By the bye, do you know a "
Massachusetts
His-
torical Society," and a James Bowdoin, seemingly
of Boston?
torical Society," and a James Bowdoin, seemingly
of Boston?
Thomas Carlyle
.
.
.
.
" Carlyle must write thus or nohow, like a drunken man who can
run, but cannot walk. What a man's book is that ! no prudences,
no compromises, but a thorough independence. A masterly criti-
cism on the times. Fault perhaps the excess of importance given
to the cireimistance of to-day. The poet is here for this, to dwarf
and destroy all merely temporary circumstance, and to glorify the
perpetual circumstance of men, e. g. dwarf British Debt and raise
Nature and social life. r
"But everything must be done well once; even bulletins and
almanacs must have one excellent and immortal bulletin and alma-
nac. So let Carlyle's be the immortal newspaper. "
' " " '--. ' '~'~ ---'-:--' -~- ,1 _, ;. ->> . "=_7'"P7*1Yf'
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? 36 Emerson to Carlyle.
ince of English things, is the one public man
among us who has dared to take his stand on what
he understood to be the truth, and expect victory
from that: he puts to shame our Bishops and
Archbishops. " It is literally so.
With continued kind wishes, yours as of old.
T. CARLYLE.
LXXXV. '
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
CONCORD, 30 October, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND, -- I seize the occasion of hav-
'ing this morsel of paper for twenty-five pounds
sterling from the booksellers to send you, (and
which fail not to find enclosed, as clerks say,) to
inquire whether you still exist in Chelsea, London,
and what is the reason that my generous correspond-
ent has become dumb for weary months. I must
go far back to resume my thread. I think in April
last I received your Manuscript, &c. of the Book,
which I forthwith proceeded to print, after some
perplexing debate with the booksellers, as I fully
informed you in my letter of April or beginning of
May. Since that time I have had no line or word
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 37
from you. I must think that my letter did not
reach you, or that you have written what has never
come to me. I assure myself that no harm has
befallen you, not only because you do not live in a
corner, and what chances in your dwelling will
come at least to my ears, but because I have read
with great pleasure the story of Dr. Francia,1 which
gave the best report of your health and vivacity.
I wrote you in April or May an account of the
new state of things which the cheap press has
wrought in our book market, and specially what
diificulties it put in the way of our edition of Past
and Present. For a few weeks I believed that the
letters I had written to the principal New York
and Philadelphia booksellers, and the Preface, had
succeeded in repelling the pirates. But in the
fourth or fifth week appeared a mean edition in
New York, published by one Collyer (an unknown
person and supposed to be a mask of some other
bookseller), sold for twelve and one half cents, and
of this wretched copy several thousands were sold,
whilst our seventy-five cents edition went off slower.
There was no remedy, and we must be content that
there was no expense from our edition, which
1 Carlyle's article on Dr. Francis. in the Foreign Quarterly Re-
view, No. 62. Reprinted in his Miscellamles.
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? l
.
38 Emerson to Carlyle.
\_
1*"
?
lbefore September had paid all its cost, and since
that time has been earning a little, I believe. I am
not fairly entitled to an account of the book from
the publishers until the 1st of January. . . . .
I have never yet done what I have thought this
other last week seriously to do, namely, to charge
the good and faithful E. P. Clark, a man of accounts
as he is a cashier in a bank, with the total auditing
and analyzing of these accounts of yours. My hes-
itation has grown from the imperfect materials
which I have to offer him to make up so long a
story. But he is a good man, and, do you know
it? a Carlylese of that intensity that I have often
heard he has collected a sort of album of several
volumes, containing illustrations of every kind, his-
torical, critical, &c. , to the Sartor. I must go to
Boston and challenge him. Once when I asked
him, he seemed willing to assume it. No more
of accounts to-night.
I send you by this ship a volume of translations
from Dante, by Doctor Parsons of Boston, a practis-
ing dentist and the son of a dentist. 'It is his gift to
you. Lately went Henry James to you with a letter
from me. He is a fine companion from his intelli-
gence, valor, and worth, and is and has been a very
beneficent person as I learn. He carried a volume
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? Carl'/le to Emerson. 39
of poems from my friend and nearest neighbor,
W. Ellery Ghanning, whereof give me, I pray you, the
best opinion you can. I am determined he shall be
a poet, and you must find him such} I have too
many things to tell you to begin at the end of this
sheet, which after all this waiting I have been com-
pelled to scribble in a corner, with company waiting
for me. Send me instant word of yourself if you
love me, and of those whom you love, and so God
keep you and yours.
R. Wnnno Emnnson.
LXXXVI.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CHELSEA, LONDON, 31 October, 1843.
MY DEAR EMERSoN,--It is a long weary time since
I have had the satisfaction of the smallest dialogue
with you. The blame is all my own; the reasons
would be diflicult to give, --' alas, they are properly
no-reasons, children not of Something, but of mere
Idleness, Confusion, Inaction, Inarticulation, of
1 In the second number of the Dial, in October, 1840, Emerson
had published, under the title of " New Poetry," an article warmly
commending Mr. Channing's then unpublished poems.
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? 40 Carlyle to Emerson.
