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!
pect to be back in Chelsea; whither direct a word
if you are still beneficent enough to think of such
a Castaway!
Thomas Carlyle
.
Still more interesting is the barrel of genuine
Corn ears,--Indian Cobs of edible grain, from
the Barn of Emerson himself! It came all safe
and right, according to your charitable program;
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? 206 ' _ Carlyle to Emerson.
without cost or trouble to us of any kind; not with-
out curious interest and satisfaction ! The recipes
contained in the precedent letter, duly weighed by
the competent jury of housewives (at least by my
own Wife and Lady Ashburton), were judged to be
of decided promise, reasonable-looking every one of
them; and now that the stuff itself is come, I am
happy to assure you that it forms a new epoch
for us all in the Maize department: we find the
grain sweet, among the sweetest, with a touch even
of the taste of nuts in it, . and profess with contri-
tion that properly we have never tasted Indian Corn
before. Millers of due faculty (with millstones of
iron) being scarce in the Cockney region, and even
cooks liable to err, the Ashburtons have on their
resources undertaken the brunt of the problem:
one of their own Surrey or Hampshire millers is
to grind the stufi, and their own cook, a French-
man commander of a whole squadron, is to uuder-
take the dressing according to the rules. Yester-
day the Barrel went off to their country place in
Surrey,-- a small Bag of select ears being retained
here, for our own private experimenting ; -- and so
by and by we shall see what comes of it. --I on my
side have already drawn up a fit proclamation of
the excellences of this invaluable corn, and admo-
i
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 207
nitions as to the benighted state of English eaters
in regard to it ; -- to appear in Fraser-'s Magazine,
or I know not where, very soon. It is really a small
contribution towards World-History, this small act
of yours and ours: there is no doubt to me, now
that I taste the real grain, but all Europe will
henceforth have to rely more and more upon your
Western Valleys and this article. How beautiful
to think of lean tough Yankee settlers, tough as
gutta-percha, with-most occult unsubduable fire in
their belly, steering over the Western Mountains, to
annihilate the jungle, and bring bacon and corn out
of it for the Posterity of Adam! The Pigs in about
a year eat up all the rattlesnakes for miles round:
a most judicious function on the part of the Pigs.
Behind the Pigs comes Jonathan with his all-
conquering ploughshare, -- glory to him too! Oh,
if we were not a set of Cant-ridden blockheads,
there is no Myth of Athene or Herakles equal to
this fact; -- which I suppose will find its real
" Poets " some day or other ; when once the Greek,
Semitic, and multifarious other Cobwebs are swept
away a little! Well, we must wait. --For the rest,
if this skilful Naturalist and you will make any
more experiments on Indian Corn for us, might I
not ask that you would try for a method of preserv-
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? 208 Carlyle to Emerson.
. '1-
"Q
ing the meal in a sound state for us? Oatmeal,
which would spoil directly too, is preserved all
year by kiln-drying the grain before it is ground,
--parching it till it is almost brown, sometimes:
the Scotch Highlanders, by intense parching, can
keep their oatmeal good for a series of years. N o
Miller here at present is likely to produce such
beautiful meal as some of the American specimens
I have seen:--if possible, we must learn to get
the grain over in the shape of proper durable meal.
At all events, let your Friend charitably make
some inquiry into the process of millerage, the
possibilities of it for meeting our case ;--and send
us the result some day, on a separate bit of paper.
With which let us end, for the present.
Alas, I have yet written nothing ; am yet a long
way off writing, I fear! Not for want of matter,
perhaps, but for redundance of it; I feel as if I
had the whole world to write yet, with the day
fast bending downwards on me, and did not know
where to begin,--in what manner to address the
deep-sunk populations of the Theban Land. Any
way my Life is very grim, on these terms, and is
like to be ; God only knows what farther quantity
of braying in the mortar this foolish clay of mine
may yet need ! --They are printing a third Edition
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 299
of Cromwell ; that bothered me for some weeks,
but now I am. over with that, and the Printer
wholly has it: a sorrowful, not now or ever a
joyful thing to me, that. The stupor of my fellow
blockheads, for Centuries back, presses too heavy
upon that,--as upon many things, O Heavens!
