The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872 Volume I Part 24

My Dear Friend,--I fear there is no pardon from you, none from myself, for this immense new gap in our correspondence. Yet no hour came from month to month to write a letter, since whatever deliverance I got from one web in the last year served only to throw me into another web as pitiless. Yet what gossamer these tasks of mine must appear to your might! Believe that the American climate is unmanning, or that one American whom you know is severely taxed by Lilliput labors. The last hot summer enfeebled me till my young people coaxed me to go with Edward to the White Hills, and we climbed or were dragged up Agiocochook, in August, and its sleet and snowy air nerved me again for the time. But the booksellers, whom I had long ago urged to reprint Plutarch's _Morals,_ claimed some forgotten promise, and set me on reading the old patriarch again, and writing a few pages about him, which no doubt cost me as much time and pottering as it would cost you to write a History. Then an "Oration" was due to the New England Society in New York, on the 250th anniversary of the Plymouth Landing,--as I thought myself familiar with the story, and holding also some opinions thereupon. But in the Libraries I found alcoves full of books and doc.u.ments reckoned essential; and, at New York, after reading for an hour to the great a.s.sembly out of my ma.s.sy ma.n.u.script, I refused to print a line until I could revise and complete my papers;--risking, of course, the nonsense of their newspaper reporters. This pill swallowed and forgotten, it was already time for my Second "Course on Philosophy" at Cambridge,--which I had accepted again that I might repair the faults of the last year. But here were eighteen lectures, each to be read sixteen miles away from my house, to go and come,--and the same work and journey twice in each week,--and I have just got through the doleful ordeal.

I have abundance of good readings and some honest writing on the leading topics,--but in haste and confusion they are misplaced and spoiled. I hope the ruin of no young man's soul will here or hereafter be charged to me as having wasted his time or confounded his reason.

Now I come to the raid of a London bookseller, Hotten, (of whom I believe I never told you,) on my forgotten papers in the old _Dials,_ and other pamphlets here. Conway wrote me that he could not be resisted,--would certainly steal good and bad,--but might be guided in the selection. I replied that the act was odious to me, and I promised to denounce the man and his theft to any friends I might have in England; but if, instead of printing then, he would wait a year, I would make my own selection, with the addition of some later critical papers, and permit the book.

Mr. Ireland in Manchester, and Conway in London, took the affair kindly in hand, and Hotten acceded to my change. And that is the next task that threatens my imbecility. But now, ten days ago or less, my friend John M. Forbes has come to me with a proposition to carry me off to California, the Yosemite, the Mammoth trees, and the Pacific, and, after much resistance, I have surrendered for six weeks, and we set out tomorrow. And hence this sheet of confession,--that I may not drag a lengthening chain. Meantime, you have been monthly loading me with good for evil. I have just counted twenty-three volumes of Carlyle's Library Edition, in order on my shelves, besides two, or perhaps three, which Ellery Channing has borrowed. Add, that the precious Chapman's _Homer_ came safely, though not till months after you had told me of its departure, and shall be guarded henceforward with joy.

_Wednesday, 13, Chicago._--Arrived here and can bring this little sheet to the post-office here. My daughter Edith Forbes, and her husband William H. Forbes, and three other friends, accompany me, and we shall overtake Mr. Forbes senior tomorrow at Burlington, Iowa.

The widow of one of the n.o.blest of our young martyrs in the War, Col. Lowell,* cousin [nephew] of James Russell Lowell, sends me word that she wishes me to give her a note of introduction to you, confiding to me that she has once written a letter to you which procured her the happiest reply from you, and I shall obey her, and you will see her and own her rights. Still continue to be magnanimous to your friend,

--R.W. Emerson

--------- * Charles Russell Lowell, to be remembered always with honor in company with his brother James Jackson Lowell and his cousin William Lowell Putnam,--a s.h.i.+ning group among the youths who have died for their country.

CLx.x.xVII. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 4 June, 1871

Dear Emerson,--Your Letter gave me great pleasure. A gleam of suns.h.i.+ne after a long tract of lowering weather. It is not you that are to blame for this sad gap in our correspondence; it is I, or rather it is my misfortunes, and miserable inabilities, broken resolutions, etc., etc. The truth is, the winter here was very unfriendly to me; broke ruinously into my sleep; and through that into every other department of my businesses, spiritual and temporal; so that from about New-Year's Day last I have been, in a manner, good for nothing,--nor am yet, though I do again feel as if the beautiful Summer weather might perhaps do something for me. This it was that choked every enterprise; and postponed your Letter, week after week, through so many months.

Let us not speak of it farther!

Note, meanwhile, I have no disease about me; nothing but the gradual decay of any poor digestive faculty I latterly had,--or indeed ever had since I was three and twenty years of age. Let us be quiet with it; accept it as a mode of exit, of which always there must be _some_ mode.

