The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872 Volume II Part 9

Concord, 6 August, 1838

My Dear Friend,--The swift s.h.i.+ps are slow when they carry our letters. Your letter dated the 15th of June arrived here last Friday, the 3d of August. That day I was in Boston, and I have only now got the information necessary to answer it. You have probably already learned from my letter sent by the "Royal William" (enclosing a bill of exchange for L50), that our first two volumes of the _Miscellanies_ are published. I have sent you a copy. The edition consists of one thousand copies. Of these five hundred are bound, five hundred remain in sheets. The t.i.tle-pages, of course, are all printed alike; but the publishers a.s.sure me that new t.i.tle-pages can be struck off at a trifling expense, with the imprint of Saunders and Ottley. The cost of a copy in sheets or "folded" (if that means somewhat more?) is eighty-nine cents; and bound is $1.15. The retail price is $2.50 a copy; and the author's profit, $1; and the bookseller's, 35 cents per copy; according to my understanding of the written contract.

Here I believe you have all the material facts. I think there is no doubt that the book will sell very well here. But if, for the reasons you suggest, you wish any part of it, you can have it as soon as s.h.i.+ps can bring your will.

When you see your copy, you will perceive that we have printed half the matter. I should presently begin to print the remainder, inclusive of the Article on Lockhart's Scott, in two more volumes; but now I think I shall wait until I hear from you. Of those books we will print a larger edition, say twelve hundred and fifty or fifteen hundred, if you want a part of it in London. For I feel confident now that our public here is one thousand strong. Write me therefore _by the steam packet_ your wishes.

I am sure you will like our edition. It has been most carefully corrected by two young gentlemen who successively volunteered their services, (the second when the first was called away,) and who, residing in Cambridge, where the book was printed, could easilier oversee it. They are Henry S. McBean, an engineer, and Charles Stearns Wheeler, a Divinity student,--working both for love of you. To one other gentleman I have brought you in debt, --Rev. Convers Francis* (brother of Mrs. Child), who supplied from his library all the numbers of the _Foreign Review_ from which we printed the work. We could not have done without his books, and he is a n.o.ble-hearted man, who rejoices in you. I have sent to all three copies of the work as from you, and I shall be glad if you will remember to sanction this expressly in your next letter.

- * This worthy man and lover of good books was, from 1842 till his death in 1863, Professor in the Divinity School of Harvard University.

Thanks for the letter: thanks for your friendliest seeking of friends for the poor _Oration._ Poor little pamphlet, to have gone so far and so high! I am ashamed. I shall however send you a couple more of the thin gentry presently, maugre all your hopes and cautions. I have written and read a kind of sermon to the Senior Cla.s.s of our Cambridge Theological School a fortnight ago; and an address to the Literary Societies of Dartmouth College;*

for though I hate American pleniloquence, I cannot easily say No to young men who bid me speak also. And both these are now in press. The first I hear is very offensive. I will now try to hold my tongue until next winter. But I am asked continually when you will come to Boston. Your lectures are boldly and joyfully expected by brave young men. So do not forget us: and if ever the scale-beam trembles, I beseech you, let the love of me decide for America. I will not dare to tease you on a matter of so many relations, and so important, and especially as I have written out, I believe, my requests in a letter sent two or three months ago,--but I must see you somewhere, somehow, may it please G.o.d! I grieve to hear no better news of your wife. I hoped she was sound and strong ere this, and can only hope still. My wife and I send her our hearty love.

Yours affectionately, R.W. Emerson

-- * The Address at the Cambridge Divinity School was delivered on the 15th of July, and that at Dartmouth College on the 24th of the same month. The t.i.tle of the latter was "Literary Ethics."

Both are reprinted in Emerson's _Miscellanies._ These remarkable discourses excited deep interest and wide attention. They established Emerson's position as the leader of what was known as the Transcendental movement. They were the expressions of his inmost convictions and his matured thought. The Address at the Divinity School gave rise to a storm of controversy which did not disturb the serenity of its author. "It was," said Theodore Parker, "the n.o.blest, the most inspiring strain I ever listened to." To others it seemed "neither good divinity nor good sense."

