Adieu, my Friend : it
is silent Sunday ; the populace not yet admitted to
their beer-shops, till the respectabilities conclude
their rubric-mummeries,-- a much more audacious
feat than beer!
is silent Sunday ; the populace not yet admitted to
their beer-shops, till the respectabilities conclude
their rubric-mummeries,-- a much more audacious
feat than beer!
Thomas Carlyle
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? 64 Carlyle to Emerson.
limit: I write a line, therefore, though in very
great haste.
Poor Sterling, even I now begin to fear, is in a
very bad way. He had two successive attacks of
spitting of blood, some three months ago or more;
the second attack of such violence, and his previ-
ous condition then so weak, that the Doctor as
good as gave up hope,--the poor Patient himself
had from the first given it up. Our poor Friend
has had so many attacks of that nature, and so
rapidly always rallied from them, I gave no ear to
these sinister prognostics; but now that I see the
summer influences passing over him without visi-
ble improvement, and our good weather looking
towards a close without so much strength added as
will authorize even a new voyage to Madeira,-- I
too am at last joining in the general discourage-
ment; all the sadder to me that I shut it out so
long. Sir James Clark, our best-accredited Physi-
cian for such diseases, declares that Life, for cer-
tain months, may linger, with great pain ; but that
recovery is not to be expected. Great part of the
lungs, it appears, is totally unserviceable for res-
piration; from the remainder, especially in times
of coughing, it is with the greatest difficulty that
breath enough is obtained. Our poor Patient passes
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 65
the night in a sitting posture; cannot lie down:
that fact sticks with me ever since I heard it!
He is very weak, very pale; still "writes a great
deal daily"; but does not wish to see anybody;
declines to "see even Carlyle," who offered to go to
him. His only Brother, Anthony Sterling, a hardy
soldier, lately withdrawn from the Army, and set-
tled in this quarter, whom we often communicate
with, is about going down to the Isle of Wight this
week: he saw John four days ago, and brings
nothing but bad news,--of which indeed this re-
moval of his to the neighborhood of the scene is
a practical testimony. The old Father, a Widower
for the last two years, and very lonely and dis-
spirited, seems getting feebler and feebler: he was
here yesterday: a pathetic kind of spectacle to us.
Alas, alas! But what can be said ? I say Nothing;
I have written only one Note to Sterling: I feel
it probable that I shall never see him more, -- nor
his like again in this world. His disease, as I have
from of old construed it, is a burning of him up by
his own fire. The restless vehemence of the man,
struggling in all ways these many years to find a
legitimate outlet, and finding, except for transitory,
unsatisfactory coruscations, none, has undermined
its Clay Prison in the weakest point (which proves
von. n. 5
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? 66 Carlyle to Emerson.
to be the lungs), and will make outlet there. My
poor Sterling! It is an old tragedy; and very
stern whenever it repeats itself of new. '
To-day I get answer about Alfred Tennyson : all
is right on that side. Moxon informs me that the
Russell Books and Letter arrived duly, and were
duly forwarded and safely received; nay, farther,
that Tennyson is now in Town, and means to come
and see me. Of this latter result I shall be very
glad: Alfred is one of the few British or Foreign
Figures (a not increasing number I think! ) who
are and remain beautiful to me ;--a true human
soul, or some authentic approximation thereto, to
whom your own soul can say, Brother ! --However,
I doubt he will not come; he often skips me, in
these brief visits to Town; skips everybody in-
deed; being a man solitary and sad, as certain
men are, dwelling in an element of gloom,--car-
rying a bit of Chaos about him, in short, which
he is manufacturing into Cosmos!
Alfred is the son of a Lincolnshire Gentleman
Farmer, I think ; indeed, you see in his verses that
he is a native of " moated granges," and green, fat
pastures, not of mountains and their torrents and
storms. He had his breeding at Cambridge, as if
for the Law or Church; being master of a small
I
J
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 67
annuity on his Father's decease, he preferred club-
bing with his Mother and some Sisters, to live I111-
promoted and write Poems. In this way he lives
still, now here, now there; the family always within
reach of London, never in it; he himself making
rare and brief visits, lodging in some old comrade's
rooms. I think he must be under forty, not much
under it. One of the finest-looking men in the
world. A great shock of rough dusty-dark hair;
bright-laughing hazel eyes; massive aquiline face,
most massive yet most delicate; of sallow-brown
complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes cyni-
cally loose, free-and-easy ; -- smokes infinite to-
bacco. His voice is musical metallic,--fit for
loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may
lie between; speech and speculation free and plen-
teous: I do not meet, in these late decades, such
company over a pipe ! -- We shall see what he will
grow to. He is often unwell; very chaotic,--his
way is through Chaos and the Bottomless and
Pathless; not handy for making out many miles
upon. (O Paper! )
I trust there is now joy in place of pain in the
House at Concord, and a certain Mother grateful
again to the Supreme Powers! We are all in our
customary health here, or nearly so; my Wife has
J
-s
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? 68 Emerson to Carlyle.
been in Lancashire, among her kindred there, for
a month lately: our swollen City is getting empty
and still; we think of trying an Autumn here this
time. --Get your Book ready; there are readers
ready for it! And be busy and victorious!
