I63
shire, to England ;--and in fact it is an adven-
ture which I think you ought to contemplate as
fixed,--say for this year and the beginning of
next?
shire, to England ;--and in fact it is an adven-
ture which I think you ought to contemplate as
fixed,--say for this year and the beginning of
next?
Thomas Carlyle
net/2027/pst.
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? 154 Carlyle to Emerson.
commonalty all manner of audiences that you liked
to stoop to. I heard an ignorant blockhead (or
mainly so) called 2-- ---- bow-wowing here,
some months ago, to an audience of several thou-
sands, in the City, one evening,--upon Universal
Peace, or some other field of balderdash; which
the poor people seemed very patient of. In a word,
I do not see what is to hinder you to come when-
ever you can resolve upon it. The adventure is
perfectly promising: an adventure familiar to you
withal; for Lecturing is with us fundamentally just
what it is with you: Much prurient curiosity, with
some ingenuous love of wisdom, an element of real
reverence for the same: everywhere a perfect open-
ness to any man speaking in any measure things
manful. Come, therefore; gird yourself together,
and come. With little or no peradventure, you
will realize what your modest hope is, and more;
--and I, for my share of it, shall see you once
again under this Sun! O Heavens, there might be
some good in that! Nay, if you will travel like a
private quiet person, who knows but I, the most
unlocomotive of mortals, might be able to escort
you up and down a little; to look at many a thing
along with you, and even to open my long-closed
heart and speak about the same? -- There is a
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? Carlyle to Emerson. I 55
spare-room always in this House for you, -- in this
heart, in these two hearts, the like: bid me hope in
this enterprise, in all manner of ways where I can;
and on the whole, get it rightly put together, and
embark on it, and arrive!
The good Miss Fuller has painted us all en beau,
and your smiling imagination has added new col-
ors. We have not a triumphant life here; very
far indeed from that, ach G-ott ! --as you shall see.
But Margaret is an excellent soul: in real regard
with both of us here. Since she went, I have been
reading some of her Papers in a new Book we have
got: greatly superior to all I knew before; in fact
the undeniable utterances (now first undeniable to
me) of a true heroic mind ;--altogether unique,
so far as I know, among the Writing Women of
this generation ; rare enough too, God knows,
among the writing Men. She is very narrow, some-
times; but she is truly high: honor to Margaret,
and more and more good-speed to her. --Adieu,
dear Emerson. I am ever yours,
T. C.
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? I 56 Carlyle to Emerson.
5
CXIX.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CnELSEA, 18 March, 1847.
DEAR EMERsoN,--Yesterday morning, setting
out to breakfast with Richard Milnes (Milnes's
breakfast is a thing you will yet have to experi-
ence) I met, by the sunny shore of the Thames, a
benevolent Son of Adam in blue coat and red collar,
who thrust into my hand a Letter from you. A
truly miraculous Son of Adam in red collar, in the
Sunny Spring Morning! --The Bill of Seventeen
Pounds is already far on its way to Dumfries, there
to be kneaded into gold by the due artists: to-day
is American Post-day; and already in huge hurry
about many things, I am scribbling you some
word of answer. . . . . The night before Milnes's
morning, I had furthermore seen your Manchester
Correspondent, Ireland,--an old Edinborough ac-
quaintance too, as I found. A solid, dark, broad,
rather heavy man; full of energy, and broad saga-
city and practicality;--infinitely well affected to
the man Emerson too. It was our clear opinion that
you might come at any time with ample assurance of
" succeeding," so far as wages went, and otherwise;
that you ought to come, and must, and would,--
E ~'""'*',_ ii Mud'. . - 1. A; ' r____j_. _. . __ ;_j:;? 1'. '_""*'~"*'? ! "'. 3'-*1
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? Carlyle to Enerson. 157
as he, Ireland, would farther write to you. There
is only one thing I have to add of my own, and beg
you to bear in mind,--a date merely. Videlicet,
That the time for lecturing to the London West-
End, I was given everywhere to understand, is from
the latter end of April (or say April altogether) to
the end of May : this is a fixed Statistic fact, all
men told me: of this you are in all arrangements
to keep mind. For it will actually do your heart
good to look into the faces, and speak into minds,
of really Aristocratic Persons,--being one your-
self, you Sinner, -- and perhaps indeed this will be
the greatest of all the novelties that await you in
your voyage. Not to be seen, I believe, at least
never seen by me in any perfection, except in Lon-
don only. From April to the end of May; during
those weeks you must be here, and free : remember
that date. Will you come in Winter then, next
Winter,--or when? Ireland professed to know
you by the Photograph too; which I never yet can.
i I wrote by last Packet: enough here. Your
friend Cunningham has not presented himself;
shall be right welcome when he does,--as all that
in the least belong to you may well hope to be.
Adieu. Om~ love to you all.
Ever Yours,
T. CARLYLE.
!
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? I58 Emerson to Carlyle.
GXX.
EMERSON T0 CARLYLE.
Couconn, 30 April, 1847.