Nothing in short! Let us leave them there, and
profit by the hour which yet is.
I ran away from London into Bristol and South
Wales, when the heats grew violent, at the end of
June. South Wales, North Wales, Lancashire,
Scotland: I roved about everywhere seeking some
J acob's-pillow on which to lay my head and dream
of things heavenly ;--yes, that at bottom was my
modest prayer, though I disguised it from myself :
and the result was, I could find no pillow at all;
but sank into ever meaner restlessness, blacker and
blacker biliary gloom, and returned in the begin-
ning of September thoroughly eclipsed and worn
out, probably the weariest of all men living under
the sky. Sure enough I have a fatal talent of
converting all Nature into Preternaturalism for
myself: a truly horrible Phantasm-Reality it is to
me; what of heavenly radiances it has, blended in
close neighborhood, in intimate union, with the
hideousness of Death and Chaos ; -- a very ghastly
business indeed! On the whole, it is better to
hold one's peace about it, I flung myself down
on sofas here, -- for my little Wife had trimmed up
our little dwelling-place into quite glorious order
in my absence, and I had only to lie down : there,
in reading books, and other make-believe employ-
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 41
ments, I could at least keep silence, which was an
infinite relief. Nay, gradually, as indeed I antici-
pated, the black vortexes and deluges have sub-
sided ; and now that it is past, I begin to feel my-
self better for my travels after all. For one thing,
articulate speech having returned to me, --you see
what use I make of it.
On the table of the London Library, voted in by
some unknown benefactor whom I found after-
wards to be Richard Milnes, there lay one thing
highly gratifying to me: the last two Numbers of
the Dial. It is to be one of our Periodicals hence-
forth; the current Number lies on the Table till the
next arrive; then the former goes to the Binder;
we have already, in a bound volume, all of it that
Emerson has had the editing of. This is right.
Nay, in Edinburgh, and indeed wherever ingenuous
inquisitive minds were met with, I have to report
that the said Emerson could number a select and
most loving public; select, and I should say fast
growing: for good and indifferent reasons it may
behove the man to assure himself of this. Far-
ther, to the horror of poor Nickerson (Bookseller
Fraser's Successor), a certain scoundrel interloper
here has reprinted Emerson's Essays on grayish
paper, to be sold at two shillings,--distracting
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? 42 Carlyle to Emerson.
Nickerson with the fear of change! I was glad
at this, if also angry: it indicates several things.
Nickerson has taken his measufes, will reduce the
price of his remaining copies; indeed, he informs
me the best part of his edition was already sold,
and he has even some color of money due from
England to Emerson through me! With pride
enough will I transmit this mournful, noble pecu-
~,-___M_,_, lium: and after that, as I perceive, such chivalrous
international doings must cease between us. Past
and Present, some one told me, was, in spite of all
your precautions, straightway sent forth in mod-
est gray, and your benevolent speculation ruined.
Here too, you see, it is the same. Such chivalries,
therefore, are now impossible; for myself I say,
" Well, let them cease ; thank God they once were,
the Memory of that can never cease with us ! "
In this last Number of the Dial, which by the
bye your Bookseller never forwarded to me, I found
' one little Essay, a criticism on myself,1--which,
if it should do me mischief, may the gods for-
give you for! It is considerably the most danger-
ous thing I have read for some years. A decided
1 A criticism by Emerson of Past and Present, in the Dial for
July, 1843. It embodies a great part of the extract from Emerson's
Diary given in a preceding note, and is well worth reading in full
for its appreciation of Carlyle's powers and defects.
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 43
likeness of myself recognizable in it, as in the
celestial mirror of a friend's heart; but so enlarged,
exaggerated, all transfigured, -- the most delicious,
the most dangerous thing! Well, I suppose I
must try to assimilate it also, to turn it also to
good, if I be able. Eulogies, dyslogies, in which
one finds no features of one's own natural face,
are easily dealt with; easily left unread, as stuff
for lighting fires, such is the insipidity, the weari-
some nonentity of pabulum like that: but here is
another sort of matter! "The beautifulest piece
of criticism I have read for many a day," says
every one that speaks of it. May the gods forgive
you ! -- I have purchased a copy for three shillings,
and sent it to my Mother: one of the induhitablest
benefits I could think of in regard to it.
There have been two friends of yours here in
these very days: Dr. Russell, just returning from
Paris; Mr. Parker, just bound thither} We have
seen them rather oftener than common, Sterling
being in town withal. They are the best figures
of strangers we have had for a long time; pos-
sessions, both of them, to fall in with in this pil-
grimage of life. Russell carries friendliness in his
eyes, a most courteous, modest, intelligent man;
1 Dr. Le Baron Russell ; Theodore Parker.
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? 44 Carlyle to Emerson.
an English intelligence too, as I read, the best of
it lying unspoken, not as a logic but as an instinct.
Parker is a most hardy, compact, clever little fel-
low, full of decisive utterance, with humor and good
humor; whom I like much. They shine like suns,
'_ 'these two, amid multitudes of watery comets and
tenebrific constellations, too sorrowful without such
admixture on occasion !
As for myself, dear Emerson, you must ask me
no questions ti1l--a1as, till I know not when!
