morning, has been on the road towards Liver-
pool and America, and that the function of Mercy is
quite extinct in this instance! My reflections as I
wandered home again were none of the pleasantest.
Of this Mr. I had heard some tradition, as of
an intelligent, accomplished, and superior man;
such a man's acquaintance, of whatever complex-
ion he be, is and was always a precious thing to
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4
I
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 22 1
me, well worth acquiring where possible; not to
say that any friend of yours, whatever his qualities
otherwise, carries with him an imperative key to all
bolts and locks of mine, real or imaginary. In fact
I felt punished ;--and who knows, if the case were
seen into, whether I deserve it? What "business "
it was that deprived me of a call from Mr. l ,
or of the possibility of calling on him, I know very
well,--and Z Z, the little dog, and others
know! But the fact in that matter is very far
different indeed from the superficial semblance; and
I appeal to all the gentlemen that are in America
for a candid interpretation of the same. " Eighteen
million bores,"--good Heavens don't I know how
many of that species we also have; and how with
us, as with you, the difference between them and
the Eighteen thousand noble-men and nowbores is
immeasurable and inconceivable; and how, with
us as with you, the latter small company, sons of
the Empyrean, will have to fling the former huge
one, sons of Mammon and Mud, into some kind of
chains again, reduce them to some kind of silence
again,--unless the old Mud-Demons are to rise
and devour us all? Truly it is so I construe it:
and if ---- ------ and the Eighteen millions are
well justified in their anger at me, Z and the
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? 222 Garlvle to Emerson. '
Eighteen thousand owe me thanks and new love.
That is my decided opinion, in spite of you all!
And so, along with i, probably in the same ship
with him, there shall go my protest against the
conduct of Z-; and the declaration that to the
last I will protest! Which will wind up the matter
(without any word of yours on it) at this time. --
-- For the rest, though ---- sent me his Pam-
phlet, it is a fact I have not read a word of it, nor
shall ever read. My Wife read it; but I was away,
with far other things in my head; and it was "lent
to various persons " till it died 1 -- Enough and ten
times more than enough of all that. Let me on
this last slip of paper give you some response to
the Letter 1 I got in Scotland, under the silence of
the bright autumn sun, in my Mother's house, and
read there.
You are bountiful abundantly in your reception
of those Latter Day Pamphlets; and right in all
you say of them ;--and yet withal you are not right,
my Friend, but I am! Truly it does behove a man
to know the inmost resources of this universe, and,
for the sake both of his peace and of his dignity,
to possess his soul in patience, and look nothing
doubting (nothing wincing even, if that be his hu-
1 This letter is missing.
4
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? ' Carlyle to Emerson. 2 2 3
mor) upon all things. For it is most indubitable
there is good in all ;--and if you even see an Oliver
Cromwell assassinated, it is certain you may get a
cartload of turnips from his carcass. Ah me, and
I suppose we had too much forgotten all this, or
there had not been a man like you sent to show it
us so emphatically! Let us well remember it; and
yet remember too that it is not good always, or
ever, to be "at ease in Zion"; good often to be
in fierce rage in Zion; and that the vile Pythons
of this Mud-World do verily require to have sun-
arrows shot into them and red-hot pokers struck
through them, according to occasion: woe to the
man that carries either of these weapons, and
does not use it in their presence! Here, at this
moment, a miserable Italian organ-grinder has
struck up the Marseillaise under my window, for
example: was the Marseillaise fought out on a bed
of down, or is it worth nothing when fought? On
those wretched Pamphlets I set no value at all, or
even less than none: to me their one benefit is,
my own heart is clear of them (a benefit not to
be despised, I assure you! )--and in the Public,
athwart this storm of curses, and emptyings of
vessels of dishonor, I can already perceive that it
is all well enough there too in reference to them;
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? 224 Carlyle to Emerson.
and the controversy of the Eighteen millions versus
the Eighteen thousands, or Eighteen units, is going
on very handsomely in that quarter of it, for aught
I can see! And so, Peace to the brave that are
departed; and, To-morrow to fresh fields and pas-
tures new! -
I was in Wales, as well as Scotland, during Au-
tumn time; lived three weeks within wind of St.