MY DEAR GARLYLE,--I have two good letters
from you, and until now you have had no acknowl-
edgment. Especially I ought to have told you how
much pleasure your noble invitation in March gave
me. This pleasing dream of going to England
dances before me sometimes. It would be, I then
fancy, that stimulation which my capricious, lan-
guid, and languescent study needs. At home, no
man makes any proper demand on me, and the au-
dience I address is a handful of men and women
too widely scattered than that they can dictate to
me that which they are justly entitled to say.
Whether supercilious or respectful, they do not say
anything that can be heard. Of course, I have only
myself to please, and my work is slighted as soon
as it has lost its first attraction. It is to be hoped,
if one should cross the sea, that the terror of your
English culture would scare the most desultory of
Yankees into precision and fidelity ; and perhaps I
am not yet too old to be animated by what would
ih
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 159
have seemed to my youth a proud privilege. If
you shall fright me_ into labor and concentration, I
shall win my game; for I can well afiord to pay
any price to get my work well done. For the rest,
I hesitate, of course, to rush rudely on persons
that have been so long invisible. angels to me. N o
reasonable man but must hold these bounds in
awe:--I--much more,--who am of a solitary
habit, from my childhood until now. --I hear
nothing again from Mr. Ireland. So I will let the
English Voyage hang as an afternoon rainbow in
the East, and mind my apples and pears for the
present.
-You are to know that in these days I lay out a
patch of orchard near my house, very much to the
improvement, as all the household afiirm, of our
homestead. Though. I have little skill in these
things, and must borrow that of my neighbors,
yet the works of the garden and orchard at this
season are fascinating, and will eat up days and
weeks, and a brave scholar should shun it like gam-
bling, and take refuge in cities and hotels from
these pernicious enchantments. For the present, I
stay in the new orchard.
Duyckinck, a literary man in New York, who
advises Wiley and Putnam in their publishing en-
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? 160 Carlyle to Emerson.
terprises, wrote me lately, that they had $600 for
you, from Cromwell. So may it be.
Yours,
R. W. E.
,i_'__i
. .
GXXI.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CHELSEA, 18 May, 1847.
DEAR EMERSON, --. . . . My time is nearly up to-
day; but I write a word to acknowledge your last
Letter (30 April), and various other things. For
example, you must tell Mr. Thoreau (is that the ex-
act name ? for I have lent away the printed pages)
that his Philadelphia Magazine with the Lecture1
in two pieces was faithfully delivered here, about a
fortnight ago; and carefully read, as beseemed, with
due entertainment and recognition. A vigorous Mr.
Thoreau,-- who has formed himself a good deal
upon one Emerson, but does not want abundant fire
and stamina of his own ;--recognizes us, and vari-
ous other things, in a most admiring great-hearted
manner ; for which, as for part of the confused voice
1 On Carlyle, published in G'raham's Magazine in March and
April, 1847.
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? Carlyle to Emerson. ' 161
from the jury-box (not yet summed into a verdict,
nor likely to be summed till Doomsday, nor needful
to sum), the poor prisoner at the bar may justly
express himself thankful! In plain prose, I like
Mr. Thoreau very well ; and hope yet to hear good
and better news of him : -- only let him not " turn
to foolishness"; which seems to me to be terribly
easy, at present, both in New England and Old!
May the Lord deliver us all from Cant; may the
Lord, whatever else he do or forbear, teach us to
look Facts honestly in the face, and to beware (with
a kind of shudder) of smearing them over with our
despicable and damnable palaver, into irrecogniza-
bility, and so falsifying the Lord's own Gospels to
his unhappy blockheads of children, all stagger-
ing down to Gehenna and the everlasting Swine's-
trough for want of Gospels. --O Heaven, it is the
most accursed sin of man; and done everywhere, at
present, on the streets and high places, at noonday!
Very seriously I say, and pray as my chief orison,
May the Lord deliver us from it. -- --
About a week ago there came your neighbor
Hoar; a solid, sensible, effectual-looking man, of
whom I hope to see much more. So soon as possi-
ble I got him under way for Oxford, where I sup-
pose he was, last week ;-- both Universities was too
voL. 11. ' 11
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? 162 Carlyle to Emerson.
much for the limits of his time; so he preferred
Oxford ;--and now, this very day, I think, he was
to set out for the Continent; not to return till the
beginning of July, when he promises to call here
again. There was something really pleasant to me
in this Mr. Hoar: and I had innumerable things to
ask him about Concord, concerning which topic we
had hardly got a word said when our first interview
had to end. I sincerely hope he will not fail to
keep his time in returning.
You do very well, my Friend, to plant orchards;
and fair fruit shall they grow (if it please Heaven)
for your grandchildren to pluck ;. -- a beautiful oc-
cupation for the son of man, in all patriarchal and
paternal times (which latter are patriarchal too)!
But you are to understand withal that your coming
hither to lecture is taken as a settled point by all
your friends here ; and for my share I do not reckon
upon the smallest doubt about the essential fact of
it, simply on some calculation and adjustment about
the circumstantials. Of Ireland, who I surmise is
busy in the problem even now, you will hear by and
by, probably i11 more definite terms : I did not see
him again after my first notice of him to you; but
there is no doubt concerning his determinations
(for all manner of reasons) to get you to Lanca-
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? Carlyle to Emerson.