After four weary years of the most unreadable
reading, the painfulest poking and delving, I have
come at last to the conclusion that I must write a
Book on Cromwell; that there is no rest for me
till I do it. This point fixed, another is not less
fixed hitherto, That a Book on Cromwell is impos-
sible. Literally so: you would weep for me if you
saw how, between these two adamantine certain-
ties, I am whirled and tumbled. God only knows
what will become of me in the business. Patience,
Patience!
By the bye, do you know a " Massachusetts His-
torical Society," and a James Bowdoin, seemingly
of Boston? In "Vol. II. third series" of their
Collections, lately I met with a disappointment
almost ludicrous. Bowdoin, in a kind of dancing,
_ - _i '' :-
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 45
embarrassed style, gives long-winded, painfully
minute account of certain precious volumes, con-
taining "Notes of the Long Parliament," which
now stand in the New York Library; poises them
in his assaying balance, speculates, prophesies, in-
quires concerning them : to me it was like news of
the lost Decades of Livy. Good Heavens, it soon
became manifest that these precious Volumes are
nothing whatever but a wretched broken old dead
manuscript copy of part of our printed Commons
Journals! printed since 1745, and known to all
barbers! If the Historical Society desired it, any
Member of Parliament could procure them the
whole stock, Lords and Commons, a wheelbarrow-
ful or more, with no cost but the carriage. Every
Member has the right to demand a copy, and few do
it, few will let such a mass cross their door-thresh-
old ! This of Bowdoin's is a platitude of some mag-
nitude. -- -- Adieu, dear Emerson. Rest not, haste
not; you have work to do.
T. CARLYLE.
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? 46 Carlyle to Emerson.
LXXXVII.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CHELSEA, LONDON, 17 November, 1843.
DEAR EMsnSon,--About this time probably you
will be reading a Letter I hurried off for you by
Dr. Russell in the last steamer; and your friendly
anxieties will partly be set at rest. Had I kept
silence so very long ? I knew it was a long while ;
but my vague remorse had kept no date! It be-
hoves me now to write again without delay; to
certify with all distinctness that I have safely re-
ceived your Letter of the 30th October, safely the
Bill for ? 25 it contained ;-- that you are a brave,
friendly man, of most serene, beneficient way of
life; and that I-- God help me ! --
By all means appoint this Mr. Clark to the hon-
orary oflice of Account-keeper--if he will accept
it! By Parker's list of questions from him, and
by earlier reminiscences recalled on that occasion,
1 can discern that he is a man of lynx eyesight,
of an all-investigating curiosity: if he will accept
this sublime appointment, it will be the clearest
case of elective aflinity. Accounts to you must be
horrible ; as they are to me: indeed, I seldom read
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? ---. >>--_Y -. .
Carlyle to Emerson. 47
beyond the last line of them, if I can find the last ;
and one of the insupportabilities of Bookseller Ac-
counts is that nobody but a wizard, or regular adept
in such matters, can tell where the last line, and
final net result of the whole accursed babblement,
is to be found! By all means solicit Clark;-- at
all events, do you give it up, I pray you, and let
the Booksellers do their own wise way. It. really
is not material; let the poor fellows have length of
halter. Every new Bill from America comes to me
like a kind of heavenly miracle; a reaping where
I never sowed, and did not expect to reap: the
quantity of it is a thing I can never bring in ques-
tion. --For your English account with Nickerson
I can yet say nothing more; perhaps about New-
year's-day the poor man will enable me to say
something. I hear however that the Pirate has
sold off, or nearly so, his Two-shillings edition of
the Essays, and is preparing to print another;
this, directly in the teeth of Cash and double-entry
book-keeping, I take to be good news.
James is a very good fellow, better and better as
we see him more. Something shy and skittish in
the man; but a brave heart intrinsically, with
sound, earnest sense, with plenty of insight and
even humor. He confirms an observation of mine,
~ --'------w,. ----w-Q------__-. __. _-____. __,_. ________ __
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? 48 Carlyle to Emerson.
which indeed I find is hundreds of years old, that a
stammering man is never a worthless one. Physi-
ology can tell you why. It is an excess of delicacy,
excess of sensibility to the presence of his fellow-
creature, that makes him stammer. Hammond
l'Estrange says, " Who ever heard of a stammering
man that was a fool ? " Really there is something
in that. --James is now ofl' to the Isle of Wight;
will see Sterling at Ventnor there; see whether
such an Isle or France will suit better for a winter
residence.