Ever Yours,
T. CARLYLE.
My History is frightful! If I live, it is like to
be completed; but whether I shall live, and not
rather be buried alive, broken-hearted, in the Serbo-
nian Quagmires of English Stupidity, and so sleep
beside Cromwell, often seems uncertain. Erebus
has no uglier, brutaler element. Let us say noth-
ing of it. Let us do it, or leave it to the Devils.
Ay de mi!
XGIII.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE. _
Bosron, 1 September, 1844.
MY DEAR CARLYLE,--I have just learned that in
an hour Mr. Wilmer's mail-bag for London, by the
" Acadia," closes, and I will not lose the occasion
of sending you a hasty line : though I had designed
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 69
to write you from home on sundry matters, which
now must wait. I send by this steamer some
sheets, to the bookseller John Chapman,--proof-
sheets of my new book of Essays. Chapman wrote
to me by the last steamer, urging me to send him
some manuscript that had not yet been published in
-America, and he thought he could make an advan-
tage from printing it, and even, in some conditions,
procure a copyright, and he would publish for me
on the plan of half-profits. The request was so
timely, since I was not only printing a book, but
also a pamphlet (an Address to citizens of some
thirteen towns who celebrated in Concord the negro
Emancipation 0n 1st August last), that I came to
town yesterday, and hastened the printers, and have
now sent him proofs of all the Address, and of
more than half the book. If you can give Chap-
man any counsel, or save me from any nonsense by
enjoining on him careful correction, you shall.
I looked eagerly for a letter from you by the
last steamer, to give me exact tidings of Sterling.
None came; but I received a short note from Ster-
ling himself, which intimated that he had but a few
more days to live. It is gloomy news. I beg you
will write me everything you can relate of him, by
the next mail. If you can learn from his friends
- . . ~_. _. . _. -- AZ. . -
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? 70 Carlyle to ldnerson.
whether the packet of his Manuscripts and printed
papers, returned by Russell and sent by me through
Harnden's Express to Ventnor, arrived safely, it
would be a satisfaction.
Yours affectionately,
R. W. Emnnson.
XCIV.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
Cnnnsna, 29 September, 1844.
DEAR EMERSON,--There should a Letter have
come for you by that Steamer; for I wrote one duly,
and posted it in good time myself: I will hope
therefore it was but some delay of some subaltern
official, such as I am told occasionally chances, and
that you got the Letter after all in a day or two.
It would give you notice, more or less, up to its
date, of all the points you had inquired about:
there is now little to be added; except concerning
the main point, That the catastrophe has arrived
there as we foresaw, and all is ended.
John Sterling died at his house in Ventnor on the
night of Wednesday, 18th September, about eleven
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 71
o'clock; unexpectedly at last, and to appearance
without pain. His Sister-in-law, Mrs. Maurice, had
gone down to him from this place about a week be-
fore ; other friends were waiting as it were in view
of him; but he wished generally to be alone, to
continue to the last setting his house and his heart
more and more in order for the Great Journey.
For about a fortnight back he had ceased to have
himself formally dressed ; had sat only in his dress-
ing-gown, but I believe was still daily wheeled into
his Library, and sat very calmly sorting and work-
ing there. He sent me two Notes, and various
messages, and gifts of little keepsakes to my Wife
and myself : the Notes were brief, stern and loving ;
altogether noble; never to be forgotten in this
world. His Brother Anthony, who had been in the
Isle of Wight within call for several weeks, had
now come up to Town again; but, after about a
week, decided that he would run down again, and
look. He arrived on the Wednesday night, about
nine o'clock; found no visible change; the brave
Patient calm as ever, ready to speak as ever,--to
say, in direct words which he would often do, or
indirectly as his whole speech and conduct did,
" God is Great. " Anthony and he talked for a
while, then took leave for the night; in few min.
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? 72 Carlyle to Emerson.
utes more, Anthony was summoned to the bedside,
and at eleven o'clock, as I said, the curtain dropt,
and it was all ended. --_E'u_ye. '
Whether the American Manuscripts had arrived
I do not yet know, but probably shall before this
Letter goes; for Anthony is to return hither on
Tuesday, and I will inquire. Our Friend is buried
in Ventnor Churchyard ; four big Elms overshadow
the little spot; it is situated on the southeast side
of that green Island, on the slope of steep hills (as
I understand it) that look toward the Sun, and are
close within sight and hearing of the Sea. There
shall he rest, and have fit lullaby, this brave one.
He has died as a man should; like an old Roman,
yet with the Christian Bibles and all newest revela-
tions present to him. He refused to see friends;
men whom I think he loved as well as any,--me
for one when I obliquely proposed it, he refused.
He was even a little stern on his nearest relatives
when they came to him: Do I need your help to
die? Phocion-like he seemed to feel degraded by
physical decay; to feel that he ought to wrap his
mantle round him, and say, "I come, Persephoneia;
it is not I that linger! " --His Sister-in-law, An-
thony's Wife, probably about a month ago, while
they were still in Wight, had begged that she might
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? Carl? /Ze to Emerson. 7 3
see him yet once; her husband would be there too,
she engaged not to speak. Anthony had not yet
persuaded him, when she, finding the door half
open, went in: his pale changed countenance al-
most made her shriek; she stept forward silently,
kissed his brow in silence; he burst into tears.
Let us speak no more of this. -- -- A great
quantity of papers, I understand, are left for my
determination; what is to be done with them I
will sacredly endeavor to do.