I63
shire, to England ;--and in fact it is an adven-
ture which I think you ought to contemplate as
fixed,--say for this year and the beginning of
next? Ireland will help you to fix the dates; and
there is nothing else, I think, which should need
fixing. -- Unquestionably you would get an immense
quantity of food for ideas, though perhaps not at all
in the way you anticipate, in looking about among
us: nay, if you even thought us stupid, there is
something in the godlike indifference with which
London will accept and sanction even that verdict,
--something highly instructive at least! And in
short, for the truth must be told, London is prop-
erly your Mother City too, -- verily you have about
as much to do with it, in spite of Polk and Q.
Victory, as I had! And you ought to come and
look at it, beyond doubt; and say to this land,
" Old Mother, how are you getting on at all? " To
which the Mother will answer, " Thankee, young
son, and you? " --in a way useful to both par-
ties! That is truth.
Adieu, dear Emerson ; good be with you always.
Hoar gave me your American Poems: thanks. Vale
et me ama.
T. CARLYLE.
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? I64 Emerson to Carlyle.
CXXII.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
Corvconn, 4 June, 1847.
DEAR CARLYLE,--I have just got your friendliest
letter of May 18, with its varied news and new in-
vitations. Really you are a dangerous correspond-
ent with your solid and urgent ways of speaking.
No affairs and no studies of mine, I fear, will be
able to make any head against these bribes. Well,
I will adorn the brow of the coming months with
this fine hope; then if the rich God at last refuses
the jewel, no doubt he will give something better-
to both of us. But thinking on this project lately,
I see one thing plainly, that I must not come to
London as a lecturer. If the plan proceed, I will
come and see you,--thankful to Heaven for that
mercy, should such a romance-looking reality come
to pass,--I will come and see you and Jane Car-
lyle, and will hear what you have to say. You
shall even show me, if you will, such other men
and women as will suffer themselves to be seen
and heard, asking for nothing again. Then I will
depart in peace, as I came. .
At Mr. Ireland's " Institutes," I will read lec-
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? Emerson to Carlyle. I6 5
tures; and possibly in London too, if, when there,
you looking with your clear eyes shall say that it is
desired by persons who ought to be gratified. But
I wish such lecturing to be a mere contingency,
and nowise a settled purpose. I had rather stay
at home, and forego the happiness of seeing you,
and the excitement of England, than to have the
smallest pains taken to collect an audience for me.
So now we will leave this egg in the desert for the
ostrich Time to hatch it or not.
It seems you are not tired of pale Americans, or
will not own it. You have sent our Country-Senator 1
where he wanted to go, and to the best hospitalities
as we learn to-day directly from him. I cannot
avoid sending you another of a different stamp.
Henry Hedge is a recluse but Catholic scholar in
our remote Bangor, who reads German and smokes
in his solitary study through nearly eight months
of snow in the year, and deals out, every Sunday,
his witty apothegms to the lumber-merchants and
township-owners of Penobscot River, who have ac-
tually grown intelligent interpreters of his riddles
by long hearkening after them. They have shown
themselves very loving and generous lately, in mak-
ing a quite munificent provision for his travelling.
1 The Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar. .
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? I66 Emerson lo Carlyle.
Hedge has a true and mellow heart, . . . . and I
hope you will like him.
I have seen lately a Texan, ardent and vigorous,
who assured me that Carlyle's Writings were read
with eagerness on the banks of the Colorado. There
was more to tell, but it is too late.
Ever yours,
R. W. Emnnson.
CXXIII.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
Couoonn, 31 July, 1847.
DEAR CARLYLE, -- In my old age I am coming to
see you. I have written this day, in answer to
sundry letters brought me by the last steamer,
from Mr. Ireland and Mr. Hudson of Leeds, that I
mean in good earnest to sail for Liverpool or for
London about the first of October; and I am dis-
posing my astonished household-- astonished at
such a somerset of the sedentary master--with
that view.
My brother William was here this week from
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? Emerson to Carlyle. I67
New York, and will come again to carry my mother
home with him for the winter; my wife and chil-
dren three are combining for and against me ; at
all events, I am to have my visit. I pray you to
cherish your good nature, your mercy. Let your
wife cherish it,--that I may see, I indolent, this
incredible worker, whose toil has been long since
my pride and wonder,--that I may see him benign
and unexacting,--he shall not be at the crisis of
some over-labor. I shall not stay but an hour.
What do I care for his fame? Ah! how gladly I
hoped once to see Sterling as mediator and amal-
gam, when my turn should come to see the Saxon
gods at home: Sterling, who had certain American
qualities in his genius ; -- and now you send me his
shade. I found at Munroe's shop the efligy, which,
he said, Cunningham, whom I have not seen or
heard from, had left there for me; a front face, and
a profile, both -- especially the first -- a very wel-
come satisfaction to my sad curiosity, the face very
national, certainly, but how thoughtful and how
friendly! What more belongs to this print--
whether you are editing his books, or yourself
drawing his lineaments--I know not.