W. E. Channing's Poems are also a kind gift
from you. I have read the pieces you had cut up
for me : worthy indeed of ' reading! That Poem on
Death is the utterance of a valiant, noble heart,
which in rhyme or prose I shall expect more news
of by and by. But at bottom " Poetry " is a most
suspicious afiair for me at present! You cannot
fancy the oceans of Twaddle that human Creatures
emit upon me, in these times ; as if, when the lines
had a jingle in them, a Nothing could be Some-
thing, and the point were gained! It is becoming
a horror to me,--as all speech without meaning
more and more is. I said to Richard Milnes, " Now
in honesty what is the use of putting your accusa-
tive before the verb, and otherwise entangling the
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 49
syntax; if there really is an image of any object,
thought, or thing within you, for God's sake let me
have it the shortest way, and I will so cheerfully
excuse the omission of the jingle at the end: can-
not I do without that ! " -- Milnes answered, " Ah,
my dear fellow, it is because we have no thought,
or almost none; a little thought goes a great way
when you put it into rhyme! " Let a man try to
the very uttermost to speak what he means, before
singing is had recourse to. Singing, in our curt
English speech, contrived expressly and almost ex-
clusively for " despatch of business," is terribly
difiicult. Alfred Tennyson, alone of our time, has
proved it to be possible in some measure. If Chan-
ning will persist in melting such obdurate speech
into music he shall have my true wishes,--my
augury that it will take an enormous heat from
him ! -- Another Channing,1 whom I once saw here,
sends me a Progress-of-the-Species Periodical from
New York. Ach Gott! These people and their
affairs seem all "melting" rapidly enough, into
thaw-slush or one knows not what. Considerable
madness is visible in them. Stare super antiquas
oias : " No," they say, " we cannot stand, or walk,
or do any good whatever there ; by God's blessing,
1 The Reverend William Henry Channing.
voL. 11. 4
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? 50 Carlyle to Emerson.
we will fly,--will not you! --here goes! " And
their flight, it is as the flight of the unwinged,-- of
oxen endeavoring to fly with the "wings" of an
ox! 'By such flying, universally pralctised, the
"ancient ways" are really like to become very
deep before long. In short, I am terribly sick of
all that;--and wish it would stay at home at
Fruitland, or where there is good pasture for it. --
--My Friend Emerson, alone of all voices out of
America, has sphere-music in him for me,-- alone
of them all hitherto; and is a prophecy and sure
dayspring in the East; immeasurably cheering to
me. God long prosper him; keep him duly apart
from that bottomless hubbub which is not at all
cheering ! And so ends my Litany for this day.
The Cromwell business, though I punch daily at
it with all manner of levers, remains immovable as
Ailsa Crag. Heaven alone knows what I shall do
with it. I see and say to myself, It is heroical;
Troy Town was probably not a more heroic busi-
ness; and this belongs to thee, to thy own people,
--must it be dead forever ? --Perhaps yes,-- and
kill me too into the bargain. Really I think it
very shocking that we run to Greece, to Italy, to
&c. , &c. , and leave all at home lying buried as a
nonentity. Were I absolute Sovereign and Chief
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 5 1
Pontiff here, there should be a study of the Old
English ages first of all. I will pit Odin -against
any Jupiter of them; find Sea-kings that would
have given Jason a Roland for his Oliver! We
are, as you sometimes say, a book-ridden people,
-- a phantom-ridden people. -- -- All this small
household is well; salutes you and yours with love
old and new. Accept this hasty messenger; accept
my friendliest farewell, dear Emerson. '
Yours ever,
T. CARLYLE.
LXXXVIII.
EMERSON T0 CARLYLE.
CONCORD, 31 December, 1843.
MY nmn FRIEND,--I have had two good letters
from you, and it is fully my turn to write, so you
shall have a token on this latest day of the year.
I rejoice in this good will you bear to so many
friends of mine,--if they will go to you, you must
thank yourself. Best when you are mutually con-
tented. I wished lately I might serve Mr. Mac-
ready, who sent me your letter. --I called on him
and introduced him to Sam G. Ward, my friend
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? 52 Emerson to Carlyle.
and the best man in the city, and, besides all his
personal merits, a master of all the oflices of hos-
pitality. Ward was to keep himself informed of
Macready's times, and bring me to him when there
was opportunity. But he stayed but a few days in
Boston, and, Ward said, was in very good hands,
and promised to see us when he returns by and by.
I saw him in Hamlet, but should much prefer to
see him as Macready.
I must try to entice Mr. Macready out here
into my pines and alder bushes. Just now the
moon is shining on snow-drifts, four, five, and six
feet high,'but, before his return, they will melt;
and already this my not native but ancestral vil-
lage, which I came to live in nearly ten years ago
because it was the quietest of farming towns, and
ofi the road, is found to lie on the directest line
of road from Boston to Montreal, a railroad is
a-building through our secretest woodlands, and, to-
morrow morning, our people go to Boston in two
hours instead of three, and, next June, in one.
This petty revolution in our country matters was
very odious to me when it began, but it is hard to
resist the joy of all one's neighbors, and I must
be contented to be carted like a chattel in the cars
and be glad to see the forest fall. This rushing on
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? Enerson to Uarlyle. 5 3
your journey is plainly a capital invention for our
spacious America, but it is more dignified and man-
like to walk barefoot. --But do you not see that
we are getting to be neighbors ? a day from London
to Liverpool; twelve or eleven to Boston; and an
hour to Concord; and you have owed me a visit
these ten years.
I mean to send with your January Dial a copy of
the number for Sterling, as it contains a review of
his tragedy and poems, by Margaret Fuller. I have
not yet seen the article, and the lady aflirms that
it is very bad, as she was ill all the time she
was writing '; but I hope and believe better. She,
Margaret Fuller, is an admirable person, whose
writing gives feeble account of her. But I was to
say that I shall send this Dial for J. S. to your
care, as I know not the way to the Isle of Wight.