The Address at Dartmouth College set forth the high ideals of intellectual life with an eloquence made irresistible by the character of the speaker. From this time Emerson's influence upon thought in America was acknowledged.

XXVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Scotsbrig, Ecclefechan, (Annandale, Scotland) 25 September, 1838

My Dear Emerson,--There cannot any right answer be written you here and now; yet I must write such answer as I can. You said, "by steams.h.i.+p"; and it strikes me with a kind of remorse, on this my first day of leisure and composure, that I have delayed so long. For you must know, this is my Mother's house,--a place to me unutterable as Hades and the Land of Spectres were; likewise that my Brother is just home from Italy, and on the wing thitherward or somewhither swiftly again; in a word, that all is confusion and flutter with me here,--fit only for _silence!_ My Wife sent me off hitherward, very sickly and unhappy, out of the London dust, several weeks ago; I lingered in Fifes.h.i.+re, I was in Edinburgh, in Roxburghs.h.i.+re; have some calls to c.u.mberland, which I believe I must refuse; and prepare to creep homeward again, refreshed in health, but with a head and heart all seething and tumbling (as the wont is, in such cases), and averse to pens beyond all earthly implements. But my Brother is off for Dumfries this morning; you before all others deserve an hour of my solitude. I will abide by business; one must write about that.

Your Bill and duplicate of a Bill for L50, with the two Letters that accompanied them, you are to know then, did duly arrive at Chelsea; and the larger Letter (of the 6th of August) was forwarded to me hither some two weeks ago. I had also, long before that, one of the friendliest of Letters from you, with a clear and most inviting description of the Concord Household, its inmates and appurtenances; and the announcement, evidently authentic, that an apartment and heart's welcome was ready there for my Wife and me; that we were to come quickly, and stay for a twelvemonth. Surely no man has such friends as I. We ought to say, May the Heavens give us thankful hearts! For, in truth, there are blessings which do, like sun-gleams in wild weather, make this rough life beautiful with rainbows here and there.

Indicating, I suppose, that there is a Sun, and general Heart of Goodness, behind all that;--for which, as I say again, let us be thankful evermore.

My Wife says she received your American Bill of so many pounds sterling for the Revolution Book, with a "pathetic feeling" which brought "tears" to her eyes. From beyond the waters there is a hand held out; beyond the waters too live brothers. I would only the Book were an Epic, a _Dante,_ or undying thing, that New England might boast in after times of this feat of hers; and put stupid, poundless, and penniless Old England to the blush about it! But after all, that is no matter; the feebler the well- meant Book is, the more "pathetic" is the whole transaction: and so we will go on, fuller than ever of "desperate hope" (if you know what that is), with a feeling one would not give and could not get for several money-bags; and say or think, Long live true friends and Emersons, and (in Scotch phrase) "May ne'er waur be amang us!"--I will buy something permanent, I think, out of this L50, and call it either _Ebenezer_ or _Yankee-doodle-doo._ May good be repaid you manifold, my kind Brother! may good be ever with you, my kind Friends all!

But now as to this edition of the _Miscellanies_ (poor things), I really think my Wife is wisest, who says I ought to leave you altogether to your own resources with it, America having an art of making money out of my Books which England is unfortunately altogether without. Besides, till I once see the Two Volumes now under way, and can let a Bookseller see them, there could no bargain be made on the subject. We will let it rest there, therefore. Go on with your second Two Volumes, as if there were no England extant, according to your own good judgment. When I get to London, I will consult some of the blockheads with the Book in my hand: if we do want Two Hundred copies, you can give us them with a trifling loss. It is possible they may make some better proposal about an Edition here: that depends on the fate of _Sartor_ here, at present trying itself; which I have not in the least ascertained. For the present, thank as is meet all friends in your world that have interested themselves for me.