I find my friends have laid out much work for
me in Yorkshire and Lancashire. What part of it
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? 168 Uare? qle to Emerson.
I shall do, I cannot yet tell. As soon as I know
how to arrange my journey best, I shall write you
again.
Yours affectionately,
' R. W. Emuason.
CXXIV.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
Rawnon, NEAR LEEDS, YORKSHIRE,
31 August, 1847.
DEAR EMERsoN,--Almost ever since your last
Letter reached me, I have been wandering over
the country, enveloped either in a restless whirl
of locomotives, view-hunting, &c. , or sunk in the
deepest torpor of total idleness and laziness,-
forgetting, and striving to forget, that there was
any world but that of dreams;--and though at
intervals the reproachful remembrance has arisen
sharply enough on me, that I ought, on all ac-
counts high and low, to have written you an answer,
never till to-day have I been able to take pen in
hand, and actually begin that operation! Such is
the naked fact. My Wife is with me ; we leave no
household behind us but a servant; the face of
1-
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? Carlyle to Emerson. I69
England, with its mad electioneerings, vacant tour-
ist dilettanteings, with its - shady woods, green-
yellow harvest-fields and dingy mill-chimneys, so
new and old, so beautiful and ugly, every way so
abstruse and unspeakable, invites to silence; the
whole world, fruitful yet disgusting to this human
soul of mine, invites me to silence; to sleep, and
dreams, and stagnant indifierence, as if for the time
one had got into the country of the Lotos-Eaters, and
it made no matter what became of anything and all
things. In good truth, it is a wearied man, at least
a dreadfully slothful and slumberous man, eager
for sleep in any quantity, that now addresses you!
Be thankful for a few half-dreaming words, till we
awake again.
As to your visit to us, there is but one thing to
be said and repeated: That a prophet's chamber is
ready for you in Chelsea, and a brotherly and sisterly
welcome, on whatever day at whatever hour you
arrive: this, which is all of the Practical that I can
properly take charge of, is to be considered a given
quantity always. With regard to Lecturing, &c. ,
Ireland, with whom I suppose you to be in corre-
spondence, seems to have awakened all this North
Country into the fixed hope of hearing you,-- and
God knows they have need enough to hear a man
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? 170 Carlyle to Emerson.
with sense in his head ;--it was but the other day I
read in one of their Newspapers, " We understand
that Mr. Emerson the distinguished &c. is certainly
&c. this winter," all in due Newspaper phrase, and I
think they settled your arrival for " October " next.
May it prove so! But on the whole there is no
doubt of your coming; that is a great fact. And
if so, I should say, Why not come at once, even as
the Editor surmises? You will evidently do no
other considerable enterprise till this voyage to
England is achieved. Come therefore;--and we
shall see; we shall hear and speak! I do not
know another man in all the world to whom I can
speak with clear hope of getting adequate response
from him: if I speak to you, it will be a breaking
of my silence for the last time perhaps, -- perhaps
for the first time, on some points! Allons. I shall
not always be so roadweary, lifeweary, sleepy, and
stony as at present. I even think there is yet an-
other Book in me; "Exodus from Houndsditch"
(I think it might be called), a peeling off of fetid
Jewhood in every sense from myself and my poor
bewildered brethren: one other Book; and, if it
were a right one, rest after that, the deeper the
better, forevermore. Ach Gott I --
Hedge is one of the sturdiest little fellows I have
'-
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 1 71
come across for many a day. A face like a rock;
a voice like a howitzer; only his honest kind gray
eyes reassure you a little. We have met only once;
but hope (mutually, I flatter myself) it may be of-
ten by and by. That hardy little fellow too, what
has he to do with "Semitic tradition" and the
"dust-hole of extinct Socinianism," George-Sand-
ism, and the Twaddle of a thousand Magazines?
Thor and his Hammer, even, seem to me a little
more respectable; at least, " My dear Sir, en-
deavor to clear your mind of Cant. " Oh, we are
all sunk, much deeperthan any of us imagines.
And our worship of "beautiful sentiments," &c. ,
&c. is as contemptible a form of long-ears as any
other, perhaps the most so of any. It is in fact
damnable. --We will say no more of it at present.
Hedge came to me with tall lank Chapman at his
side,--an innocent flail of a creature, with con-
siderable impetus in him : the two when they stood
up together looked like a circle and tangent,--in
more senses than one. -
Jacobson, the Oxford Doctor, who welcomed
your Concord Senator in that City, writes to me
that he has received (with blushes, &c. ) some grand
" Gift for his Child " from that Traveller; whom I
am accordingly to thank, and blush to,-- Jacobson
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? I72 Enerson to Carlyle.
not knowing his address at present. The " ad-
dress" of course is still more unknown to me at
present :, but we shall know it, and the man it in-
dicates, I hope, again before long. So much for
that.
And now, dear Emerson, Adieu. Will your next
Letter tell us the when ? O my Friend! ---- ----
We are here with Quakers, or Ex-Quakers rather;
a very curious people, "like water from the crystal
well"; in a very curious country too, most beauti-
ful and very ugly: but why write of it, or of any-
thing more, while half asleep and lotos-eating!