I have visited your Bookseller Chapman; seen
the Proof-sheets lying on his table; taken order
that the reprint shall be well corrected,-- indeed, I
am to read every sheet myself, and in that way get
acquainted with it, before it go into stereotype.
Chapman is a tall, lank youth of five-and-twenty;
full of good will, but of what other equipment time
must yet try. By a little Book of his, which I
looked at some months ago, he seemed to me sunk
very deep in the dust-hole of extinct Socinianism;
a painful predicament for a man! He is not sure
of saving much copyright for you; but he will do
honestly what in that respect is doable; and he
will print the Book correctly, and publish it de-
cently, I saying imprimatur if occasion be,--and
your ever-increasing little congregation here will do
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? 74 Carlyle to Emerson.
with the new word what they can. I add no more
to-day ; reserving a little nook for the answer I
hope to get two days hence.
Adieu, my Friend : it
is silent Sunday ; the populace not yet admitted to
their beer-shops, till the respectabilities conclude
their rubric-mummeries,-- a much more audacious
feat than beer! We have wet wind at Northeast,
and a sky somewhat of the dreariest : -- Courage !
a little way above it reigns mere blue, and sunshine
eternally ! --- T. C.
. Wednesday, October 2ol. --The Letter had to wait
till to-day, and is still in time. Anthony Sterling,
who is yet at Ventnor, apprises me this morning
that according to his and the Governess's belief the
Russell Manuscripts arrived duly, and were spoken
of more than once by our Friend. --On Monday I
received from this same Anthony a big packet by
Post ; it contains among other things all your Let-
ters to John, wrapt up carefully, and addressed in
his hand, "Emerson's Letters,to be returned through
the hands of Carlyle": they shall go towards you
next week, by Mr. James, who is about returning.
Among the other Papers was one containing seven
stanzas of verse addressed to T. Carlyle, 14th Sep-
tember; full of love and enthusiasm ; --the Friday
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 75
before his death: I was visiting the old City of
Winchester that day, among the tombs of Canutes
and eldest noble ones: you may judge how sacred
the memory of those hours new is !
I have read your Slavery Address ; this morning
the first half-sheet, in Proof, of the Essays has
come : perfectly correct, and right good reading.
Yours ever,
T. CARLYLE.
XOV.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
Conoonn, 30 September, 1844.
MY DEAR FRInNn,--I enclose a bill of exchange
for thirty pounds sterling which I procured in town
to-day at $5 each pound, or $150; so high, it seems,
is the rate at present, higher, they said, than for
years. It is good booksellers' money from Little
and Brown, and James Munroe & Co. , in unequal
proportions. If you wish for more accurate in-
formation and have a great deal of patience, there
is still hope that you may obtain it before death;
fr" I this day met E. P. Clark in Washington
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? 76 Emerson to Carlyle.
Street, and he reported some progress in auditing
of accounts, and said that when presently his family
should return to town for the winter, he would see
to the end of them, i. e. the accounts.
I received with great satisfaction your letter of
July, which came by a later steamer than it was
written for, but gave me exact and solid informa-
tion on what I most wished to know. May you live
forever, and may your reports of men and things
be accessible to me whilst I live ! Even if, as now
in Sterling's case, the news are the worst, or nearly
so, yet let whatever comes for knowledge be precise,
for the direst tragedy that is accurately true must
share the blessing of the Universe. I have no later
tidings from Sterling, and I must still look to you
to tell me what you can. ' I dread that the story
should be short. May you have much good to tell
of him, and for many a day to come ! The sketch
you drew of Tennyson was right welcome, for he is
an old favorite of mine,-- I owned his book before I
saw your face ;-- though I love him with allowance.
O cherish him with love and praise, and draw from
him whole books full of new verses yet. The only
point on which you never give precise intelligence
is your own book ; but you shall have your will in
that; so only you arrive on the shores of light at
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 77
last, with your mystic freight fished partly out of
the seas of time, and partly out of the empyrean
deeps.
I have much regretted a sudden note I wrote you
just before the steamer of 1 September sailed, en-
treating you to cumber yourself about my proof-
sheets sent to the London bookseller. I heartily
absolve you from all such vexations. Nothing could
be more inconsiderate. Mr. Chapman is undoubt-
edly amply competent to ordinary correction, and I
much prefer to send you my little book in decent
trim than in rags and stains and deformities more
than its own. I have just corrected and sent to
the steamer the last sheets for Mr. Chapman, who
is to find English readers if he can. I shall ask
Mr. Chapman to send you a copy, for his edition will
be more correct than mine. What can I tell you
better? Why even this, that this house rejoices in
a brave boy, now near three months old. Edward
we call him, and my wife calls him Edward Waldo.
When shall I show him to you? And when shall
I show you a pretty pasture and wood-lot which I
bought last week on the borders of a lake which is
the chief ornament of this town, called Walden
Pond? One of these days, if I should have any
money, I may build me a cabin or a turret there
___i. . ''_. . '_______Am__
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? 78 Uarlqle to Emerson.
high as the tree-tops, and spend my nights as well
as days in the midst of a beauty which never
fades for me.
Yours with love,
R. W. EMERSON.
XGVI.
CARLYLE ro EMERSON.
CHELSEA, 3 November, 1844.