Germanus's old "College" (Fourteen Hundred years
of age or so) and also not far from Merthyr Tyalvil,
Cyclops' Hell, sootiest and horridest avatar of the
Industrial Mammon I had ever anywhere seen;--
went through the Severn Valley; at Bath stayed a
night with Landor (a proud and high old man, who
charged me with express remembrances for you);
saw Tennyson too, in Cumberland, with his new
Wife ; and other beautiful recommendable and
questionable things ;--and was dreadfully tossed
about, and torn almost to tatters by the mani-
fold brambles of my way: and so at length am
here, a much-lamed man indeed! Oh my Friend,
have tolerance for me, have sympathy with me;
you know not quite (I imagine) what a burden
mine is, or perhaps you would find this duty, which
you always do, a little easier done! Be happy, be
busy beside your still waters, and think kindly of
!
1
!
I
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l
!
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 2 2 5
me there. My nerves, health I call them, are in a
sad state of disorder: alas, that is nine tenths of
all the battle in this world. Courage, courage!
---
My Wife sends salutations to you and yours. Good
be with you all always.
Your affectionate
T. CARLYLE.
iii
GXLIV.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CHELSEA, 8 July, 1851.
DEAR EMERSON, --Don't you still remember very
well that there is such a man? I know you do,
and will do. But it is a ruinously long while since
we have heard a word from each other;--a state
of matters that ought immediately to cease. It was
your turn, I think, to write? It was somebody's
turn! Nay I heard lately you complained of bad
eyes; and were grown abstinent of writing. Pray
contradict me this. I cannot do without some re-
gard from you while we are both hero. Spite of
your many sins, you are among the most human
of all the beings I now know in the world ; -- who
voL. 11. 15
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? 226 Carlyle to Emerson.
are a very select set, and are growing ever more
so, I can inform you !
In late months, feeling greatly broken and with-
out heart for anything weighty, I have been upon a
Life of John Sterling ; which will not be good for
much, but will as usual gratify me by taking itself
off my hands: it was one of the things I felt a
kind of obligation to do, and so am thankful to
have done. Here is a patch of it lying by me, if
you will look at a specimen. There are four hun-
dred or more pages (prophesies the Printer), a
good many Letters and Excerpts in the latter por-
tion of the volume. Already half printed, wholly
written; but not to come out for a couple of months
yet,--all trade being at a stand till this sublime
" Crystal Palace" go its ways again. --And now
since we are upon the business, I wish you would
mention it_to E. P. Clark (is not that the name? )
next time you go to Boston : if that friendly clear-
eyed man have anything to say in reference to
it and American Booksellers, let him say and
do; he may have a Copy for anybody in about a
month : if he have nothing to say, then let there be
nothing anywhere said. For, mark O Philosopher,
I expressly and with emphasis prohibit you at
this stage of our history, and henceforth, unless I
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 227
grow poor again. Indeed, indeed, the commercial
mandate of the thing (N ature's little order on that
behalf) being once fulfilled (by speaking to Clark),
I do not care a snuff of tobacco how it goes, and
will prefer, here as elsewhere, my night's rest to
any amount of superfluous money.