Adieu, my Friend; come soon, and let us meet
again under this Sun. Yours,
T. CARLYLE.
? 154 Carlyle to Emerson.
commonalty all manner of audiences that you liked
to stoop to. I heard an ignorant blockhead (or
mainly so) called 2-- ---- bow-wowing here,
some months ago, to an audience of several thou-
sands, in the City, one evening,--upon Universal
Peace, or some other field of balderdash; which
the poor people seemed very patient of. In a word,
I do not see what is to hinder you to come when-
ever you can resolve upon it. The adventure is
perfectly promising: an adventure familiar to you
withal; for Lecturing is with us fundamentally just
what it is with you: Much prurient curiosity, with
some ingenuous love of wisdom, an element of real
reverence for the same: everywhere a perfect open-
ness to any man speaking in any measure things
manful. Come, therefore; gird yourself together,
and come. With little or no peradventure, you
will realize what your modest hope is, and more;
--and I, for my share of it, shall see you once
again under this Sun! O Heavens, there might be
some good in that! Nay, if you will travel like a
private quiet person, who knows but I, the most
unlocomotive of mortals, might be able to escort
you up and down a little; to look at many a thing
along with you, and even to open my long-closed
heart and speak about the same? -- There is a
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? Carlyle to Emerson. I 55
spare-room always in this House for you, -- in this
heart, in these two hearts, the like: bid me hope in
this enterprise, in all manner of ways where I can;
and on the whole, get it rightly put together, and
embark on it, and arrive!
The good Miss Fuller has painted us all en beau,
and your smiling imagination has added new col-
ors. We have not a triumphant life here; very
far indeed from that, ach G-ott ! --as you shall see.
But Margaret is an excellent soul: in real regard
with both of us here. Since she went, I have been
reading some of her Papers in a new Book we have
got: greatly superior to all I knew before; in fact
the undeniable utterances (now first undeniable to
me) of a true heroic mind ;--altogether unique,
so far as I know, among the Writing Women of
this generation ; rare enough too, God knows,
among the writing Men. She is very narrow, some-
times; but she is truly high: honor to Margaret,
and more and more good-speed to her. --Adieu,
dear Emerson. I am ever yours,
T. C.
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? I 56 Carlyle to Emerson.
5
CXIX.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CnELSEA, 18 March, 1847.
DEAR EMERsoN,--Yesterday morning, setting
out to breakfast with Richard Milnes (Milnes's
breakfast is a thing you will yet have to experi-
ence) I met, by the sunny shore of the Thames, a
benevolent Son of Adam in blue coat and red collar,
who thrust into my hand a Letter from you. A
truly miraculous Son of Adam in red collar, in the
Sunny Spring Morning! --The Bill of Seventeen
Pounds is already far on its way to Dumfries, there
to be kneaded into gold by the due artists: to-day
is American Post-day; and already in huge hurry
about many things, I am scribbling you some
word of answer. . . . . The night before Milnes's
morning, I had furthermore seen your Manchester
Correspondent, Ireland,--an old Edinborough ac-
quaintance too, as I found. A solid, dark, broad,
rather heavy man; full of energy, and broad saga-
city and practicality;--infinitely well affected to
the man Emerson too. It was our clear opinion that
you might come at any time with ample assurance of
" succeeding," so far as wages went, and otherwise;
that you ought to come, and must, and would,--
E ~'""'*',_ ii Mud'. . - 1. A; ' r____j_. _. . __ ;_j:;? 1'. '_""*'~"*'? ! "'. 3'-*1
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? Carlyle to Enerson. 157
as he, Ireland, would farther write to you. There
is only one thing I have to add of my own, and beg
you to bear in mind,--a date merely. Videlicet,
That the time for lecturing to the London West-
End, I was given everywhere to understand, is from
the latter end of April (or say April altogether) to
the end of May : this is a fixed Statistic fact, all
men told me: of this you are in all arrangements
to keep mind. For it will actually do your heart
good to look into the faces, and speak into minds,
of really Aristocratic Persons,--being one your-
self, you Sinner, -- and perhaps indeed this will be
the greatest of all the novelties that await you in
your voyage. Not to be seen, I believe, at least
never seen by me in any perfection, except in Lon-
don only. From April to the end of May; during
those weeks you must be here, and free : remember
that date. Will you come in Winter then, next
Winter,--or when? Ireland professed to know
you by the Photograph too; which I never yet can.
i I wrote by last Packet: enough here. Your
friend Cunningham has not presented himself;
shall be right welcome when he does,--as all that
in the least belong to you may well hope to be.
Adieu. Om~ love to you all.
Ever Yours,
T. CARLYLE.
!
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? I58 Emerson to Carlyle.
GXX.
EMERSON T0 CARLYLE.
Couconn, 30 April, 1847.
MY DEAR GARLYLE,--I have two good letters
from you, and until now you have had no acknowl-
edgment. Especially I ought to have told you how
much pleasure your noble invitation in March gave
me. This pleasing dream of going to England
dances before me sometimes. It would be, I then
fancy, that stimulation which my capricious, lan-
guid, and languescent study needs. At home, no
man makes any proper demand on me, and the au-
dience I address is a handful of men and women
too widely scattered than that they can dictate to
me that which they are justly entitled to say.