DEAR EMERSoN,--By the clearest law I am bound
to write you a word to-day, were my haste even
greater than it is. The last American fleet or ship,
about the middle of last month, brought me a Draft
for Thirty Pounds; which I converted into ready
cash, and have here,-- and am now your grateful
debtor for, as of old. There seems to be no end to
those Boston Booksellers ! I think the well is dry;
and straightway it begins to run again. Thanks to
you : -- it is, I dare say, a thing you too are grate-
ful for. We will recognize it among the good
things of this rather indifferent world. ----By the
way, if that good Clark like his business, let him
go on with it; but if not, stop him, poor fellow!
It is to me a matter of really small moment
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 79
whether those Booksellers' accounts be ever audited
in this world, or left over to the General Day of
Audit. I myself shudder at the sight of such
things; and make my bargain here so always as to
have no trade with them, but to be. netto from the
first. Why should I plague poor Clark with them,
if it be any plague to him? The Booksellers will
never know but we examine them! The very ter-
ror of Clark's name will be as the bark of chained
Mastiff,--and no need for actual biting! Have
due pity on the man.
Your English volume of Essays, as Chapman
probably informs you by this Post, was advertised
yesterday, "with a Preface from me. " That is
hardly accurate, that latter clause. My " Preface"
consists only of a certificate that the Book is cor-
rectly printed, and sent forth by a Publisher of
your appointment, whom therefore all readers of
yours ought to regard accordingly. Nothing more.
There proves, I believe, no visible real vestige of a
copyright obtainable here; only Chapman asserts
that he has obtained one, and that he will take all
contraveners into Chancery, -- which has a terrible
sound; and indeed the Act he founds on is of so
distracted, inextricable a character, it may mean
anything and all things, and no Sergeant Talfourd
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? 80 Carlyle to Emerson
whom we could consult durst take upon him to say
that it meant almost anything whatever. The
sound of "Chancery," the stereotype character of
this volume, and its cheap price, may perhaps deter
pirates,--who are but a weak body in this country
as yet. I judged it right to help in that; and
impertinent, at this stage of affairs, to go any
farther. The Book is very fairly printed, onward
at least to the Essay New England Politics, where
my "perfect-copy " of the sheets as yet stops. I
did not read any of the Proofs except two; finding
it quite superfluous, and a sad waste of time to the
hurried Chapman himself. I have found yet but
one error, and that a very correctable one, " nar-
vest" for " harvest ";--no other that I recollect
at present. '
The work itself falling on me by driblets has not
the right chance yet--not till I get it in the bound
state, and read it all at once --to produce its due
impression on me. But I will say already of it, It
is a sermon to me, as all your other deliberate ut-
terances are ; a real word, which I feel to be such,
--alas, almost or altogether the one such, in a
world all full of jargons, hearsays, echoes, and vain
noises, which cannot pass with me for words! This
is a praise far beyond any "literary " one; literary
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 81
praises are not worth repeating in comparison. -
For the rest, I have to object still (what you will
call objecting against the Law of Nature) that we
find you a Speaker indeed, but as it were a Solilo-
quizer on the eternal mountain-tops only, in vast
solitudes where men and their affairs lie all hushed
in a very dim remoteness; and only the man and
the stars and the earth are visible,--whom, so fine
a fellow seems he, we could perpetually punch into,
and say, " Why won't you come and help us then?
We have terrible need of one man like you down
among us! It is cold and vacant up there; nothing
paintable but rainbows and emotions; come down,
and you shall do life-pictures, passions, facts, --
which transcend all thought, and leave it stuttering
and stammering ! " --To which he answers that he
won't, can't, and does n't want to (as the Cockneys
have it) : and so I leave him, and say, " You West-
ern Gymnosophist! Well, we can afford one man
for that too. But -- ! " --By the bye, I ought to
say, the sentences are very brief; and did not, in my
sheet reading, always entirely cohere for me. Pure
genuine Saxon ; strong and simple; of a clearness,
of a beauty-- But they did not, sometimes, rightly
stick to their foregoers and their followers : the
paragraph not as a beaten ingot, but as a beautiful
VOL. 11. 6
'I
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? 82 Carlyle to Emerson.
square bag of duck-shot held together by canvas! I
will try theni_ again, with the Book deliberately
l before me. -f-_There are also one or two utterances
1 about " Jesus," " immortality," and so forth, which
lwill produce wide-eyes here and there. I do not
' say it was wrong to utter them; a man obeys his
own Daemon in these cases as his supreme law. I
' dare say you are a little bored occasionally with
i " Jesus," &c. ,-- as I confess I myself am, when I
. discern what a beggarly Twaddle they have made of
all that, what a greasy Cataplasm to lay to their
own poltrooneries ; -- and an impatient person may
exclaim with Voltaire, in serious moments: "Au
i
nom de Dieu, ne me parlez plus de cet homme-ld!
l I have had enough of him ;--I tell you I am alive
too
Well, I have scribbled at a great rate; regard-
less of Time's flight! --My Wife thanks many
times for M. Fuller's Book. I sent by Mr. James
a small Packet of your letters--which will make
you sad to look at them! Adieu, dear friend.
T. CARLYLE.
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 8 3
XCVII.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
CONCORD, 31 December, 1844.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have long owed you a let-
ter and have much to acknowledge. Your two
letters containing tidings, the first of the mortal
illness, and the second of the death of Sterling,
I had no heart to answer. I had nothing to say.
Alas! as in so many instances heretofore, I knew
not what to think. Life is somewhatlcustomary
and usual; and death is the unusual and astonish-
ing; it kills in so far the survivor also, when it
ravishes from him friendship and the most noble
and admirable qualities.
