The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872 Volume I Part 11

"Carlyle has a hairy strength which makes his literary vocation a mere chance, and what seems very contemptible to him. I could think only of an enormous trip-hammer with an 'Aeolian attachment."'

"In Carlyle as in Byron, one is more struck with the rhetoric than with the matter. He has manly superiority rather than intellectuality, and so makes good hard hits all the time. There is more character than intellect in every sentence, herein strongly resembling Samuel Johnson."

"England makes what a step from Dr. Johnson to Carlyle! what wealth of thought and science, what expansion of views and profounder resources does the genius and performance of this last imply! If she can make another step as large, what new ages open!"

CXXVII. Emerson to Carlyle

Mrs. Ma.s.sey's, Manchester, 2 Fenny Place, Fenny St.

November 5, 1847

Ah! my dear friend, all these days have gone, and you have had no word from me, when the shuttles fly so swiftly in your English loom, and in so few hours we may have tidings of the best that live. At last, and only this day for the first day, I am stablished in my own lodgings on English ground, and have a fair parlor and chamber, into both of which the sun and moon s.h.i.+ne, into which friendly people have already entered.

Hitherto I have been the victim of trifles,--which is the fate and the chief objection to traveling. Days are absorbed in precious nothings. But now that I am in some sort a citizen, of Manchester, and also of Liverpool (for there also I am to enter on lodgings tomorrow, at 56 Stafford Street, Islington), perhaps the social heart of this English world will include me also in its strong and healthful circulations. I get the best letters from home by the last steamers, and was much occupied in Liverpool yesterday in seeing Dr. Nichol of Glasgow, who was to sail in the "Acadia," and in giving him credentials to some Americans. I find here a very kind reception from your friends, as they emphatically are,--Ireland, Espina.s.se, Miss Jewsbury, Dr.

Hodgson, and a circle expanding on all sides outward,--and Mrs.

Paulet at Liverpool. I am learning there also to know friendly faces, and a certain Roscoe Club has complimented me with its privileges. The oddest part of my new position is my alarming penny correspondence, which, what with welcomes, invitations to lecture, proffers of hospitality, suggestions from good Swedenborgists and others for my better guidance touching the t.i.tles of my discourses, &c., &c., all requiring answers, threaten to eat up a day like a cherry. In this fog and miscellany, and until the heavenly sun shall give me one beam, will not you, friend and joy of so many years, send me a quiet line or two now and then to say that you still smoke your pipe in peace, side by side with wife and brother also well and smoking, or able to smoke? Now that I have in some measure calmed down the astonishment and consternation of seeing your dreams change into realities, I mean, at my next approximation or perihelion, to behold you with the most serene and sceptical calmness.

So give my thanks and true affectionate remembrance to Jane Carlyle, and my regards also to Dr. Carlyle, whose precise address please also to send me.

Ever your loving R.W.E.

The address at the top of this note is the best for the present, as I mean to make this my centre.

CXXVIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 13 November, 1847

Dear Emerson,--Your Book-parcels were faithfully sent off, directly after your departure: in regard to one of them I had a pleasant visit from the proprietor in person,--the young Swedenborgian Doctor, whom to my surprise I found quite an agreeable, accomplished secular young gentleman, much given to "progress of the species," &c., &c.; from whom I suppose you have yourself heard. The wandering umbrella, still short of an owner, hangs upon its peg here, without definite outlook. Of yourself there have come news, by your own Letter, and by various excerpts from Manchester Newspapers. _Gluck zu!_--

This Morning I received the Enclosed, and send it off to you without farther response. Mudie, if I mistake not, is some small Bookseller in the Russell-Square region; pray answer him, if you think him worthy of answer. A dim suspicion haunts me that perhaps he was the Republisher (or Pirate) of your first set of _Essays:_ but probably he regards this as a mere office of untutored friends.h.i.+p on his part. Or possibly I do the poor man wrong by misremembrance? Chapman could tell.

I am sunk deep here, in effete Ma.n.u.scripts, in abstruse meditations, in confusions old and new; sinking, as I may describe myself, through stratum after stratum of the Inane,-- down to one knows not what depth! I unfortunately belong to the Opposition Party in many points, and am in a minority of one. To keep silence, therefore, is among the princ.i.p.al duties at present.

We had a call from Bancroft, the other evening. A tough Yankee man; of many worthy qualities more tough than musical; among which it gratified me to find a certain small under-current of genial _humor,_ or as it were _hidden laughter,_ not noticed heretofore.