Alas! I have nothing to give them but thanks. Henry McKean, Charles Wheeler, Convers Francis; these Names shall, if it please Heaven, become Persons for me, one day. Well!--But I will say nothing more. That too is of the things on which all Words are poor to Silence. Good to the Good and Kind!

A Letter from me must have crossed that _descriptive_ Concord one, on the Ocean, I think. Our correspondence is now standing on its feet. I will write to you again, whether I hear from you or not, so soon as my hand finds its cunning again in London,--so soon as I can see there what is to be done or said. All goes decidedly better, I think. My Wife was and is much healthier than last year, than in any late year. I myself get visibly quieter my preternatural _Meditations in Hades,_ apropos of this Annandale of mine, are calm compared with those of last year. By another Course of Lectures I have a fair prospect of living for another season; nay, people call it a "new profession" I have devised for myself, and say I may live by it as many years as I like. This too is partly the fruit of my poor Book; one should not say that it was worth nothing to me even in money. Last year I fancied my Audience mainly the readers of it; drawn round me, in spite of many things, by force of it. Let us be content. I have Jesuits, Swedenborgians, old Quakeresses, _omne c.u.m Proteus,_ --G.o.d help me, no man ever had so confused a public!--I salute you, my dear Friend, and your hospitable circle. May blessings be on your kind household, on your kind hearts!

--T. Carlyle

A copy of the English _Teufelsdrockh_ has lain with your name on it these two months in Chelsea; waiting an opportunity. It is worth nothing to you: a dingy, ill-managed edition; but correct or nearly correct as to printing; it is right that such should be in your hands in case of need. The New England Pamphlets will be greedily expected. More than one inquires of me, Has that Emerson of yours written nothing else? And I have lent them the little Book _Nature,_ till it is nearly thumbed to pieces.

Sterling is gone to Italy for the winter since I left town; swift as a flas.h.!.+ I cannot teach him the great art of _sitting still;_ his fine qualities are really like to waste for want of that.

I read your paragraph to Miss Martineau; she received it, as she was bound, with a good grace. But I doubt, I doubt, O Ralph Waldo Emerson, thou hast not been sufficiently ecstatic about her,--thou graceless exception, confirmatory of a rule! In truth there _are_ bores, of the first and of all lower magnitudes.

Patience and shuffle the cards.

XXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 17 October, 1838

My Dear Friend,--I am quite uneasy that I do not hear from you.

On the 21st of July I wrote to you and enclosed a remittance of L50 by a Bill of Exchange on Baring Brothers, drawn by Chandler, Howard, & Co., which was sent in the steamer "Royal William." On the 2d of August I received your letter of inquiry respecting our edition of the _Miscellanies,_ and wrote a few days later in reply, that we could send you out two or three hundred copies of our first two volumes, in sheets, at eighty-nine cents per copy of two volumes, and the small additional price of the new t.i.tle- page. I said also that I would wait until I heard from you before commencing the printing of the last two volumes of the _Miscellanies,_ and, if you desired it, would print any number of copies with a t.i.tle-page for London. This letter went in a steamer--he "Great Western" probably--about the 10th or 12th of August. (Perhaps I misremember the names [of the steamers], and the first should be last.) I have heard nothing from you since.

I trust my letters have not miscarried. (A third was sent also by another channel inclosing a duplicate of the Bill of Exchange.) With more fervency, I trust that all goes well in the house of my friend,--and I suppose that you are absent on some salutary errand of repairs and recreation. _Use, I pray you, your earliest_ hour in certifying me of the facts.

One word more in regard to business. I believe I expressed some surprise, in the July letter, that the booksellers should have no greater balance for us at this settlement. I have since studied the account better, and see that we shall not be disappointed in the year of obtaining at least the sum first promised,--seven hundred and sixty dollars; but the whole expense of the edition is paid out of the copies first sold, and our profits depend on the last sales. The edition is almost gone, and you shall have an account at the end of the year.