? 64 Carlyle to Emerson.
limit: I write a line, therefore, though in very
great haste.
Poor Sterling, even I now begin to fear, is in a
very bad way. He had two successive attacks of
spitting of blood, some three months ago or more;
the second attack of such violence, and his previ-
ous condition then so weak, that the Doctor as
good as gave up hope,--the poor Patient himself
had from the first given it up. Our poor Friend
has had so many attacks of that nature, and so
rapidly always rallied from them, I gave no ear to
these sinister prognostics; but now that I see the
summer influences passing over him without visi-
ble improvement, and our good weather looking
towards a close without so much strength added as
will authorize even a new voyage to Madeira,-- I
too am at last joining in the general discourage-
ment; all the sadder to me that I shut it out so
long. Sir James Clark, our best-accredited Physi-
cian for such diseases, declares that Life, for cer-
tain months, may linger, with great pain ; but that
recovery is not to be expected. Great part of the
lungs, it appears, is totally unserviceable for res-
piration; from the remainder, especially in times
of coughing, it is with the greatest difficulty that
breath enough is obtained. Our poor Patient passes
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 65
the night in a sitting posture; cannot lie down:
that fact sticks with me ever since I heard it!
He is very weak, very pale; still "writes a great
deal daily"; but does not wish to see anybody;
declines to "see even Carlyle," who offered to go to
him. His only Brother, Anthony Sterling, a hardy
soldier, lately withdrawn from the Army, and set-
tled in this quarter, whom we often communicate
with, is about going down to the Isle of Wight this
week: he saw John four days ago, and brings
nothing but bad news,--of which indeed this re-
moval of his to the neighborhood of the scene is
a practical testimony. The old Father, a Widower
for the last two years, and very lonely and dis-
spirited, seems getting feebler and feebler: he was
here yesterday: a pathetic kind of spectacle to us.
Alas, alas! But what can be said ? I say Nothing;
I have written only one Note to Sterling: I feel
it probable that I shall never see him more, -- nor
his like again in this world. His disease, as I have
from of old construed it, is a burning of him up by
his own fire. The restless vehemence of the man,
struggling in all ways these many years to find a
legitimate outlet, and finding, except for transitory,
unsatisfactory coruscations, none, has undermined
its Clay Prison in the weakest point (which proves
von. n. 5
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? 66 Carlyle to Emerson.
to be the lungs), and will make outlet there. My
poor Sterling! It is an old tragedy; and very
stern whenever it repeats itself of new. '
To-day I get answer about Alfred Tennyson : all
is right on that side. Moxon informs me that the
Russell Books and Letter arrived duly, and were
duly forwarded and safely received; nay, farther,
that Tennyson is now in Town, and means to come
and see me. Of this latter result I shall be very
glad: Alfred is one of the few British or Foreign
Figures (a not increasing number I think! ) who
are and remain beautiful to me ;--a true human
soul, or some authentic approximation thereto, to
whom your own soul can say, Brother ! --However,
I doubt he will not come; he often skips me, in
these brief visits to Town; skips everybody in-
deed; being a man solitary and sad, as certain
men are, dwelling in an element of gloom,--car-
rying a bit of Chaos about him, in short, which
he is manufacturing into Cosmos!
Alfred is the son of a Lincolnshire Gentleman
Farmer, I think ; indeed, you see in his verses that
he is a native of " moated granges," and green, fat
pastures, not of mountains and their torrents and
storms. He had his breeding at Cambridge, as if
for the Law or Church; being master of a small
I
J
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 67
annuity on his Father's decease, he preferred club-
bing with his Mother and some Sisters, to live I111-
promoted and write Poems. In this way he lives
still, now here, now there; the family always within
reach of London, never in it; he himself making
rare and brief visits, lodging in some old comrade's
rooms. I think he must be under forty, not much
under it. One of the finest-looking men in the
world. A great shock of rough dusty-dark hair;
bright-laughing hazel eyes; massive aquiline face,
most massive yet most delicate; of sallow-brown
complexion, almost Indian-looking; clothes cyni-
cally loose, free-and-easy ; -- smokes infinite to-
bacco. His voice is musical metallic,--fit for
loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may
lie between; speech and speculation free and plen-
teous: I do not meet, in these late decades, such
company over a pipe ! -- We shall see what he will
grow to. He is often unwell; very chaotic,--his
way is through Chaos and the Bottomless and
Pathless; not handy for making out many miles
upon. (O Paper! )
I trust there is now joy in place of pain in the
House at Concord, and a certain Mother grateful
again to the Supreme Powers! We are all in our
customary health here, or nearly so; my Wife has
J
-s
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? 68 Emerson to Carlyle.
been in Lancashire, among her kindred there, for
a month lately: our swollen City is getting empty
and still; we think of trying an Autumn here this
time. --Get your Book ready; there are readers
ready for it! And be busy and victorious!
Ever Yours,
T. CARLYLE.
My History is frightful! If I live, it is like to
be completed; but whether I shall live, and not
rather be buried alive, broken-hearted, in the Serbo-
nian Quagmires of English Stupidity, and so sleep
beside Cromwell, often seems uncertain. Erebus
has no uglier, brutaler element. Let us say noth-
ing of it. Let us do it, or leave it to the Devils.
Ay de mi!
