The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872 Volume I Part 15

CXLVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Great Malvern, Worcesters.h.i.+re, 25 August, 1851

Dear Emerson,--Many thanks for your Letter, which found me here about a week ago, and gave a full solution to my bibliopolic difficulties. However sore your eyes, or however taciturn your mood, there is no delay of writing when any service is to be done by it! In fact you are very good to me, and always were, in all manner of ways; for which I do, as I ought, thank the Upper Powers and you. That truly has been and is one of the possessions of my life in this perverse epoch of the world....

I have sent off by John Chapman a Copy of the _Life of Sterling,_ which is all printed and ready, but is not to appear till the first week of October.... Along with the _Sheets_ was a poor little French Book for you,--Book of a poor Naval _Mississippi_ Frenchman, one "Bossu," I think; written only a Century ago, yet which already seemed old as the Pyramids in reference to those strange fast-growing countries. I read it as a kind of defaced _romance;_ very thin and lean, but all _true,_ and very marvelous as such.

It is above three weeks since my Wife and I left London, (the Printer having done,) and came hither with the purpose of a month of what is called "Water Cure"; for which this place, otherwise extremely pleasant and wholesome, has become celebrated of late years. Dr. Gully, the pontiff of the business in our Island, warmly encouraged my purpose so soon as he heard of it; nay, urgently offered at once that both of us should become his own guests till the experiment were tried: and here accordingly we are; I water-curing, a.s.siduously walking on the sunny mountains, drinking of the clear wells, not to speak of wet wrappages, solitary sad _steepages,_ and other singular procedures; my Wife not meddling for her own behoof, but only seeing me do it. These have been three of the idlest weeks I ever spent, and there is still one to come: after which we go northward to Lancas.h.i.+re, and across the Border where my good old Mother still expects me; and so, after some little visiting and dawdling, hope to find ourselves home again before September end, and the inexpressible Gla.s.s Palace with its noisy inanity have taken itself quite away again. It was no increase of ill-health that drove me hither, rather the reverse; but I have long been minded to try this thing: and now I think the result will be,--_zero_ pretty nearly, and one imagination the less. My long walks, my strenuous idleness, have certainly done me good; nor has the "water" done me any _ill,_ which perhaps is much to say of it.

For the rest, it is a strange quasi-monastic--G.o.dless and yet _devotional_--way of life which human creatures have here, and useful to them beyond doubt. I foresee, this "Water Cure," under better forms, will become the _Ramadhan_ of the overworked unbelieving English in time coming; an inst.i.tution they were dreadfully in want of, this long while!--We had Twisleton* here (often speaking of you), who is off to America again; will sail, I think, along with this Letter; a semi-articulate but solid- minded worthy man. We have other officials and other _litterateurs_ (T.B. Macaulay in his hired villa for one): but the mind rather shuns than seeks them, one finds solitary quasi- devotion preferable, and [Greek], as Pindar had it!

----------- * The late Hon. Edward Twisleton, a man of high character and large attainments, and with a personal disposition that won the respect and affection of a wide circle of friends on both sides of the Atlantic. He was the author of a curious and learned treatise ent.i.tled "The Tongue not Essential to Speech," and his remarkable volume on "The Handwriting of Junius" seems to have effectually closed a long controversy.

Richard Milnes is married, about two weeks ago, and gone to Vienna for a jaunt. His wife, a Miss Crewe (Lord Crewe's sister), about forty, pleasant, intelligent, and rather rich: that is the end of Richard's long first act. Alfred Tennyson, perhaps you heard, is gone to Italy with his wife: their baby died or was dead-born; they found England wearisome: Alfred has been taken up on the top of the wave, and a good deal jumbled about since you were here. Item Thackeray; who is coming over to lecture to you: a mad world, my Masters! Your Letter to Mazzini was duly despatched; and we hear from him that he will write to you, on the subject required, without delay.

Browning and his wife, home from Florence, are both in London at present; mean to live in Paris henceforth for some time. They had seen something both of Margaret and her d'Ossoli, and appeared to have a true and lively interest in them; Browning spoke a long while to me, with emphasis, on the subject: I think it was I that had introduced poor Margaret to them. I said he ought to send these reminiscences to America,--that was the night before we left London, three weeks ago; his answer gave me the impression there had been some hindrance somewhere. Accordingly, when your Letter and Mazzini's reached me here, I wrote to Browning urgently on the subject: but he informs me that they _have_ sent all their reminiscences, at the request of Mr. Story; so that it is already all well.--Dear Emerson, you see I am at the bottom of my paper. I will write to you again before long; we cannot let you lie fallow in that manner altogether. Have you got proper _spectacles_ for your eyes? I have adopted that beautiful symbol of old age, and feel myself very venerable: take care of your eyes!