Whether supercilious or respectful, they do not say
anything that can be heard. Of course, I have only
myself to please, and my work is slighted as soon
as it has lost its first attraction. It is to be hoped,
if one should cross the sea, that the terror of your
English culture would scare the most desultory of
Yankees into precision and fidelity ; and perhaps I
am not yet too old to be animated by what would
ih
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 159
have seemed to my youth a proud privilege. If
you shall fright me_ into labor and concentration, I
shall win my game; for I can well afiord to pay
any price to get my work well done. For the rest,
I hesitate, of course, to rush rudely on persons
that have been so long invisible. angels to me. N o
reasonable man but must hold these bounds in
awe:--I--much more,--who am of a solitary
habit, from my childhood until now. --I hear
nothing again from Mr. Ireland. So I will let the
English Voyage hang as an afternoon rainbow in
the East, and mind my apples and pears for the
present.
-You are to know that in these days I lay out a
patch of orchard near my house, very much to the
improvement, as all the household afiirm, of our
homestead. Though. I have little skill in these
things, and must borrow that of my neighbors,
yet the works of the garden and orchard at this
season are fascinating, and will eat up days and
weeks, and a brave scholar should shun it like gam-
bling, and take refuge in cities and hotels from
these pernicious enchantments. For the present, I
stay in the new orchard.
Duyckinck, a literary man in New York, who
advises Wiley and Putnam in their publishing en-
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? 160 Carlyle to Emerson.
terprises, wrote me lately, that they had $600 for
you, from Cromwell. So may it be.
Yours,
R. W. E.
,i_'__i
. .
GXXI.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CHELSEA, 18 May, 1847.
DEAR EMERSON, --. . . . My time is nearly up to-
day; but I write a word to acknowledge your last
Letter (30 April), and various other things. For
example, you must tell Mr. Thoreau (is that the ex-
act name ? for I have lent away the printed pages)
that his Philadelphia Magazine with the Lecture1
in two pieces was faithfully delivered here, about a
fortnight ago; and carefully read, as beseemed, with
due entertainment and recognition. A vigorous Mr.
Thoreau,-- who has formed himself a good deal
upon one Emerson, but does not want abundant fire
and stamina of his own ;--recognizes us, and vari-
ous other things, in a most admiring great-hearted
manner ; for which, as for part of the confused voice
1 On Carlyle, published in G'raham's Magazine in March and
April, 1847.
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? Carlyle to Emerson. ' 161
from the jury-box (not yet summed into a verdict,
nor likely to be summed till Doomsday, nor needful
to sum), the poor prisoner at the bar may justly
express himself thankful! In plain prose, I like
Mr. Thoreau very well ; and hope yet to hear good
and better news of him : -- only let him not " turn
to foolishness"; which seems to me to be terribly
easy, at present, both in New England and Old!
May the Lord deliver us all from Cant; may the
Lord, whatever else he do or forbear, teach us to
look Facts honestly in the face, and to beware (with
a kind of shudder) of smearing them over with our
despicable and damnable palaver, into irrecogniza-
bility, and so falsifying the Lord's own Gospels to
his unhappy blockheads of children, all stagger-
ing down to Gehenna and the everlasting Swine's-
trough for want of Gospels. --O Heaven, it is the
most accursed sin of man; and done everywhere, at
present, on the streets and high places, at noonday!
Very seriously I say, and pray as my chief orison,
May the Lord deliver us from it. -- --
About a week ago there came your neighbor
Hoar; a solid, sensible, effectual-looking man, of
whom I hope to see much more. So soon as possi-
ble I got him under way for Oxford, where I sup-
pose he was, last week ;-- both Universities was too
voL. 11. ' 11
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? 162 Carlyle to Emerson.
much for the limits of his time; so he preferred
Oxford ;--and now, this very day, I think, he was
to set out for the Continent; not to return till the
beginning of July, when he promises to call here
again. There was something really pleasant to me
in this Mr. Hoar: and I had innumerable things to
ask him about Concord, concerning which topic we
had hardly got a word said when our first interview
had to end. I sincerely hope he will not fail to
keep his time in returning.
You do very well, my Friend, to plant orchards;
and fair fruit shall they grow (if it please Heaven)
for your grandchildren to pluck ;. -- a beautiful oc-
cupation for the son of man, in all patriarchal and
paternal times (which latter are patriarchal too)!
But you are to understand withal that your coming
hither to lecture is taken as a settled point by all
your friends here ; and for my share I do not reckon
upon the smallest doubt about the essential fact of
it, simply on some calculation and adjustment about
the circumstantials. Of Ireland, who I surmise is
busy in the problem even now, you will hear by and
by, probably i11 more definite terms : I did not see
him again after my first notice of him to you; but
there is no doubt concerning his determinations
(for all manner of reasons) to get you to Lanca-
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? Carlyle to Emerson.