This summer, as you may conjecture, has been
very noisy with us, and productive of little,-- the
" Wind-dust-ry of all Nations " involving everything
in one inane tornado. The very shopkeepers com-
plain that there is no trade. Such a sanhedrim of
windy fools from all countries of the Globe were
surely never gathered in one city before. But they
will go their ways again, they surely will! One
sits quiet in that faith ; -- nay, looks abroad with a
kind of pathetic grandfatherly feeling over this
universal Children's Ball which the British Nation
in these extraordinary circumstances is giving it-
self! Silence above all, silence is very behove-
full-
I read lately a small old brown French duodeci-
mo, which I mean to send you by the first chance
there is. The writer is a Capitaine _Bossu; the
production, a Journal of his experiences in "La
Louisiane," "Oyo" (Ohio), and those regions,which
looks very genuine, and has a strange interest to
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? 228 Carlyle to Emerson.
me,like some fractional Odyssey or letter} Only a
hundred years ago, and the Mississippi has changed
as never valley did: in 1751 older and stranger,
looked at from its present date, than Balbec or
Nineveh! Say what we will, Jonathan is doing
miracles (of a sort) under the sun in these times
now passing. --Do you know Bartram's Travels?
This is of the Seventies (1770) or so; treats of
Florida chiefly, has a wondrous kind of flounder-
ing elolluence in it; and has also grown immeasu-
rably old. All American libraries ought to provide
themselves with that kind of book; and keep them
as a kind of future biblical article. --Finally on this
head, can you tell me of any good Book on Cali-
fornia? Good: I have read several bad. But that
too is worthy of some wonder ; that too, like the
Old Bucaniers, hungers and thirsts (in ingenuous
minds) to have some true record and description
given of it.
And poor Miss Fuller, was there any Life ever
published of her ? or is any competent hand engaged
on it? Poor Margaret, I often remember her ; and
think how she is asleep now under the surges of
1 Bossu wrote two books which are known to the student of
the history of the settlement of America ; one, " Nouveaux Voyages
aux lndes occidentales," Paris, 1768 ; the other, " Nouveaux Voy-
ages dans l'Ame? rique septentrionale," Amsterdam (Paris), 1777.
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 229
the sea. Mazzini, as you perhaps know, is with us
this summer; comes across once in the week or
so, and tells me, or at least my Wife, all his news.
The Roman revolution has made a man of him,--
quite brightened up ever since ; --and the best
friend he ever saw, I believe, was that same Quack-
President of France, who relieved him while it was
still time.
My Brother is in Annandale, working hard over
Dante at last; talks of coming up hither shortly;
I am myself very ill and miserable in the liver re-
gions ; very tough otherwise,-- though I have now
got spectacles for small print in the twilight.
Eheu fugaces,-- and yet why Eheu ? In fact it is
better to be silent. --Adieu, dear Emerson; I ex-
pect to get a great deal brisker by and by,--and in
the first place to have a Missive from Boston again.
My Wife sends you many regards. I am as ever,
--- affectionately Yours
T. CARLYLE.
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? 230 Ihnerson to Carlyle.
CXLV.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
Conconn, 28 July, 1851.
MY DEAR CARLYLE, -- You must always thank
me for silence, be it never so long, and must put
on it the most generous interpretations. For I am
too sure of your genius and goodness, and too glad
that they shine steadily for all, to importune you to
make assurance sure by a private beam very often.
There is very little in this village to be said to you,
and, with all my love of your letters, I think it the
kind part to defend you from our imbecilities,--
my own, and other men's. Besides, my eyes are
bad, and prone to mutiny at any hint of white
paper.
And yet I owe you all my story, if story I have.
I have been something of a traveller the last
year, and went down the Ohio River to its mouth;
walked nine miles into, and nine miles out of the
Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky,--walked or sailed,
for we crossed small underground streams,--and
lost one day's light; then steamed up the Missis-
sippi, five days, to Galena. In the Upper Missis-
sippi, you are always in a lake with many islands.