People are about setting up some Statue of Grom-
well, at St. Ives, or elsewhere: the King-Hudson
Statue is never yet set up; and the King himself
(as you may have heard) has been discovered
swindling. I advise all men not to erect a statue
for Cromwell just now. iMacaulay's History is
also out, running through the fourth edition: did
I tell you last time that I had read it,--with
wonder and amazement? Finally, it seems likely
Lord John Russell will shortly walk out (forever,
it is hoped), and Sir R. Peel come in; to make
what effort is in him towards delivering us from
the pedant method of treating Ireland. The begin-
ning, as I think, of salvation (if he can prosper a
little) to England, and to all Europe as well. For
they will all have to learn that man does need
government, and that an able-bodied starving beg-
gar is and remains (whatever Exeter Hall may say
to it) a Slave destitute of a Master ; of which facts
England, and convulsed Europe, are fallen pro-
voL. n. 14
---1----,-_' --- ' _ '-_. _ 4w . . _
'1
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? 210 Carlyle lo Emerson.
foundly ignorant in these bad ages, and will plunge
ever deeper till they rediscover the same. Alas,
alas, the Future for us is not to be made of butter,
as the Platforms prophesy; I think it will be
harderrthan steel for some ages! No noble age
was ever a soft one, nor ever will or can be. --
>-- Your beautiful curious little discourse (report
of a discourse) about the English was sent me by
Neuberg; I thought. it, in my private heart, one of
the best words (for hidden genius lodged in it) I
had ever heard; so sent it to the Examiner, from
which it went to the Times and all the other Pa-
pers 2 an excellent sly little word.
Clough has gone to Italy; I have seen him twice,
-- could not manage his hezameters, though I like
the man himself, and hope much of him. "Infi-
delity " has broken out in Oxford itself, -- immense
emotion in certain quarters in consequence, viru-
lent outcries about a certain " Sterling Club," alto-
gether a secular society!
Adieu, dear Emerson; I had much more to say,
but there is no room. O, forgive me, forgive me
all trespasses, -- and love me what you can!
Yours ever,
T. CARLYLE.
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 21 1
' ~_ _ ---_. . _-~--_. . . ,-_. . -. . __. . _,_. ,. . . . . . . . W. . . _ '___a. '. _. _ _. . . _
CXLI.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON .
Scorsnmo, ECCLEFECHAN, N. B. ,
13 August, 1849.
DEAR EMERsoN, --By all laws of human compu-
tation, I owe you a letter, and have owed, any time
these seven weeks: let me now pay a little, and
explain. Your second Barrel of Indian Corn ar-
rived also perfectly fresh, and of admirable taste
and quality ; the very bag of new-ground meal was
perfect; and the "popped corn" ditto, when it
came to be discovered: with the whole of which
admirable materials such order was taken as prom-
ised to secure " the greatest happiness to the great-
est number " ; and due silent thanks were tendered
to the beneficence of the unwearied Sender:--but
all this, you shall observe, had to be done in the
thick of a universal packing and household bus-
tle ; I just on the wing for a " Tour in Ireland," my
Wife too contemplating a run to Scotland shortly
after, there to meet me on my return. All this was
seven good weeks ago: I hoped somewhere in my
Irish wayfarings to fling you ofi a Letter ; but alas, I
reckoned there quite without my host (strict "host,"
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? 2 1 2 Carlyle to Enerson.
called Time), finding nowhere half a minute left to
me; and so now, having got home to my Mother,
not to see my Wife yet for some days, it is my ear-
liest leisure, after all, that I employ in this purpose.
I have been terribly knocked about too, --jolted in
Irish cars, bothered almost to madness with Irish
balderdash, above all kept on dreadfully short allow-
ance of sleep ; -- so that now first, when fairly down
to rest, all aches and bruises begin to be fairly sen-
sible; and my clearest feeling at this present is the
uncomfortable one, "that I am not Caliban, but a
Cramp": terribly cramped indeed, if I could tell
you everything!