Enclosed in this letter I send a bill of exchange
for ? 32 8s.
" Carlyle must write thus or nohow, like a drunken man who can
run, but cannot walk. What a man's book is that ! no prudences,
no compromises, but a thorough independence. A masterly criti-
cism on the times. Fault perhaps the excess of importance given
to the cireimistance of to-day. The poet is here for this, to dwarf
and destroy all merely temporary circumstance, and to glorify the
perpetual circumstance of men, e. g. dwarf British Debt and raise
Nature and social life. r
"But everything must be done well once; even bulletins and
almanacs must have one excellent and immortal bulletin and alma-
nac. So let Carlyle's be the immortal newspaper. "
' " " '--. ' '~'~ ---'-:--' -~- ,1 _, ;. ->> . "=_7'"P7*1Yf'
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? 36 Emerson to Carlyle.
ince of English things, is the one public man
among us who has dared to take his stand on what
he understood to be the truth, and expect victory
from that: he puts to shame our Bishops and
Archbishops. " It is literally so.
With continued kind wishes, yours as of old.
T. CARLYLE.
LXXXV. '
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
CONCORD, 30 October, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND, -- I seize the occasion of hav-
'ing this morsel of paper for twenty-five pounds
sterling from the booksellers to send you, (and
which fail not to find enclosed, as clerks say,) to
inquire whether you still exist in Chelsea, London,
and what is the reason that my generous correspond-
ent has become dumb for weary months. I must
go far back to resume my thread. I think in April
last I received your Manuscript, &c. of the Book,
which I forthwith proceeded to print, after some
perplexing debate with the booksellers, as I fully
informed you in my letter of April or beginning of
May. Since that time I have had no line or word
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 37
from you. I must think that my letter did not
reach you, or that you have written what has never
come to me. I assure myself that no harm has
befallen you, not only because you do not live in a
corner, and what chances in your dwelling will
come at least to my ears, but because I have read
with great pleasure the story of Dr. Francia,1 which
gave the best report of your health and vivacity.
I wrote you in April or May an account of the
new state of things which the cheap press has
wrought in our book market, and specially what
diificulties it put in the way of our edition of Past
and Present. For a few weeks I believed that the
letters I had written to the principal New York
and Philadelphia booksellers, and the Preface, had
succeeded in repelling the pirates. But in the
fourth or fifth week appeared a mean edition in
New York, published by one Collyer (an unknown
person and supposed to be a mask of some other
bookseller), sold for twelve and one half cents, and
of this wretched copy several thousands were sold,
whilst our seventy-five cents edition went off slower.
There was no remedy, and we must be content that
there was no expense from our edition, which
1 Carlyle's article on Dr. Francis. in the Foreign Quarterly Re-
view, No. 62. Reprinted in his Miscellamles.
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? l
.
38 Emerson to Carlyle.
\_
1*"
?
lbefore September had paid all its cost, and since
that time has been earning a little, I believe. I am
not fairly entitled to an account of the book from
the publishers until the 1st of January. . . . .
I have never yet done what I have thought this
other last week seriously to do, namely, to charge
the good and faithful E. P. Clark, a man of accounts
as he is a cashier in a bank, with the total auditing
and analyzing of these accounts of yours. My hes-
itation has grown from the imperfect materials
which I have to offer him to make up so long a
story. But he is a good man, and, do you know
it? a Carlylese of that intensity that I have often
heard he has collected a sort of album of several
volumes, containing illustrations of every kind, his-
torical, critical, &c. , to the Sartor. I must go to
Boston and challenge him. Once when I asked
him, he seemed willing to assume it. No more
of accounts to-night.
I send you by this ship a volume of translations
from Dante, by Doctor Parsons of Boston, a practis-
ing dentist and the son of a dentist. 'It is his gift to
you. Lately went Henry James to you with a letter
from me. He is a fine companion from his intelli-
gence, valor, and worth, and is and has been a very
beneficent person as I learn. He carried a volume
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? Carl'/le to Emerson. 39
of poems from my friend and nearest neighbor,
W. Ellery Ghanning, whereof give me, I pray you, the
best opinion you can. I am determined he shall be
a poet, and you must find him such} I have too
many things to tell you to begin at the end of this
sheet, which after all this waiting I have been com-
pelled to scribble in a corner, with company waiting
for me. Send me instant word of yourself if you
love me, and of those whom you love, and so God
keep you and yours.
R. Wnnno Emnnson.
LXXXVI.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CHELSEA, LONDON, 31 October, 1843.
MY DEAR EMERSoN,--It is a long weary time since
I have had the satisfaction of the smallest dialogue
with you. The blame is all my own; the reasons
would be diflicult to give, --' alas, they are properly
no-reasons, children not of Something, but of mere
Idleness, Confusion, Inaction, Inarticulation, of
1 In the second number of the Dial, in October, 1840, Emerson
had published, under the title of " New Poetry," an article warmly
commending Mr. Channing's then unpublished poems.
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? 40 Carlyle to Emerson.
Nothing in short! Let us leave them there, and
profit by the hour which yet is.