I have got done with all my press-correctings, editionings, and paltry bother of that kind: Vol. 30 will embark for you about the middle of this month; there are then to follow ("uniform,"

as the printers call it, though in smaller type) a little volume called _General Index;_ and three more volumes of _Translations from the German;_ after which we two will reckon and count; and if there is any _lacuna_ on the Concord shelf, at once make it good. Enough, enough on that score.

The Hotten who has got hold of you here is a dirty little pirate, who s.n.a.t.c.hes at everybody grown fat enough to yield him a bite (paltry, unhanged creature); so that in fact he is a symbol to you of your visible rise in the world here; and, with Conway's vigilance to help, will do you good and not evil. Glad am I, in any case, to see so much new spiritual produce still ripening around you; and you ought to be glad, too. Pray Heaven you may long _keep your right hand_ steady: you, too, I can perceive, will never, any more than myself, learn to "write by dictation"

in a manner that will be supportable to you. I rejoice, also, to hear of such a magnificent adventure as that you are now upon.

Climbing the backbone of America; looking into the Pacific Ocean too, and the gigantic wonders going on there. I fear you won't see Brigham Young, however? He also to me is one of the products out there;--and indeed I may confess to you that the doings in that region are not only of a big character, but of a great;--and that in my occasional explosions against "Anarchy," and my inextinguishable hatred of _it,_ I privately whisper to myself, "Could any Friedrich Wilhelm, now, or Friedrich, or most perfect Governor you could hope to realize, guide forward what is America's essential task at present faster or more completely than 'anarchic America' herself is now doing?" _Such_ "Anarchy"

has a great deal to say for itself,--(would to Heaven ours of England had as much!)--and points towards grand _anti_-Anarchies in the future; in fact, I can already discern in it huge quant.i.ties of Anti-Anarchy in the "impalpable-powder" condition; and hope, with the aid of centuries, immense things from it, in my private mind!

Good Mrs. --- has never yet made her appearance; but shall be welcome whenever she does.

Did you ever hear the name of an aged, or elderly, fantastic fellow-citizen of yours, called J. Lee Bliss, who designates himself O.F. and A.K., i.e. "Old Fogey" and "Amiable Kuss"? He sent me, the other night, a wonderful miscellany of symbolical shreds and patches; which considerably amused me; and withal indicated good-will on the man's part; who is not without humor, in sight, and serious intention or disposition. If you ever did hear of him, say a word on the subject next time you write.

And above all things _write._ The instant you get home from California, or see this, let me hear from you what your adventures have been and what the next are to be. Adieu, dear Emerson.

Yours ever affectionately, T. Carlyle

Mrs. --- sends a note from Piccadilly this new morning (June 5th); _call_ to be made there today by Niece Mary, card left, etc., etc. Promises to be an agreeable Lady.

Did you ever hear of such a thing as this suicidal Finis of the French "Copper Captaincy"; gratuitous Attack on Germany, and ditto Blowing-up of Paris by its own hand! An event with meanings unspeakable,--deep as the. _Abyss._--

If you ever write to C. Norton in Italy, send him my kind remembrances.

--T. C. (with about the velocity of Engraving--on lead!)*

--------- * The letter was dictated, but the postscript, from the first signature, was written in a tremulous hand by Carlyle himself.

CLx.x.xVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 June, 1871

My Dear Carlyle,--'T is more than time that you should hear from me whose debts to you always acc.u.mulate. But my long journey to California ended in many distractions on my return home. I found Varioloid in my house... and I was not permitted to enter it for many days, and could only talk with wife, son, and daughter from the yard.... I had crowded and closed my Cambridge lectures in haste, and went to the land of Flowers invited by John M. Forbes, one of my most valued friends, father of my daughter Edith's husband. With him and his family and one or two chosen guests, the trip was made under the best conditions of safety, comfort, and company, I measuring for the first time one entire line of the Country.

California surprises with a geography, climate, vegetation, beasts, birds, fishes even, unlike ours; the land immense; the Pacific sea; Steam brings the near neighborhood of Asia; and South America at your feet; the mountains reaching the alt.i.tude of Mont Blanc; the State in its six hundred miles of lat.i.tude producing all our Northern fruits, and also the fig, orange, and banana. But the climate chiefly surprised me. The Almanac said April; but the day said June;--and day after day for six weeks uninterrupted suns.h.i.+ne. November and December are the rainy months. The whole Country, was covered with flowers, and all of them unknown to us except in greenhouses. Every bird that I know at home is represented here, but in gayer plumes.