I63
shire, to England ;--and in fact it is an adven-
ture which I think you ought to contemplate as
fixed,--say for this year and the beginning of
next? Ireland will help you to fix the dates; and
there is nothing else, I think, which should need
fixing. -- Unquestionably you would get an immense
quantity of food for ideas, though perhaps not at all
in the way you anticipate, in looking about among
us: nay, if you even thought us stupid, there is
something in the godlike indifference with which
London will accept and sanction even that verdict,
--something highly instructive at least! And in
short, for the truth must be told, London is prop-
erly your Mother City too, -- verily you have about
as much to do with it, in spite of Polk and Q.
Victory, as I had! And you ought to come and
look at it, beyond doubt; and say to this land,
" Old Mother, how are you getting on at all? " To
which the Mother will answer, " Thankee, young
son, and you? " --in a way useful to both par-
ties! That is truth.
Adieu, dear Emerson ; good be with you always.
Hoar gave me your American Poems: thanks. Vale
et me ama.
T. CARLYLE.
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? I64 Emerson to Carlyle.
CXXII.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
Corvconn, 4 June, 1847.
DEAR CARLYLE,--I have just got your friendliest
letter of May 18, with its varied news and new in-
vitations. Really you are a dangerous correspond-
ent with your solid and urgent ways of speaking.
No affairs and no studies of mine, I fear, will be
able to make any head against these bribes. Well,
I will adorn the brow of the coming months with
this fine hope; then if the rich God at last refuses
the jewel, no doubt he will give something better-
to both of us. But thinking on this project lately,
I see one thing plainly, that I must not come to
London as a lecturer. If the plan proceed, I will
come and see you,--thankful to Heaven for that
mercy, should such a romance-looking reality come
to pass,--I will come and see you and Jane Car-
lyle, and will hear what you have to say. You
shall even show me, if you will, such other men
and women as will suffer themselves to be seen
and heard, asking for nothing again. Then I will
depart in peace, as I came. .
At Mr. Ireland's " Institutes," I will read lec-
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? Emerson to Carlyle. I6 5
tures; and possibly in London too, if, when there,
you looking with your clear eyes shall say that it is
desired by persons who ought to be gratified. But
I wish such lecturing to be a mere contingency,
and nowise a settled purpose. I had rather stay
at home, and forego the happiness of seeing you,
and the excitement of England, than to have the
smallest pains taken to collect an audience for me.
So now we will leave this egg in the desert for the
ostrich Time to hatch it or not.
It seems you are not tired of pale Americans, or
will not own it. You have sent our Country-Senator 1
where he wanted to go, and to the best hospitalities
as we learn to-day directly from him. I cannot
avoid sending you another of a different stamp.
Henry Hedge is a recluse but Catholic scholar in
our remote Bangor, who reads German and smokes
in his solitary study through nearly eight months
of snow in the year, and deals out, every Sunday,
his witty apothegms to the lumber-merchants and
township-owners of Penobscot River, who have ac-
tually grown intelligent interpreters of his riddles
by long hearkening after them. They have shown
themselves very loving and generous lately, in mak-
ing a quite munificent provision for his travelling.
1 The Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar. .
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? I66 Emerson lo Carlyle.
Hedge has a true and mellow heart, . . . . and I
hope you will like him.
I have seen lately a Texan, ardent and vigorous,
who assured me that Carlyle's Writings were read
with eagerness on the banks of the Colorado. There
was more to tell, but it is too late.
Ever yours,
R. W. Emnnson.
CXXIII.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
Couoonn, 31 July, 1847.
DEAR CARLYLE, -- In my old age I am coming to
see you. I have written this day, in answer to
sundry letters brought me by the last steamer,
from Mr. Ireland and Mr. Hudson of Leeds, that I
mean in good earnest to sail for Liverpool or for
London about the first of October; and I am dis-
posing my astonished household-- astonished at
such a somerset of the sedentary master--with
that view.
My brother William was here this week from
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? Emerson to Carlyle. I67
New York, and will come again to carry my mother
home with him for the winter; my wife and chil-
dren three are combining for and against me ; at
all events, I am to have my visit. I pray you to
cherish your good nature, your mercy. Let your
wife cherish it,--that I may see, I indolent, this
incredible worker, whose toil has been long since
my pride and wonder,--that I may see him benign
and unexacting,--he shall not be at the crisis of
some over-labor. I shall not stay but an hour.
What do I care for his fame? Ah! how gladly I
hoped once to see Sterling as mediator and amal-
gam, when my turn should come to see the Saxon
gods at home: Sterling, who had certain American
qualities in his genius ; -- and now you send me his
shade. I found at Munroe's shop the efligy, which,
he said, Cunningham, whom I have not seen or
heard from, had left there for me; a front face, and
a profile, both -- especially the first -- a very wel-
come satisfaction to my sad curiosity, the face very
national, certainly, but how thoughtful and how
friendly! What more belongs to this print--
whether you are editing his books, or yourself
drawing his lineaments--I know not.
I find my friends have laid out much work for
me in Yorkshire and Lancashire. What part of it
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? 168 Uare? qle to Emerson.