I ran away from London into Bristol and South
Wales, when the heats grew violent, at the end of
June. South Wales, North Wales, Lancashire,
Scotland: I roved about everywhere seeking some
J acob's-pillow on which to lay my head and dream
of things heavenly ;--yes, that at bottom was my
modest prayer, though I disguised it from myself :
and the result was, I could find no pillow at all;
but sank into ever meaner restlessness, blacker and
blacker biliary gloom, and returned in the begin-
ning of September thoroughly eclipsed and worn
out, probably the weariest of all men living under
the sky. Sure enough I have a fatal talent of
converting all Nature into Preternaturalism for
myself: a truly horrible Phantasm-Reality it is to
me; what of heavenly radiances it has, blended in
close neighborhood, in intimate union, with the
hideousness of Death and Chaos ; -- a very ghastly
business indeed! On the whole, it is better to
hold one's peace about it, I flung myself down
on sofas here, -- for my little Wife had trimmed up
our little dwelling-place into quite glorious order
in my absence, and I had only to lie down : there,
in reading books, and other make-believe employ-
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 41
ments, I could at least keep silence, which was an
infinite relief. Nay, gradually, as indeed I antici-
pated, the black vortexes and deluges have sub-
sided ; and now that it is past, I begin to feel my-
self better for my travels after all. For one thing,
articulate speech having returned to me, --you see
what use I make of it.
On the table of the London Library, voted in by
some unknown benefactor whom I found after-
wards to be Richard Milnes, there lay one thing
highly gratifying to me: the last two Numbers of
the Dial. It is to be one of our Periodicals hence-
forth; the current Number lies on the Table till the
next arrive; then the former goes to the Binder;
we have already, in a bound volume, all of it that
Emerson has had the editing of. This is right.
Nay, in Edinburgh, and indeed wherever ingenuous
inquisitive minds were met with, I have to report
that the said Emerson could number a select and
most loving public; select, and I should say fast
growing: for good and indifferent reasons it may
behove the man to assure himself of this. Far-
ther, to the horror of poor Nickerson (Bookseller
Fraser's Successor), a certain scoundrel interloper
here has reprinted Emerson's Essays on grayish
paper, to be sold at two shillings,--distracting
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? 42 Carlyle to Emerson.
Nickerson with the fear of change! I was glad
at this, if also angry: it indicates several things.
Nickerson has taken his measufes, will reduce the
price of his remaining copies; indeed, he informs
me the best part of his edition was already sold,
and he has even some color of money due from
England to Emerson through me! With pride
enough will I transmit this mournful, noble pecu-
~,-___M_,_, lium: and after that, as I perceive, such chivalrous
international doings must cease between us. Past
and Present, some one told me, was, in spite of all
your precautions, straightway sent forth in mod-
est gray, and your benevolent speculation ruined.
Here too, you see, it is the same. Such chivalries,
therefore, are now impossible; for myself I say,
" Well, let them cease ; thank God they once were,
the Memory of that can never cease with us ! "
In this last Number of the Dial, which by the
bye your Bookseller never forwarded to me, I found
' one little Essay, a criticism on myself,1--which,
if it should do me mischief, may the gods for-
give you for! It is considerably the most danger-
ous thing I have read for some years. A decided
1 A criticism by Emerson of Past and Present, in the Dial for
July, 1843. It embodies a great part of the extract from Emerson's
Diary given in a preceding note, and is well worth reading in full
for its appreciation of Carlyle's powers and defects.
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 43
likeness of myself recognizable in it, as in the
celestial mirror of a friend's heart; but so enlarged,
exaggerated, all transfigured, -- the most delicious,
the most dangerous thing! Well, I suppose I
must try to assimilate it also, to turn it also to
good, if I be able. Eulogies, dyslogies, in which
one finds no features of one's own natural face,
are easily dealt with; easily left unread, as stuff
for lighting fires, such is the insipidity, the weari-
some nonentity of pabulum like that: but here is
another sort of matter! "The beautifulest piece
of criticism I have read for many a day," says
every one that speaks of it. May the gods forgive
you ! -- I have purchased a copy for three shillings,
and sent it to my Mother: one of the induhitablest
benefits I could think of in regard to it.
There have been two friends of yours here in
these very days: Dr. Russell, just returning from
Paris; Mr. Parker, just bound thither} We have
seen them rather oftener than common, Sterling
being in town withal. They are the best figures
of strangers we have had for a long time; pos-
sessions, both of them, to fall in with in this pil-
grimage of life. Russell carries friendliness in his
eyes, a most courteous, modest, intelligent man;
1 Dr. Le Baron Russell ; Theodore Parker.
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? 44 Carlyle to Emerson.
an English intelligence too, as I read, the best of
it lying unspoken, not as a logic but as an instinct.
Parker is a most hardy, compact, clever little fel-
low, full of decisive utterance, with humor and good
humor; whom I like much. They shine like suns,
'_ 'these two, amid multitudes of watery comets and
tenebrific constellations, too sorrowful without such
admixture on occasion !
As for myself, dear Emerson, you must ask me
no questions ti1l--a1as, till I know not when!