XGIII.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE. _
Bosron, 1 September, 1844.
MY DEAR CARLYLE,--I have just learned that in
an hour Mr. Wilmer's mail-bag for London, by the
" Acadia," closes, and I will not lose the occasion
of sending you a hasty line : though I had designed
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 69
to write you from home on sundry matters, which
now must wait. I send by this steamer some
sheets, to the bookseller John Chapman,--proof-
sheets of my new book of Essays. Chapman wrote
to me by the last steamer, urging me to send him
some manuscript that had not yet been published in
-America, and he thought he could make an advan-
tage from printing it, and even, in some conditions,
procure a copyright, and he would publish for me
on the plan of half-profits. The request was so
timely, since I was not only printing a book, but
also a pamphlet (an Address to citizens of some
thirteen towns who celebrated in Concord the negro
Emancipation 0n 1st August last), that I came to
town yesterday, and hastened the printers, and have
now sent him proofs of all the Address, and of
more than half the book. If you can give Chap-
man any counsel, or save me from any nonsense by
enjoining on him careful correction, you shall.
I looked eagerly for a letter from you by the
last steamer, to give me exact tidings of Sterling.
None came; but I received a short note from Ster-
ling himself, which intimated that he had but a few
more days to live. It is gloomy news. I beg you
will write me everything you can relate of him, by
the next mail. If you can learn from his friends
- . . ~_. _. . _. -- AZ. . -
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? 70 Carlyle to ldnerson.
whether the packet of his Manuscripts and printed
papers, returned by Russell and sent by me through
Harnden's Express to Ventnor, arrived safely, it
would be a satisfaction.
Yours affectionately,
R. W. Emnnson.
XCIV.
CARLYLE TO EMERSON.
Cnnnsna, 29 September, 1844.
DEAR EMERSON,--There should a Letter have
come for you by that Steamer; for I wrote one duly,
and posted it in good time myself: I will hope
therefore it was but some delay of some subaltern
official, such as I am told occasionally chances, and
that you got the Letter after all in a day or two.
It would give you notice, more or less, up to its
date, of all the points you had inquired about:
there is now little to be added; except concerning
the main point, That the catastrophe has arrived
there as we foresaw, and all is ended.
John Sterling died at his house in Ventnor on the
night of Wednesday, 18th September, about eleven
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 71
o'clock; unexpectedly at last, and to appearance
without pain. His Sister-in-law, Mrs. Maurice, had
gone down to him from this place about a week be-
fore ; other friends were waiting as it were in view
of him; but he wished generally to be alone, to
continue to the last setting his house and his heart
more and more in order for the Great Journey.
For about a fortnight back he had ceased to have
himself formally dressed ; had sat only in his dress-
ing-gown, but I believe was still daily wheeled into
his Library, and sat very calmly sorting and work-
ing there. He sent me two Notes, and various
messages, and gifts of little keepsakes to my Wife
and myself : the Notes were brief, stern and loving ;
altogether noble; never to be forgotten in this
world. His Brother Anthony, who had been in the
Isle of Wight within call for several weeks, had
now come up to Town again; but, after about a
week, decided that he would run down again, and
look. He arrived on the Wednesday night, about
nine o'clock; found no visible change; the brave
Patient calm as ever, ready to speak as ever,--to
say, in direct words which he would often do, or
indirectly as his whole speech and conduct did,
" God is Great. " Anthony and he talked for a
while, then took leave for the night; in few min.
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? 72 Carlyle to Emerson.
utes more, Anthony was summoned to the bedside,
and at eleven o'clock, as I said, the curtain dropt,
and it was all ended. --_E'u_ye. '
Whether the American Manuscripts had arrived
I do not yet know, but probably shall before this
Letter goes; for Anthony is to return hither on
Tuesday, and I will inquire. Our Friend is buried
in Ventnor Churchyard ; four big Elms overshadow
the little spot; it is situated on the southeast side
of that green Island, on the slope of steep hills (as
I understand it) that look toward the Sun, and are
close within sight and hearing of the Sea. There
shall he rest, and have fit lullaby, this brave one.
He has died as a man should; like an old Roman,
yet with the Christian Bibles and all newest revela-
tions present to him. He refused to see friends;
men whom I think he loved as well as any,--me
for one when I obliquely proposed it, he refused.
He was even a little stern on his nearest relatives
when they came to him: Do I need your help to
die? Phocion-like he seemed to feel degraded by
physical decay; to feel that he ought to wrap his
mantle round him, and say, "I come, Persephoneia;
it is not I that linger! " --His Sister-in-law, An-
thony's Wife, probably about a month ago, while
they were still in Wight, had begged that she might
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? Carl? /Ze to Emerson. 7 3
see him yet once; her husband would be there too,
she engaged not to speak. Anthony had not yet
persuaded him, when she, finding the door half
open, went in: his pale changed countenance al-
most made her shriek; she stept forward silently,
kissed his brow in silence; he burst into tears.
Let us speak no more of this. -- -- A great
quantity of papers, I understand, are left for my
determination; what is to be done with them I
will sacredly endeavor to do.
I have visited your Bookseller Chapman; seen
the Proof-sheets lying on his table; taken order
that the reprint shall be well corrected,-- indeed, I
am to read every sheet myself, and in that way get
acquainted with it, before it go into stereotype.