Yours ever, T. Carlyle

CXLVII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 14 April, 1852

My Dear Carlyle,--I have not grown so callous by my sulky habit, but that I know where my friends are, and who can help me, in time of need. And I have to crave your good offices today, and in a matter relating once more to Margaret Fuller.... You were so kind as to interest yourself, many months ago, to set Mazzini and Browning on writing their Reminiscences for us. But we never heard from either of them. Lately I have learned, by way of Sam Longfellow, in Paris, brother of our poet Longfellow, that Browning a.s.sured him that he did write and send a memoir to this country,--to whom, I know not. It never arrived at the hands of the Fullers, nor of Story, Channing, or me;--though the book was delayed in the hope of such help. I hate that his paper should be lost.

The little French _Voyage,_ &c. of Bossu, I got safely, and compared its pictures with my own, at the Mississippi, the Illinois, and Chicago. It is curious and true enough, no doubt, though its Indians are rather dim and vague, and "Messieurs Sauvages" Good Indians we have in Alexander Henry's _Travels in Canada,_ and in our modern Catlin, and the best Western America, perhaps, in F.A. Michaux, _Voyage a l'ouest des monts Alleghanis,_ and in Fremont. But it was California I believe you asked about, and, after looking at Taylor, Parkman, and the rest, I saw that the only course is to read them all, and every private letter that gets into the newspapers. So there was nothing to say.

I rejoiced with the rest of mankind in the _Life of Sterling,_ and now peace will be to his Manes, down in this lower sphere.

Yet I see well that I should have held to his opinion, in all those conferences where you have so quietly a.s.sumed the palms.

It is said: here, that you work upon Frederick the Great??

However that be, health, strength, love, joy, and victory to you.

--R.W. Emerson

CXLVIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 7 May, 1852

Dear Emerson,--I was delighted at the sight of your hand again.

My manifold sins against you, involuntary all of them I may well say, are often enough present to my sad thoughts; and a kind of remorse is mixed with the other sorrow,--as if I could have _helped_ growing to be, by aid of time and destiny, the grim Ishmaelite I am, and so shocking your serenity by my ferocities!

I admit you were like an angel to me, and absorbed in the beautifulest manner all thunder-clouds into the depths of your immeasurable a ether;--and it is indubitable I love you very well, and have long done, and mean to do. And on the whole you will have to rally yourself into some kind of Correspondence with me again; I believe you will find that also to be a commanded duty by and by! To me at any rate, I can say, it is a great want, and adds perceptibly to the sternness of these years: deep as is my dissent from your Gymnosophist view of Heaven and Earth, I find an agreement that swallows up all conceivable dissents; in the whole world I hardly get, to my spoken human word, any other word of response which is authentically _human._ G.o.d help us, this is growing a very lonely place, this distracted dog- kennel of a world! And it is no joy to me to see it about to have its throat cut for its immeasurable devilries; that is not a pleasant process to be concerned in either more or less,-- considering above all how many centuries, base and dismal all of them, it is like to take! Nevertheless _Marchons,_--and swift too, if we have any speed, for the sun is sinking.... Poor Margaret, that is a strange tragedy that history of hers; and has many traits of the Heroic in it, though it is wild as the prophecy of a Sibyl. Such a predetermination to _eat_ this big Universe as her oyster or her egg, and to be absolute empress of all height and glory in it that her heart could conceive, I have not before seen in any human soul. Her "mountain me" indeed:-- but her courage too is high and clear, her chivalrous n.o.bleness indeed is great; her veracity, in its deepest sense, _a toute epreuve._--Your Copy of the Book* came to me at last (to my joy): I had already read it; there was considerable notice taken of it here; and one half-volume of it (and I grieve to say only one, written by a man called Emerson) was completely approved by me and innumerable judges. The rest of the Book is not without considerable geniality and merits; but one wanted a clear concise Narrative beyond all other merits; and if you ask here (except in that half-volume) about any fact, you are answered (so to speak) not in words, but by a symbolic tune on the bagpipe, symbolic burst of wind-music from the bra.s.s band;--which is not the plan at all!--What can have become of Mazzini's Letter, which he certainly did write and despatched to you, is not easily conceivable. Still less in the case of Browning: for Browning and his Wife did also write; I myself in the end of last July, having heard him talk kindly and well of poor Margaret and her Husband, took the liberty on your behalf of asking him to put something down on paper; and he informed me, then and repeatedly since, he had already done it,--at the request of Mrs. Story, I think. His address at present is, "No. 138 Avenue des Champs Elysees, a Paris," if your American travelers still thought of inquiring.--Adieu, dear Emerson, till next week.

Yours ever, T. Carlyle

-------- * "The Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli."

CXLIX. Emerson to Carlyle*

Concord, May [?], 1852

You make me happy with your loving thoughts and meanings towards me. I have always thanked the good star which made us early neighbors, in some sort, in time and s.p.a.ce. And the beam is twice warmed by your vigorous good-will, which has steadily kept clear, kind eyes on me.

-------- * From an imperfect rough draft.

It is good to be born in good air and outlook, and not less with a civilization, that is, with one poet still living in the world.