After four weary years of the most unreadable
reading, the painfulest poking and delving, I have
come at last to the conclusion that I must write a
Book on Cromwell; that there is no rest for me
till I do it. This point fixed, another is not less
fixed hitherto, That a Book on Cromwell is impos-
sible. Literally so: you would weep for me if you
saw how, between these two adamantine certain-
ties, I am whirled and tumbled. God only knows
what will become of me in the business. Patience,
Patience!
By the bye, do you know a " Massachusetts His-
torical Society," and a James Bowdoin, seemingly
of Boston? In "Vol. II. third series" of their
Collections, lately I met with a disappointment
almost ludicrous. Bowdoin, in a kind of dancing,
_ - _i '' :-
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 45
embarrassed style, gives long-winded, painfully
minute account of certain precious volumes, con-
taining "Notes of the Long Parliament," which
now stand in the New York Library; poises them
in his assaying balance, speculates, prophesies, in-
quires concerning them : to me it was like news of
the lost Decades of Livy. Good Heavens, it soon
became manifest that these precious Volumes are
nothing whatever but a wretched broken old dead
manuscript copy of part of our printed Commons
Journals! printed since 1745, and known to all
barbers! If the Historical Society desired it, any
Member of Parliament could procure them the
whole stock, Lords and Commons, a wheelbarrow-
ful or more, with no cost but the carriage. Every
Member has the right to demand a copy, and few do
it, few will let such a mass cross their door-thresh-
old ! This of Bowdoin's is a platitude of some mag-
nitude. -- -- Adieu, dear Emerson. Rest not, haste
not; you have work to do.
T. CARLYLE.
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? 46 Carlyle to Emerson.
LXXXVII.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
CHELSEA, LONDON, 17 November, 1843.
DEAR EMsnSon,--About this time probably you
will be reading a Letter I hurried off for you by
Dr. Russell in the last steamer; and your friendly
anxieties will partly be set at rest. Had I kept
silence so very long ? I knew it was a long while ;
but my vague remorse had kept no date! It be-
hoves me now to write again without delay; to
certify with all distinctness that I have safely re-
ceived your Letter of the 30th October, safely the
Bill for ? 25 it contained ;-- that you are a brave,
friendly man, of most serene, beneficient way of
life; and that I-- God help me ! --
By all means appoint this Mr. Clark to the hon-
orary oflice of Account-keeper--if he will accept
it! By Parker's list of questions from him, and
by earlier reminiscences recalled on that occasion,
1 can discern that he is a man of lynx eyesight,
of an all-investigating curiosity: if he will accept
this sublime appointment, it will be the clearest
case of elective aflinity. Accounts to you must be
horrible ; as they are to me: indeed, I seldom read
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? ---. >>--_Y -. .
Carlyle to Emerson. 47
beyond the last line of them, if I can find the last ;
and one of the insupportabilities of Bookseller Ac-
counts is that nobody but a wizard, or regular adept
in such matters, can tell where the last line, and
final net result of the whole accursed babblement,
is to be found! By all means solicit Clark;-- at
all events, do you give it up, I pray you, and let
the Booksellers do their own wise way. It. really
is not material; let the poor fellows have length of
halter. Every new Bill from America comes to me
like a kind of heavenly miracle; a reaping where
I never sowed, and did not expect to reap: the
quantity of it is a thing I can never bring in ques-
tion. --For your English account with Nickerson
I can yet say nothing more; perhaps about New-
year's-day the poor man will enable me to say
something. I hear however that the Pirate has
sold off, or nearly so, his Two-shillings edition of
the Essays, and is preparing to print another;
this, directly in the teeth of Cash and double-entry
book-keeping, I take to be good news.
James is a very good fellow, better and better as
we see him more. Something shy and skittish in
the man; but a brave heart intrinsically, with
sound, earnest sense, with plenty of insight and
even humor. He confirms an observation of mine,
~ --'------w,. ----w-Q------__-. __. _-____. __,_. ________ __
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? 48 Carlyle to Emerson.
which indeed I find is hundreds of years old, that a
stammering man is never a worthless one. Physi-
ology can tell you why. It is an excess of delicacy,
excess of sensibility to the presence of his fellow-
creature, that makes him stammer. Hammond
l'Estrange says, " Who ever heard of a stammering
man that was a fool ? " Really there is something
in that. --James is now ofl' to the Isle of Wight;
will see Sterling at Ventnor there; see whether
such an Isle or France will suit better for a winter
residence.