Chapman is a tall, lank youth of five-and-twenty;
full of good will, but of what other equipment time
must yet try. By a little Book of his, which I
looked at some months ago, he seemed to me sunk
very deep in the dust-hole of extinct Socinianism;
a painful predicament for a man! He is not sure
of saving much copyright for you; but he will do
honestly what in that respect is doable; and he
will print the Book correctly, and publish it de-
cently, I saying imprimatur if occasion be,--and
your ever-increasing little congregation here will do
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? 74 Carlyle to Emerson.
with the new word what they can. I add no more
to-day ; reserving a little nook for the answer I
hope to get two days hence.
Adieu, my Friend : it
is silent Sunday ; the populace not yet admitted to
their beer-shops, till the respectabilities conclude
their rubric-mummeries,-- a much more audacious
feat than beer! We have wet wind at Northeast,
and a sky somewhat of the dreariest : -- Courage !
a little way above it reigns mere blue, and sunshine
eternally ! --- T. C.
. Wednesday, October 2ol. --The Letter had to wait
till to-day, and is still in time. Anthony Sterling,
who is yet at Ventnor, apprises me this morning
that according to his and the Governess's belief the
Russell Manuscripts arrived duly, and were spoken
of more than once by our Friend. --On Monday I
received from this same Anthony a big packet by
Post ; it contains among other things all your Let-
ters to John, wrapt up carefully, and addressed in
his hand, "Emerson's Letters,to be returned through
the hands of Carlyle": they shall go towards you
next week, by Mr. James, who is about returning.
Among the other Papers was one containing seven
stanzas of verse addressed to T. Carlyle, 14th Sep-
tember; full of love and enthusiasm ; --the Friday
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 75
before his death: I was visiting the old City of
Winchester that day, among the tombs of Canutes
and eldest noble ones: you may judge how sacred
the memory of those hours new is !
I have read your Slavery Address ; this morning
the first half-sheet, in Proof, of the Essays has
come : perfectly correct, and right good reading.
Yours ever,
T. CARLYLE.
XOV.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
Conoonn, 30 September, 1844.
MY DEAR FRInNn,--I enclose a bill of exchange
for thirty pounds sterling which I procured in town
to-day at $5 each pound, or $150; so high, it seems,
is the rate at present, higher, they said, than for
years. It is good booksellers' money from Little
and Brown, and James Munroe & Co. , in unequal
proportions. If you wish for more accurate in-
formation and have a great deal of patience, there
is still hope that you may obtain it before death;
fr" I this day met E. P. Clark in Washington
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? 76 Emerson to Carlyle.
Street, and he reported some progress in auditing
of accounts, and said that when presently his family
should return to town for the winter, he would see
to the end of them, i. e. the accounts.
I received with great satisfaction your letter of
July, which came by a later steamer than it was
written for, but gave me exact and solid informa-
tion on what I most wished to know. May you live
forever, and may your reports of men and things
be accessible to me whilst I live ! Even if, as now
in Sterling's case, the news are the worst, or nearly
so, yet let whatever comes for knowledge be precise,
for the direst tragedy that is accurately true must
share the blessing of the Universe. I have no later
tidings from Sterling, and I must still look to you
to tell me what you can. ' I dread that the story
should be short. May you have much good to tell
of him, and for many a day to come ! The sketch
you drew of Tennyson was right welcome, for he is
an old favorite of mine,-- I owned his book before I
saw your face ;-- though I love him with allowance.
O cherish him with love and praise, and draw from
him whole books full of new verses yet. The only
point on which you never give precise intelligence
is your own book ; but you shall have your will in
that; so only you arrive on the shores of light at
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? Emerson to Carlyle. 77
last, with your mystic freight fished partly out of
the seas of time, and partly out of the empyrean
deeps.
I have much regretted a sudden note I wrote you
just before the steamer of 1 September sailed, en-
treating you to cumber yourself about my proof-
sheets sent to the London bookseller. I heartily
absolve you from all such vexations. Nothing could
be more inconsiderate. Mr. Chapman is undoubt-
edly amply competent to ordinary correction, and I
much prefer to send you my little book in decent
trim than in rags and stains and deformities more
than its own. I have just corrected and sent to
the steamer the last sheets for Mr. Chapman, who
is to find English readers if he can. I shall ask
Mr. Chapman to send you a copy, for his edition will
be more correct than mine. What can I tell you
better? Why even this, that this house rejoices in
a brave boy, now near three months old. Edward
we call him, and my wife calls him Edward Waldo.
When shall I show him to you? And when shall
I show you a pretty pasture and wood-lot which I
bought last week on the borders of a lake which is
the chief ornament of this town, called Walden
Pond? One of these days, if I should have any
money, I may build me a cabin or a turret there
___i. . ''_. . '_______Am__
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? 78 Uarlqle to Emerson.
high as the tree-tops, and spend my nights as well
as days in the midst of a beauty which never
fades for me.
Yours with love,
R. W. EMERSON.
XGVI.
CARLYLE ro EMERSON.
CHELSEA, 3 November, 1844.
DEAR EMERSoN,--By the clearest law I am bound
to write you a word to-day, were my haste even
greater than it is. The last American fleet or ship,
about the middle of last month, brought me a Draft
for Thirty Pounds; which I converted into ready
cash, and have here,-- and am now your grateful
debtor for, as of old. There seems to be no end to
those Boston Booksellers ! I think the well is dry;
and straightway it begins to run again. Thanks to
you : -- it is, I dare say, a thing you too are grate-
ful for. We will recognize it among the good
things of this rather indifferent world. ----By the
way, if that good Clark like his business, let him
go on with it; but if not, stop him, poor fellow!