My Wife and all the rest of us are well; and do all salute you with our true wishes, and the hope to have you here again before long. Do not bother yourself with other than voluntary writing to me, while there is so much otherwise that you are obliged to write. If on any point you want advice, information, or other help that lies within the limits of my strength, command me, now and always. And so Good be with you; and a happy meeting to us soon again.

Yours ever truly, T. Carlyle

CXXIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 30 November, 1847

Dear Emerson,--Here is a word for you from Miss Fuller; I send you the Cover also, though I think there is little or nothing in that. It contained another little Note for Mazzini; who is wandering in foreign parts, on paths unknown to me at present.

Pray send my regards to Miss Fuller, when you write.

We hear of you pretty often, and of your successes with the Northern populations. We hope for you in London again before long.--I am busy, if at all, altogether _inarticulately_ in these days. My respect for _silence,_ my distrust of _Speech,_ seem to grow upon me. There is a time for both, says Solomon; but we, in our poor generation, have forgotten one of the "times."

Here is a Mr. Forster* of Rawdon, or Bradford, in Yorks.h.i.+re; our late host in the Autumn time; who expects and longs to be yours when you come into those parts.

I am busy with William Conqueror's _Domesday Book_ and with the commentaries of various blockheads on it:--Ah me!

All good be with you, and happy news from those dear to you.

Yours ever, T. Carlyle

----------- * Now the Rt. Hon. W E. Forster, M.P.

Cx.x.x. Emerson to Carlyle

2 Fenny Street, Higher Broughton, Manchester 28 December, 1847

Dear Carlyle,--I am concerned to discover that Margaret Fuller in the letter which you forwarded prays me to ask you and Mrs.

Carlyle respecting the Count and Countess Pepoli, who are in Rome for the winter, whether they would be good for her to know?--That is pretty nearly the form of her question. As one third of the winter is gone, and one half will be, before her question can be answered, I fear, it will have lost some of its pertinence.

Well, it will serve as a token to pa.s.s between us, which will please me if it do not Margaret.--I have had nothing to send you tidings of. Yet I get the best accounts from home of wife and babes and friends. I am seeing this England more thoroughly than I had thought was possible to me. I find this lecturing a key which opens all doors. I have received everywhere the kindest hospitality from a great variety of persons. I see many intelligent and well-informed persons, and some fine geniuses. I have every day a better opinion of the English, who are a very handsome and satisfactory race of men, and, in the point of material performance, altogether incomparable. I have made some vain attempts to end my lectures, but must go on a little longer.

With kindest regards to the Lady Jane,

Your friend, R.W.E.

Margaret Fuller's address, if anything is to be written, is, Care of Maquay, Pakenham & Co., Rome.

Cx.x.xI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 30 December, 1847

My Dear Emerson,--We are very glad to see your handwriting again, and learn that you are well, and doing well. Our news of you hitherto, from the dim Lecture-element, had been satisfactory indeed, but vague. Go on and prosper.

I do not much think Miss Fuller would do any great good with the Pepolis,--even if they are still in Rome, and not at Bologna as our advices here seemed to indicate. Madam Pepoli is an elderly Scotch lady, of excellent commonplace vernacular qualities, hardly of more; the Count, some years younger, and a much airier man, is on all sides a beautiful _Dilettante,_--little suitable, I fear, to the serious mind that can recognize him as such!

However, if the people are still in Rome, Miss Fuller can easily try: Bid Miss Fuller present my Wife's compliments, or mine, or even _yours_ (for they know all our domesticities here, and are very intimate, especially Madam with _My_ dame); upon which the acquaintance is at once made, and can be continued if useful.

This morning Richard Milnes writes to me for your address; which I have sent. He is just returned out of Spain; home swiftly to "vote for the Jew Bill"; is doing hospitalities at Woburn Abbey; and I suppose will be in Yorks.h.i.+re (home, near Pontefract) before long. See him if you have opportunity: a man very easy to _see_ and get into flowing talk with; a man of much sharpness of faculty, well tempered by several inches of "Christian _fat_" he has upon his ribs for covering. One of the idlest, cheeriest, most gifted of fat little men.

Tennyson has been here for three weeks; dining daily till he is near dead;--setting out a Poem withal. He came in to us on Sunday evening last, and on the preceding Sunday: a truly interesting Son of Earth, and Son of Heaven,--who has almost lost his way, among the will-o'-wisps, I doubt; and may flounder ever deeper, over neck and nose at last, among the quagmires that abound! I like him well; but can do next to nothing for him.