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 2 31
"The Far West" is the right name for these
verdant deserts. On all the shores, interminable
silent forest. If you land, there is prairie behind
prairie, forest behind forest, sites of nations, no
nations. The raw bullion of nature; what we call
"moral" value not yet stamped on it. But in a
thousand miles the immense material values will
show twenty or fifty Californias; that a good cipher-
ing head will make one where he is. Thus at
Pittsburg, on the Ohio, the Iron City, whither, from
want of railroads, few Yankees have penetrated,
every acre of land has three or four bottoms; first
of rich soil; then nine feet of bituminous coal;
a little lower, fourteen feet of coal; then iron, or
-salt; salt springs, with a valuable oil called petro-
leum floating on their surface. Yet this acre sells
for the price of any tillage acre in Massachusetts;
and, in a year, the railroads will reach it, east and
west. --I came home by the great Northern Lakes
and Niagara.
No books, a few lectures, each winter, I write
and read. In the spring, the abomination of our
Fugitive Slave Bill drove me to some writing and
speech-making, without hope of effect, but to clear
my own skirts. I am sorry I did not print whilst
it was yet time. I am now told that the time will
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? 2 32 Emerson to Carlyle.
come again, more 's the pity. Now I am trying to
make a sort of memoir of Margaret Fuller, or my
part in one;--for Channing and Ward are to do
theirs. Without either beauty or genius, she had a
certain wealth and generosity of nature which have
left a kind of claim on our consciences to build
her a cairn. And this reminds me that I am to
write a note to Mazzini on this matter; and, as
you say you see him, you must charge yourself
with delivering it. What we do must be ended by
October.
You too are working for Sterling. It is right
and kind. I learned so much from the New York
Tribune, and, a few days after, was on the point of
writing to you, provoked by a foolish paragraph
which appeared in Rufus Griswold's Journal, (New
York,) purporting that R. W". E. possessed impor-
tant letters of Sterling, without which Thomas
Carlyle could not write the Life. What scrap of
hearsay about contents of Sterling's letters to
me, or that I had letters, this paltry journalist
swelled into this puff-ball, I know not. He once
came to my house, and,,since that time, may have
known Margaret Fuller in New York; but probably
never saw any letter of Sterling's or heard the con-
tents of any. I have not read again Sterling's
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 2 3 3
letters, which I keep as good Lares in a special
niche, but I have no recollection of anything that
would be valuable to you. For the American Pub-
lic for the Book, I think it important that you
should take the precise step of sending Phillips
and Sampson the early copy, and at the earliest. I
saw them, and also E. P. Clark, and put them in
communication, and Clark is to write you at once.
Having got so far in my writing to you, I do not
know but I shall gain heart, and write more letters
over sea. You will think my sloth suicidal enough.
So many men as I learned to value in your country,
--so many as offered me opportunities of inter-
course,--and I lose them all by silence. Arthur
Helps is a chief benefactor of mine. I wrote him
a letter by Ward,--who brought the letter back.
I ought to thank John Carlyle, not only for me, but
for a multitude of good men and women here who
read his Inferno duly. W. E. Forster sent me his
Penn Pamphlet; I sent it to Bancroft, who liked
it well, only he thought Forster might have made a
still stronger case. Clough I prize at a high rate,
the man and his poetry, but write not. Wilkinson
I thought a man of prodigious talent, who somehow
held it and so taught others to hold it cheap, as
we do one of those bushel-basket memories which
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? 2 34 Carlyle lo Emerson.
school-boys and school-girls often show,--and we
stop their mouths lest they be troublesome with
their alarming profusion". But there is no need of
beginning to count the long catalogue. Kindest,
kindest remembrance to 'my benefactress also in
your house, and health and strength and victory
to you.
Your affectionate
WALDO EMERsoN.
CXLVI.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
GREAT MALVERN, Woncasrnnsnmn, 25 August, 1851.
DEAR EMERsoN,-- Many thanks for your Letter,
which found me here about a week ago, and gave a
full solution to my bibliopolic difliculties. How-
ever sore your eyes, or however taciturn your mood,
there is . no delay of writing when any service is to
be done by it! In fact you are very good to me,
and always were, in all manner of ways ; for which
I do, as I ought, thank the Upper Powers and you.
That truly has been and is one of the possessions
of my life in this perverse epoch of the world. . . .