What the other results of this Irish Tour are to
be for me I cannot in the least specify. For one
thing, I seem to be farther from speech on any sub-
ject than ever: such masses of chaotic ruin every-
where fronted me, the general fruit of long-contin-
ued universal falsity and folly ; and such mountains
of delusion yet possessing all hearts and tongues:
I could do little that was not even noxious, except
admire in silence the general " Bankruptcy of Im-
posture" as one there finds and sees it come to
pass, and think with infinite sorrow of the tribula-
tions, futile wrestlings,tumults, and disasters which
yet await that unfortunate section of Adam's Pos-
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 2 I 3
terity before any real improvement can take place
among them. Alas, alas! The Gospels of Politi-
cal Economy, of La-issez-faire, No-Government,
Paradise to all comers, and so many fatal Gospels,
--generally, one may say, all the Gospels of this
blessed "New Era,"--will first have to be tried,
and found wanting. With a quantity of written
and uttered nonsense, and of suffered and inflicted
misery, which one sinks fairly dumb to estimate!
A kind of comfort it is, however, to see that " Im-
posture" has fallen openly "bankrupt," here as
everywhere else in our old world ; that no dexterity
of human tinkering, with all the Parliamentary
Eloquence and Elective Franchises in nature, will
ever set it on its feet again, to go many yards more ;
but that its goings and currencies in this Earth
have as good as ceased for ever and ever! God
is great; all Lies do now, as from the first, travel
incessantly towards Chaos, and there at length
lodge! In some parts of Ireland (the Western
" insolvent Unions," some twenty-seven of them in
all), within a trifle of one half of the whole popu-
lation are on Poor-Law rations (furnished by the
British Government, ? 1,100 a week furnished here,
? 1,300 there, ? 800 there) ; the houses stand roof-
less, the lands unstocked, uncultivated, the landlords
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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
\
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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? 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.
Still more interesting is the barrel of genuine
Corn ears,--Indian Cobs of edible grain, from
the Barn of Emerson himself! It came all safe
and right, according to your charitable program;
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? 206 ' _ Carlyle to Emerson.
without cost or trouble to us of any kind; not with-
out curious interest and satisfaction ! The recipes
contained in the precedent letter, duly weighed by
the competent jury of housewives (at least by my
own Wife and Lady Ashburton), were judged to be
of decided promise, reasonable-looking every one of
them; and now that the stuff itself is come, I am
happy to assure you that it forms a new epoch
for us all in the Maize department: we find the
grain sweet, among the sweetest, with a touch even
of the taste of nuts in it, . and profess with contri-
tion that properly we have never tasted Indian Corn
before. Millers of due faculty (with millstones of
iron) being scarce in the Cockney region, and even
cooks liable to err, the Ashburtons have on their
resources undertaken the brunt of the problem:
one of their own Surrey or Hampshire millers is
to grind the stufi, and their own cook, a French-
man commander of a whole squadron, is to uuder-
take the dressing according to the rules. Yester-
day the Barrel went off to their country place in
Surrey,-- a small Bag of select ears being retained
here, for our own private experimenting ; -- and so
by and by we shall see what comes of it. --I on my
side have already drawn up a fit proclamation of
the excellences of this invaluable corn, and admo-
i
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 207
nitions as to the benighted state of English eaters
in regard to it ; -- to appear in Fraser-'s Magazine,
or I know not where, very soon. It is really a small
contribution towards World-History, this small act
of yours and ours: there is no doubt to me, now
that I taste the real grain, but all Europe will
henceforth have to rely more and more upon your
Western Valleys and this article. How beautiful
to think of lean tough Yankee settlers, tough as
gutta-percha, with-most occult unsubduable fire in
their belly, steering over the Western Mountains, to
annihilate the jungle, and bring bacon and corn out
of it for the Posterity of Adam! The Pigs in about
a year eat up all the rattlesnakes for miles round:
a most judicious function on the part of the Pigs.