W. E. Channing's Poems are also a kind gift
from you. I have read the pieces you had cut up
for me : worthy indeed of ' reading! That Poem on
Death is the utterance of a valiant, noble heart,
which in rhyme or prose I shall expect more news
of by and by. But at bottom " Poetry " is a most
suspicious afiair for me at present! You cannot
fancy the oceans of Twaddle that human Creatures
emit upon me, in these times ; as if, when the lines
had a jingle in them, a Nothing could be Some-
thing, and the point were gained! It is becoming
a horror to me,--as all speech without meaning
more and more is. I said to Richard Milnes, " Now
in honesty what is the use of putting your accusa-
tive before the verb, and otherwise entangling the
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 49
syntax; if there really is an image of any object,
thought, or thing within you, for God's sake let me
have it the shortest way, and I will so cheerfully
excuse the omission of the jingle at the end: can-
not I do without that ! " -- Milnes answered, " Ah,
my dear fellow, it is because we have no thought,
or almost none; a little thought goes a great way
when you put it into rhyme! " Let a man try to
the very uttermost to speak what he means, before
singing is had recourse to. Singing, in our curt
English speech, contrived expressly and almost ex-
clusively for " despatch of business," is terribly
difiicult. Alfred Tennyson, alone of our time, has
proved it to be possible in some measure. If Chan-
ning will persist in melting such obdurate speech
into music he shall have my true wishes,--my
augury that it will take an enormous heat from
him ! -- Another Channing,1 whom I once saw here,
sends me a Progress-of-the-Species Periodical from
New York. Ach Gott! These people and their
affairs seem all "melting" rapidly enough, into
thaw-slush or one knows not what. Considerable
madness is visible in them. Stare super antiquas
oias : " No," they say, " we cannot stand, or walk,
or do any good whatever there ; by God's blessing,
1 The Reverend William Henry Channing.
voL. 11. 4
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? 50 Carlyle to Emerson.
we will fly,--will not you! --here goes! " And
their flight, it is as the flight of the unwinged,-- of
oxen endeavoring to fly with the "wings" of an
ox! 'By such flying, universally pralctised, the
"ancient ways" are really like to become very
deep before long. In short, I am terribly sick of
all that;--and wish it would stay at home at
Fruitland, or where there is good pasture for it. --
--My Friend Emerson, alone of all voices out of
America, has sphere-music in him for me,-- alone
of them all hitherto; and is a prophecy and sure
dayspring in the East; immeasurably cheering to
me. God long prosper him; keep him duly apart
from that bottomless hubbub which is not at all
cheering ! And so ends my Litany for this day.
The Cromwell business, though I punch daily at
it with all manner of levers, remains immovable as
Ailsa Crag. Heaven alone knows what I shall do
with it. I see and say to myself, It is heroical;
Troy Town was probably not a more heroic busi-
ness; and this belongs to thee, to thy own people,
--must it be dead forever ? --Perhaps yes,-- and
kill me too into the bargain. Really I think it
very shocking that we run to Greece, to Italy, to
&c. , &c. , and leave all at home lying buried as a
nonentity. Were I absolute Sovereign and Chief
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 5 1
Pontiff here, there should be a study of the Old
English ages first of all. I will pit Odin -against
any Jupiter of them; find Sea-kings that would
have given Jason a Roland for his Oliver! We
are, as you sometimes say, a book-ridden people,
-- a phantom-ridden people. -- -- All this small
household is well; salutes you and yours with love
old and new. Accept this hasty messenger; accept
my friendliest farewell, dear Emerson. '
Yours ever,
T. CARLYLE.
LXXXVIII.
EMERSON T0 CARLYLE.
CONCORD, 31 December, 1843.
MY nmn FRIEND,--I have had two good letters
from you, and it is fully my turn to write, so you
shall have a token on this latest day of the year.
I rejoice in this good will you bear to so many
friends of mine,--if they will go to you, you must
thank yourself. Best when you are mutually con-
tented. I wished lately I might serve Mr. Mac-
ready, who sent me your letter. --I called on him
and introduced him to Sam G. Ward, my friend
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? 52 Emerson to Carlyle.
and the best man in the city, and, besides all his
personal merits, a master of all the oflices of hos-
pitality. Ward was to keep himself informed of
Macready's times, and bring me to him when there
was opportunity. But he stayed but a few days in
Boston, and, Ward said, was in very good hands,
and promised to see us when he returns by and by.
I saw him in Hamlet, but should much prefer to
see him as Macready.
I must try to entice Mr. Macready out here
into my pines and alder bushes. Just now the
moon is shining on snow-drifts, four, five, and six
feet high,'but, before his return, they will melt;
and already this my not native but ancestral vil-
lage, which I came to live in nearly ten years ago
because it was the quietest of farming towns, and
ofi the road, is found to lie on the directest line
of road from Boston to Montreal, a railroad is
a-building through our secretest woodlands, and, to-
morrow morning, our people go to Boston in two
hours instead of three, and, next June, in one.
This petty revolution in our country matters was
very odious to me when it began, but it is hard to
resist the joy of all one's neighbors, and I must
be contented to be carted like a chattel in the cars
and be glad to see the forest fall. This rushing on
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? Enerson to Uarlyle. 5 3
your journey is plainly a capital invention for our
spacious America, but it is more dignified and man-
like to walk barefoot. --But do you not see that
we are getting to be neighbors ? a day from London
to Liverpool; twelve or eleven to Boston; and an
hour to Concord; and you have owed me a visit
these ten years.
I mean to send with your January Dial a copy of
the number for Sterling, as it contains a review of
his tragedy and poems, by Margaret Fuller. I have
not yet seen the article, and the lady aflirms that
it is very bad, as she was ill all the time she
was writing '; but I hope and believe better. She,
Margaret Fuller, is an admirable person, whose
writing gives feeble account of her. But I was to
say that I shall send this Dial for J. S. to your
care, as I know not the way to the Isle of Wight.
Enclosed in this letter I send a bill of exchange
for ? 32 8s.