It is to me a matter of really small moment
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 79
whether those Booksellers' accounts be ever audited
in this world, or left over to the General Day of
Audit. I myself shudder at the sight of such
things; and make my bargain here so always as to
have no trade with them, but to be. netto from the
first. Why should I plague poor Clark with them,
if it be any plague to him? The Booksellers will
never know but we examine them! The very ter-
ror of Clark's name will be as the bark of chained
Mastiff,--and no need for actual biting! Have
due pity on the man.
Your English volume of Essays, as Chapman
probably informs you by this Post, was advertised
yesterday, "with a Preface from me. " That is
hardly accurate, that latter clause. My " Preface"
consists only of a certificate that the Book is cor-
rectly printed, and sent forth by a Publisher of
your appointment, whom therefore all readers of
yours ought to regard accordingly. Nothing more.
There proves, I believe, no visible real vestige of a
copyright obtainable here; only Chapman asserts
that he has obtained one, and that he will take all
contraveners into Chancery, -- which has a terrible
sound; and indeed the Act he founds on is of so
distracted, inextricable a character, it may mean
anything and all things, and no Sergeant Talfourd
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? 80 Carlyle to Emerson
whom we could consult durst take upon him to say
that it meant almost anything whatever. The
sound of "Chancery," the stereotype character of
this volume, and its cheap price, may perhaps deter
pirates,--who are but a weak body in this country
as yet. I judged it right to help in that; and
impertinent, at this stage of affairs, to go any
farther. The Book is very fairly printed, onward
at least to the Essay New England Politics, where
my "perfect-copy " of the sheets as yet stops. I
did not read any of the Proofs except two; finding
it quite superfluous, and a sad waste of time to the
hurried Chapman himself. I have found yet but
one error, and that a very correctable one, " nar-
vest" for " harvest ";--no other that I recollect
at present. '
The work itself falling on me by driblets has not
the right chance yet--not till I get it in the bound
state, and read it all at once --to produce its due
impression on me. But I will say already of it, It
is a sermon to me, as all your other deliberate ut-
terances are ; a real word, which I feel to be such,
--alas, almost or altogether the one such, in a
world all full of jargons, hearsays, echoes, and vain
noises, which cannot pass with me for words! This
is a praise far beyond any "literary " one; literary
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? Carlyle to Emerson. 81
praises are not worth repeating in comparison. -
For the rest, I have to object still (what you will
call objecting against the Law of Nature) that we
find you a Speaker indeed, but as it were a Solilo-
quizer on the eternal mountain-tops only, in vast
solitudes where men and their affairs lie all hushed
in a very dim remoteness; and only the man and
the stars and the earth are visible,--whom, so fine
a fellow seems he, we could perpetually punch into,
and say, " Why won't you come and help us then?
We have terrible need of one man like you down
among us! It is cold and vacant up there; nothing
paintable but rainbows and emotions; come down,
and you shall do life-pictures, passions, facts, --
which transcend all thought, and leave it stuttering
and stammering ! " --To which he answers that he
won't, can't, and does n't want to (as the Cockneys
have it) : and so I leave him, and say, " You West-
ern Gymnosophist! Well, we can afford one man
for that too. But -- ! " --By the bye, I ought to
say, the sentences are very brief; and did not, in my
sheet reading, always entirely cohere for me. Pure
genuine Saxon ; strong and simple; of a clearness,
of a beauty-- But they did not, sometimes, rightly
stick to their foregoers and their followers : the
paragraph not as a beaten ingot, but as a beautiful
VOL. 11. 6
'I
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? 82 Carlyle to Emerson.
square bag of duck-shot held together by canvas! I
will try theni_ again, with the Book deliberately
l before me. -f-_There are also one or two utterances
1 about " Jesus," " immortality," and so forth, which
lwill produce wide-eyes here and there. I do not
' say it was wrong to utter them; a man obeys his
own Daemon in these cases as his supreme law. I
' dare say you are a little bored occasionally with
i " Jesus," &c. ,-- as I confess I myself am, when I
. discern what a beggarly Twaddle they have made of
all that, what a greasy Cataplasm to lay to their
own poltrooneries ; -- and an impatient person may
exclaim with Voltaire, in serious moments: "Au
i
nom de Dieu, ne me parlez plus de cet homme-ld!
l I have had enough of him ;--I tell you I am alive
too
Well, I have scribbled at a great rate; regard-
less of Time's flight! --My Wife thanks many
times for M. Fuller's Book. I sent by Mr. James
a small Packet of your letters--which will make
you sad to look at them! Adieu, dear friend.
T. CARLYLE.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:12 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/pst. 000028736530 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? Emerson to Carlyle. 8 3
XCVII.
EMERSON TO CARLYLE.
CONCORD, 31 December, 1844.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have long owed you a let-
ter and have much to acknowledge. Your two
letters containing tidings, the first of the mortal
illness, and the second of the death of Sterling,
I had no heart to answer. I had nothing to say.
Alas! as in so many instances heretofore, I knew
not what to think. Life is somewhatlcustomary
and usual; and death is the unusual and astonish-
ing; it kills in so far the survivor also, when it
ravishes from him friendship and the most noble
and admirable qualities.