Behind the Pigs comes Jonathan with his all-
conquering ploughshare, -- glory to him too! Oh,
if we were not a set of Cant-ridden blockheads,
there is no Myth of Athene or Herakles equal to
this fact; -- which I suppose will find its real
" Poets " some day or other ; when once the Greek,
Semitic, and multifarious other Cobwebs are swept
away a little! Well, we must wait. --For the rest,
if this skilful Naturalist and you will make any
more experiments on Indian Corn for us, might I
not ask that you would try for a method of preserv-
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? 208 Carlyle to Emerson.
. '1-
"Q
ing the meal in a sound state for us? Oatmeal,
which would spoil directly too, is preserved all
year by kiln-drying the grain before it is ground,
--parching it till it is almost brown, sometimes:
the Scotch Highlanders, by intense parching, can
keep their oatmeal good for a series of years. N o
Miller here at present is likely to produce such
beautiful meal as some of the American specimens
I have seen:--if possible, we must learn to get
the grain over in the shape of proper durable meal.
At all events, let your Friend charitably make
some inquiry into the process of millerage, the
possibilities of it for meeting our case ;--and send
us the result some day, on a separate bit of paper.
With which let us end, for the present.
Alas, I have yet written nothing ; am yet a long
way off writing, I fear! Not for want of matter,
perhaps, but for redundance of it; I feel as if I
had the whole world to write yet, with the day
fast bending downwards on me, and did not know
where to begin,--in what manner to address the
deep-sunk populations of the Theban Land. Any
way my Life is very grim, on these terms, and is
like to be ; God only knows what farther quantity
of braying in the mortar this foolish clay of mine
may yet need ! --They are printing a third Edition
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 299
of Cromwell ; that bothered me for some weeks,
but now I am. over with that, and the Printer
wholly has it: a sorrowful, not now or ever a
joyful thing to me, that. The stupor of my fellow
blockheads, for Centuries back, presses too heavy
upon that,--as upon many things, O Heavens!
People are about setting up some Statue of Grom-
well, at St. Ives, or elsewhere: the King-Hudson
Statue is never yet set up; and the King himself
(as you may have heard) has been discovered
swindling. I advise all men not to erect a statue
for Cromwell just now. iMacaulay's History is
also out, running through the fourth edition: did
I tell you last time that I had read it,--with
wonder and amazement? Finally, it seems likely
Lord John Russell will shortly walk out (forever,
it is hoped), and Sir R. Peel come in; to make
what effort is in him towards delivering us from
the pedant method of treating Ireland. The begin-
ning, as I think, of salvation (if he can prosper a
little) to England, and to all Europe as well. For
they will all have to learn that man does need
government, and that an able-bodied starving beg-
gar is and remains (whatever Exeter Hall may say
to it) a Slave destitute of a Master ; of which facts
England, and convulsed Europe, are fallen pro-
voL. n. 14
---1----,-_' --- ' _ '-_. _ 4w . . _
'1
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? 210 Carlyle lo Emerson.
foundly ignorant in these bad ages, and will plunge
ever deeper till they rediscover the same. Alas,
alas, the Future for us is not to be made of butter,
as the Platforms prophesy; I think it will be
harderrthan steel for some ages! No noble age
was ever a soft one, nor ever will or can be. --
>-- Your beautiful curious little discourse (report
of a discourse) about the English was sent me by
Neuberg; I thought. it, in my private heart, one of
the best words (for hidden genius lodged in it) I
had ever heard; so sent it to the Examiner, from
which it went to the Times and all the other Pa-
pers 2 an excellent sly little word.
Clough has gone to Italy; I have seen him twice,
-- could not manage his hezameters, though I like
the man himself, and hope much of him. "Infi-
delity " has broken out in Oxford itself, -- immense
emotion in certain quarters in consequence, viru-
lent outcries about a certain " Sterling Club," alto-
gether a secular society!