On the plains we saw mult.i.tudes of antelopes, hares, gophers,-- even elks, and one pair of wolves on the plains; the grizzly bear only in a cage. We crossed one region of the buffalo, but only saw one captive. We found Indians at every railroad station,--the squaws and papooses begging, and the "bucks," as they wickedly call them, lounging. On our way out, we left the Pacific Railroad for twenty-four hours to visit Salt Lake; called on Brigham Young--just seventy years old--who received us with quiet uncommitting courtesy, at first,--a strong-built, self-possessed, sufficient man with plain manners. He took early occasion to remark that "the one-man-power really meant all- men's-power." Our interview was peaceable enough, and rather mended my impression of the man; and, after our visit, I read in the Descret newspaper his Speech to his people on the previous Sunday. It avoided religion, but was full of Franklinian good sense. In one point, he says: "Your fear of the Indians is nonsense. The Indians like the white men's food. Feed them well, and they will surely die." He is clearly a sufficient ruler, and perhaps civilizer of his kingdom of blockheads ad interim; but I found that the San Franciscans believe that this exceptional power cannot survive Brigham.

I have been surprised--but it is months ago--by a letter from Lacy Garbett, the Architect, whom I do not know, but one of whose books, about "Design in Architecture," I have always valued.

This letter, asking of me that Americans shall join Englishmen in a Pet.i.tion to Parliament against pulling down Ancient Saxon buildings, is written in a way so wild as to suggest insanity, and I have not known how to answer it. At my "Sat.u.r.day Club" in Boston I sat at dinner by an English lord,--whose name I have forgotten,--from whom I tried to learn what laws Parliament had pa.s.sed for the repairs of old religious Foundations, that could make them the victims of covetous Architects. But he a.s.sured me there were none such, and that he himself was President of a Society in his own County for the protection of such buildings.

So that I am left entirely in the dark in regard to the fact and Garbett's letter. He claims to speak both for Ruskin and himself.

I grieve to hear no better account of your health than your last letter gives. The only contradiction of it, namely, the power of your pen in this reproduction of thirty books,--and such books,-- is very important and very consoling to me. A great work to be done is the best insurance, and I sleep quietly, notwithstanding these sad bulletins,--believing that you cannot be spared.

Fare well, dear friend, R.W. Emerson

CLx.x.xIX. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 4 September, 1871

My Dear Carlyle,--I hope you will have returned safely from the Orkneys in time to let my son Edward W.E. see your face on his way through London to Germany, whither he goes to finish his medical studies,--no, not finish, but prosecute. Give him your blessing, and tell him what he should look for in his few days in London, and what in your Prussia. He is a good youth, and we can spare him only for this necessity. I should like well to accompany him as far as to your hearthstone, if only so I could persuade you that it is but a ten-days ride for you thence to mine,--a little farther than the Orkneys, and the outskirts of land as good, and bigger. I read gladly in your letters some relentings toward America,--deeper ones in your dealing with Harvard College; and I know you could not see without interest the immense and varied blossoming of our possibilities here,--of all nationalities, too, besides our own. I have heard from Mrs.

--- twice lately, who exults in your kindness to her.

Always affectionately, Yours, R.W. Emerson

CXC. Emerson to Carlyle

Baltimore, Md., 5 January, 1872

My Dear Carlyle,--I received from you through Mr. Chapman, just before Christmas, the last rich instalment of your Library Edition; viz. Vols. IV.-X. _Life of Friedrich;_ Vols. L-III.

_Translations from German;_ one volume General Index; eleven volumes in all,--and now my stately collection is perfect.

Perfect too is your Victory. But I clatter my chains with joy, as I did forty years ago, at your earliest gifts. Happy man you should be, to whom the Heaven has allowed such masterly completion. You shall wear your crown at the Pan-Saxon Games with no equal or approaching compet.i.tor in sight,--well earned by genius and exhaustive labor, and with nations for your pupils and praisers. I count it my eminent happiness to have been so nearly your contemporary, and your friend,--permitted to detect by its rare light the new star almost before the Easterners had seen it, and to have found no disappointment, but joyful confirmation rather, in coming close to its...o...b.. Rest, rest, now for a time; I pray you, and be thankful. Meantime, I know well all your perversities, and give them a wide berth. They seriously annoy a great many worthy readers, nations of readers sometimes,--but I heap them all as style, and read them as I read Rabelais's gigantic humors which astonish in order to force attention, and by and by are seen to be the rhetoric of a highly virtuous gentleman who _swears._ I have been quite too busy with fast succeeding _jobs_ (I may well call them), in the last year, to have read much in these proud books; but I begin to see daylight coming through my fogs, and I have not lost in the least my appet.i.te for reading,--resolve, with my old Harvard professor, "to retire and read the Authors."

I am impatient to deserve your grand Volumes by reading in them with all the haughty airs that belong to seventy years which I shall count if I live till May, 1873. Meantime I see well that you have lost none of your power, and I wish that you would let in some good Eckermann to dine with you day by day, and competent to report your opinions,--for you can speak as well as you can write, and what the world to come should know...