In a letter within a twelvemonth I have urged you to pay us a visit in America, and in Concord. I have believed that you would come one day, and do believe it. But if, on your part, you have been generous and affectionate enough to your friends here--or curious enough concerning our society--to wish to come, I think you must postpone, for the present, the satisfaction of your friends.h.i.+p and your curiosity. At this moment I would not have you here, on any account. The publication of my _Address to the Divinity College_ (copies of which I sent you) has been the occasion of an outcry in all our leading local newspapers against my "infidelity," "pantheism," and "atheism." The writers warn all and sundry against me, and against whatever is supposed to be related to my connection of opinion, &c.; against Transcendentalism, Goethe, and _Carlyle._ I am heartily sorry to see this last aspect of the storm in our washbowl. For, as Carlyle is nowise guilty, and has unpopularities of his own, I do not wish to embroil him in my parish differences. You were getting to be a great favorite with us all here, and are daily a greater with the American public, but just now, _in Boston,_ where I am known as your editor, I fear you lose by the a.s.sociation. Now it is indispensable to your right influence here, that you should never come before our people as one of a clique, but as a detached, that is, universally a.s.sociated man; so I am happy, as I could not have thought, that you have not yielded yourself to my entreaties. Let us wait a little until this foolish clamor be overblown. My position is fortunately such as to put me quite out of the reach of any real inconvenience from the panic-strikers or the panic-struck; and, indeed, so far as this uneasiness is a necessary result of mere inaction of mind, it seems very clear to me that, if I live, my neighbors must look for a great many more shocks, and perhaps harder to bear.

The article on German Religious Writers in the last _Foreign Quarterly Review_ suits our meridian as well as yours; as is plainly signified by the circ.u.mstance that our newspapers copy into their columns the opening tirade and _no more._ Who wrote that paper? And who wrote the paper on Montaigne in the _Westminster?_ I read with great satisfaction the Poems and Thoughts of Archaeus in _Blackwood._ "The s.e.xton's Daughter" is a beautiful poem: and I recognize in them all _the_ Soul, with joy and love. Tell me of the author's health and welfare; or, will not he love me so much as to write me a letter with his own hand? And tell me of yourself, what task of love and wisdom the Muses impose; and what happiness the good G.o.d sends to you and yours. I hope your wife has not forgotten me.

Yours affectionately, R.W. Emerson

The _Miscellanies,_ Vols. I. and II., are a popular book. About five hundred copies have been sold. The second article on Jean Paul works with might on the inner man of young men. I hate to write you letters on business and facts like this. There are so few Friends that I think some time I shall meet you nearer, for I love you more than is fit to say. W.H. Channing has written a critique on you, which I suppose he has sent you, in the _Boston Review._

XXIX. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London 7 November, 1838

My Dear Friend,--It is all right; all your Letters with their inclosures have arrived in due succession: the last, inquiring after the fate of the others, came this morning. I was in Scotland, as you partly conjecture; I wrote to you already (though not without blamable delay), from my Mother's house in Annandale, a confused scrawl, which I hope has already got to hand, and quieted your kind anxieties. I am as well as usual in health, my Wife better than usual; nothing is amiss, except my negligence and indolence, which has put you to this superfluous solicitude on my account. However, I have an additional Letter by it; you must pardon me, you must not grudge me that undeserved pleasure, the reward of evil-doing. I may well say, you are a blessing to me on this Earth; no Letter comes from you with other than good tidings,--or can come while you live there to love me.