I shall do, I cannot yet tell. As soon as I know
how to arrange my journey best, I shall write you
again.
Yours affectionately,
' R. W. Emuason.
CXXIV.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
Rawnon, NEAR LEEDS, YORKSHIRE,
31 August, 1847.
DEAR EMERsoN,--Almost ever since your last
Letter reached me, I have been wandering over
the country, enveloped either in a restless whirl
of locomotives, view-hunting, &c. , or sunk in the
deepest torpor of total idleness and laziness,-
forgetting, and striving to forget, that there was
any world but that of dreams;--and though at
intervals the reproachful remembrance has arisen
sharply enough on me, that I ought, on all ac-
counts high and low, to have written you an answer,
never till to-day have I been able to take pen in
hand, and actually begin that operation! Such is
the naked fact. My Wife is with me ; we leave no
household behind us but a servant; the face of
1-
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? Carlyle to Emerson. I69
England, with its mad electioneerings, vacant tour-
ist dilettanteings, with its - shady woods, green-
yellow harvest-fields and dingy mill-chimneys, so
new and old, so beautiful and ugly, every way so
abstruse and unspeakable, invites to silence; the
whole world, fruitful yet disgusting to this human
soul of mine, invites me to silence; to sleep, and
dreams, and stagnant indifierence, as if for the time
one had got into the country of the Lotos-Eaters, and
it made no matter what became of anything and all
things. In good truth, it is a wearied man, at least
a dreadfully slothful and slumberous man, eager
for sleep in any quantity, that now addresses you!
Be thankful for a few half-dreaming words, till we
awake again.
As to your visit to us, there is but one thing to
be said and repeated: That a prophet's chamber is
ready for you in Chelsea, and a brotherly and sisterly
welcome, on whatever day at whatever hour you
arrive: this, which is all of the Practical that I can
properly take charge of, is to be considered a given
quantity always. With regard to Lecturing, &c. ,
Ireland, with whom I suppose you to be in corre-
spondence, seems to have awakened all this North
Country into the fixed hope of hearing you,-- and
God knows they have need enough to hear a man
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? 170 Carlyle to Emerson.
with sense in his head ;--it was but the other day I
read in one of their Newspapers, " We understand
that Mr. Emerson the distinguished &c. is certainly
&c. this winter," all in due Newspaper phrase, and I
think they settled your arrival for " October " next.
May it prove so! But on the whole there is no
doubt of your coming; that is a great fact. And
if so, I should say, Why not come at once, even as
the Editor surmises? You will evidently do no
other considerable enterprise till this voyage to
England is achieved. Come therefore;--and we
shall see; we shall hear and speak! I do not
know another man in all the world to whom I can
speak with clear hope of getting adequate response
from him: if I speak to you, it will be a breaking
of my silence for the last time perhaps, -- perhaps
for the first time, on some points! Allons. I shall
not always be so roadweary, lifeweary, sleepy, and
stony as at present. I even think there is yet an-
other Book in me; "Exodus from Houndsditch"
(I think it might be called), a peeling off of fetid
Jewhood in every sense from myself and my poor
bewildered brethren: one other Book; and, if it
were a right one, rest after that, the deeper the
better, forevermore. Ach Gott I --
Hedge is one of the sturdiest little fellows I have
'-
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 1 71
come across for many a day. A face like a rock;
a voice like a howitzer; only his honest kind gray
eyes reassure you a little. We have met only once;
but hope (mutually, I flatter myself) it may be of-
ten by and by. That hardy little fellow too, what
has he to do with "Semitic tradition" and the
"dust-hole of extinct Socinianism," George-Sand-
ism, and the Twaddle of a thousand Magazines?
Thor and his Hammer, even, seem to me a little
more respectable; at least, " My dear Sir, en-
deavor to clear your mind of Cant. " Oh, we are
all sunk, much deeperthan any of us imagines.
And our worship of "beautiful sentiments," &c. ,
&c. is as contemptible a form of long-ears as any
other, perhaps the most so of any. It is in fact
damnable. --We will say no more of it at present.
Hedge came to me with tall lank Chapman at his
side,--an innocent flail of a creature, with con-
siderable impetus in him : the two when they stood
up together looked like a circle and tangent,--in
more senses than one. -
Jacobson, the Oxford Doctor, who welcomed
your Concord Senator in that City, writes to me
that he has received (with blushes, &c. ) some grand
" Gift for his Child " from that Traveller; whom I
am accordingly to thank, and blush to,-- Jacobson
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? I72 Enerson to Carlyle.
not knowing his address at present. The " ad-
dress" of course is still more unknown to me at
present :, but we shall know it, and the man it in-
dicates, I hope, again before long. So much for
that.
And now, dear Emerson, Adieu. Will your next
Letter tell us the when ? O my Friend! ---- ----
We are here with Quakers, or Ex-Quakers rather;
a very curious people, "like water from the crystal
well"; in a very curious country too, most beauti-
ful and very ugly: but why write of it, or of any-
thing more, while half asleep and lotos-eating!
Adieu, my Friend; come soon, and let us meet
again under this Sun. Yours,
T. CARLYLE.