Adieu, dear Emerson; I had much more to say,
but there is no room. O, forgive me, forgive me
all trespasses, -- and love me what you can!
Yours ever,
T. CARLYLE.
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 21 1
' ~_ _ ---_. . _-~--_. . . ,-_. . -. . __. . _,_. ,. . . . . . . . W. . . _ '___a. '. _. _ _. . . _
CXLI.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON .
Scorsnmo, ECCLEFECHAN, N. B. ,
13 August, 1849.
DEAR EMERsoN, --By all laws of human compu-
tation, I owe you a letter, and have owed, any time
these seven weeks: let me now pay a little, and
explain. Your second Barrel of Indian Corn ar-
rived also perfectly fresh, and of admirable taste
and quality ; the very bag of new-ground meal was
perfect; and the "popped corn" ditto, when it
came to be discovered: with the whole of which
admirable materials such order was taken as prom-
ised to secure " the greatest happiness to the great-
est number " ; and due silent thanks were tendered
to the beneficence of the unwearied Sender:--but
all this, you shall observe, had to be done in the
thick of a universal packing and household bus-
tle ; I just on the wing for a " Tour in Ireland," my
Wife too contemplating a run to Scotland shortly
after, there to meet me on my return. All this was
seven good weeks ago: I hoped somewhere in my
Irish wayfarings to fling you ofi a Letter ; but alas, I
reckoned there quite without my host (strict "host,"
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? 2 1 2 Carlyle to Enerson.
called Time), finding nowhere half a minute left to
me; and so now, having got home to my Mother,
not to see my Wife yet for some days, it is my ear-
liest leisure, after all, that I employ in this purpose.
I have been terribly knocked about too, --jolted in
Irish cars, bothered almost to madness with Irish
balderdash, above all kept on dreadfully short allow-
ance of sleep ; -- so that now first, when fairly down
to rest, all aches and bruises begin to be fairly sen-
sible; and my clearest feeling at this present is the
uncomfortable one, "that I am not Caliban, but a
Cramp": terribly cramped indeed, if I could tell
you everything!
What the other results of this Irish Tour are to
be for me I cannot in the least specify. For one
thing, I seem to be farther from speech on any sub-
ject than ever: such masses of chaotic ruin every-
where fronted me, the general fruit of long-contin-
ued universal falsity and folly ; and such mountains
of delusion yet possessing all hearts and tongues:
I could do little that was not even noxious, except
admire in silence the general " Bankruptcy of Im-
posture" as one there finds and sees it come to
pass, and think with infinite sorrow of the tribula-
tions, futile wrestlings,tumults, and disasters which
yet await that unfortunate section of Adam's Pos-
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 2 I 3
terity before any real improvement can take place
among them. Alas, alas! The Gospels of Politi-
cal Economy, of La-issez-faire, No-Government,
Paradise to all comers, and so many fatal Gospels,
--generally, one may say, all the Gospels of this
blessed "New Era,"--will first have to be tried,
and found wanting. With a quantity of written
and uttered nonsense, and of suffered and inflicted
misery, which one sinks fairly dumb to estimate!
A kind of comfort it is, however, to see that " Im-
posture" has fallen openly "bankrupt," here as
everywhere else in our old world ; that no dexterity
of human tinkering, with all the Parliamentary
Eloquence and Elective Franchises in nature, will
ever set it on its feet again, to go many yards more ;
but that its goings and currencies in this Earth
have as good as ceased for ever and ever! God
is great; all Lies do now, as from the first, travel
incessantly towards Chaos, and there at length
lodge! In some parts of Ireland (the Western
" insolvent Unions," some twenty-seven of them in
all), within a trifle of one half of the whole popu-
lation are on Poor-Law rations (furnished by the
British Government, ? 1,100 a week furnished here,
? 1,300 there, ? 800 there) ; the houses stand roof-
less, the lands unstocked, uncultivated, the landlords
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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
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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
\
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.