O yes, and I feel all the solemnity and vital cheer of the benefit.--If only the mountains of water and of land and the steeper mountains of blighted and apathized moods would permit a word to pa.s.s now and then. It is very fine for you to tax yourself with all those incompatibilities. I like that Thor should make comets and thunder, as well as Iduna apples, or Heimdal his rainbow bridge, and your wrath and satire has all too much realism in it, than that we can flatter ourselves by disposing of you as partial and heated. Nor is it your fault that you do a hero's work, nor do we love you less if we cannot help you in it. Pity me, O strong man! I am of a puny const.i.tution half made up, and as I from childhood knew,--not a poet but a lover of poetry, and poets, and merely serving as writer, &c. in this empty America, before the arrival of the poets. You must not misconstrue my silences, but thank me for them all, as a true homage to your diligence which I love to defend...

She* had such reverence and love for Landor that I do not know but at any moment in her natural life she would have sunk in the sea, for an ode from him; and now this most propitious cake is offered to her Manes. The loss of the notes of Browning and of Mazzini, which you confirm, astonishes me.

--------- * Margaret Fuller. The break in continuity is in the rough draft.

CL. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 25 June, 1852

Dear Emerson...... You are a born _enthusiast,_ as quiet as you are; and it will continue so, at intervals, to the end. I admire your sly low-voiced sarcasm too;--in short, I love the sternly-gentle close-b.u.t.toned man very well, as I have always done, and intend to continue doing!--Pray observe therefore, and lay it to heart as a practical fact, that you are bound to persevere in writing to me from time to time; and will never get it given up, how sulky soever you grow, while we both remain in this world. Do not I very well understand all that you say about "apathized moods," &c.? The gloom of approaching old age (approaching, nay arriving with some of us) is very considerable upon a man; and on the whole one contrives to take the very ugliest view, now and then, of all beautifulest things; and to shut one's lips with a kind of grim defiance, a kind of imperial sorrow which is almost like felicity,--so completely and composedly wretched, one is equal to the very G.o.ds! These too are necessary, moods to a man. But the Earth withal is verdant, sun-beshone; and the Son of Adam has his place on it, and his tasks and recompenses in it, to the close;--as one remembers by and by, too. On the whole, I am infinitely solitary; but not more heavy laden than I have all along been, perhaps rather less so; I could fancy even old age to be beautiful, and to have a real divineness: for the rest, I say always, I cannot part with you, however it go; and so, in brief, you must get into the way of holding yourself obliged as formerly to a kind of _dialogue_ with me; and speak, on paper since not otherwise, the oftenest you can. Let that be a point settled.

I am not _writing_ on Frederic the Great; nor at all practically contemplating to do so. But, being in a reading mood after those furious _Pamphlets_ (which have procured me showers of abuse from all the extensive genus Stupid in this country, and not done me any other mischief, but perhaps good), and not being capable of reading except in a train and _about_ some object of interest to me,--I took to reading, near a year ago, about Frederick, as I had twice in my life done before; and have, in a loose way, tumbled up an immense quant.i.ty of shot rubbish on that field, and still continue. Not with much decisive approach to Frederick's _self,_ I am still afraid! The man looks brilliant and n.o.ble to me; but how _love_ him, or the sad wreck he lived and worked in?

I do not even yet _see_ him clearly; and to try making others see him--?--Yet Voltaire and he _are_ the celestial element of the poor Eighteenth Century; poor souls. I confess also to a real love for Frederick's dumb followers: the Prussian _Soldiery._--I often say to myself, "Were not _here_ the real priests and virtuous martyrs of that loud-babbling rotten generation!" And so it goes on; when to end, or in what to end, G.o.d knows.

Adieu, dear Emerson. A blockhead (by mistake) has been let in, and has consumed all my time. Good be ever with you and yours.

--T. Carlyle

CLI. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 19 April, 1853

My Dear Friend,--As I find I never write a letter except at the dunning of the Penny Post,--which is the pest of the century,--I have thought lately of crossing to England to excuse to you my negligence of your injunction, which so flattered me by its affectionateness a year ago. I was to write once a month. My own disobedience is wonderful, and explains to me all the sins of omission of the whole world. The levity with which we can let fall into disuse such a sacrament as the exchange of greeting at short periods, is a kind of magnanimity, and should be an astonis.h.i.+ng argument of the "Immortality"; and I wonder how it has escaped the notice of philosophers. But what had I, dear wise man, to tell you? What, but that life was still tolerable; still absurdly sweet; still promising, promising, to credulous idleness;--but step of mine taken in a true direction, or clear solution of any the least secret,--none whatever. I scribble always a little,--much less than formerly,--and I did within a year or eighteen months write a chapter on Fate, which--if we all live long enough, that is, you, and I, and the chapter--I hope to send you in fair print. Comfort yourself--as you will--you will survive the reading, and will be a sure proof that the nut is not cracked. For when we find out what Fate is, I suppose, the Sphinx and we are done for; and Sphinx, Oedipus, and world ought, by good rights, to roll down the steep into the sea.