The Bill was thrust duly into Baring's bra.s.s slit "for acceptance," on my return hither some three weeks ago; and will, no doubt, were the days of grace run, come out in the shape of Fifty Pounds Sterling; a very curious product indeed. Do you know what I think of doing with it? _Dyspepsia,_ my constant attendant in London, is incapable of help in my case by any medicine or appliance except one only, Riding on horseback. With a good horse to whirl me over the world for two hours daily, I used to keep myself supportably well. Here, the maintenance of a Horse far transcends my means; yet it seems hard I should not for a little while be in a kind of approximate health in this Babylon where I have my bread to seek it is like swimming with a millstone round your neck,--ah me! In brief, I am about half resolved to buy myself a sharp little nag with Twenty of these Transatlantic Pounds, and ride him till the other Thirty be eaten: I will call the creature "Yankee," and kind thoughts of those far away shall be with me every time I mount him. Will not that do? My Wife says it is the best plan I have had for years, and strongly urges it on. My kind friends!

As to those copies of the Carlyle Miscellanies, I unfortunately still can say nothing, except what was said in the former (Scotch) letter, that you must proceed in the business with an eye to America and not to us. My Booksellers, Saunders and Ottley, have no money for me, no definite offer in money to make for those Two Hundred copies, of which you seem likely to make money if we simply leave them alone. I have asked these Booksellers, I have asked Fraser too: What will you _give me in ready money_ for Two Hundred and Fifty copies of that work, sell it afterwards as you can? They answer always, We must see it first. Now the copy long ago sent me has never come to hand; I have asked for it of Kennet, but without success; I have nothing for it but to wait the winds and chances. Meanwhile Saunders and Ottley want forsooth a _Sketches of German Literature_ in three volumes: then a _Miscellanies_ in three volumes: that is their plan of publis.h.i.+ng an English edition; and the outlook they hold out for me is certain trouble in this matter, and recompense entirely uncertain. I think on the whole it is extremely likely I shall apply to you for Two Hundred and Fifty copies (that is their favorite number) of these four volumes, (nay, if it be of any moment, you can bind me down to it _now,_ and take it for sure,) but I cannot yet send you the t.i.tle-page; no bookseller purchasing till "we see it first." But after all, will it suit America to print an _unequal_ number of your two pairs of volumes? Do not the two together make one work? On the whole, consider that I shall in all likelihood want Two Hundred and Fifty copies, and consider it certain if that will serve the enterprise: we must leave it here today. I will stir in it now, however, and take no rest till in one way or other you do get a t.i.tle-page from me, or some definite deliverance on the matter. O Athenians, what a trouble I _give,_ having _got_ your applauses!

Kennet the Bookseller gave me yesterday (on my way to "the City"

with that Brother of mine, the Italian Doctor who is here at present and a great lover of yours) ten copies of your Dartmouth Oration: we read it over dinner in a chop-house in Bucklersbury, amid the clatter of some fifty stand of knives and forks; and a second time more leisurely at Chelsea here. A right brave Speech; announcing, in its own way, with emphasis of full conviction, to all whom it may concern, that great forgotten truth, _Man is still man._ May it awaken a pulsation under the ribs of Death! I believe the time is come for such a Gospel.

They must speak it out who have it,--with what audience there may be. I have given away two copies this morning; I will take care of the rest. Go on, and speed.--And now where is the heterodox Divinity one, which awakens such "tempest in a washbowl," brings Goethe, Transcendentalism, and Carlyle into question, and on the whole evinces "what [difference] New England also makes between _Pan_-theism and _Pot_-theism"? I long to see that; I expect to congratulate you on that too. Meanwhile we will let the washbowl storm itself out; and Emerson at Concord shall recognize it for a washbowl storming, and hold on his way. As to my share in it, grieve not for half an instant. Pantheism, Pottheism, Mydoxy, Thydoxy, are nothing at all to me; a weariness the whole jargon, which I avoid speaking of, decline listening to: _Live,_ for G.o.d's sake, with what Faith thou couldst get; leave off _speaking_ about Faith! Thou knowest it not. Be _silent,_ do not speak.--As to you, my friend, you are even to go on, giving still harder shocks if need be; and should I come into censure by means of you, there or here, think that I am proud of my company; that, as the boy Hazlitt said after hearing Coleridge, "I will go with that man"; or, as our wild Burns has it,

"Wi' sic as he, where'er he be, May I be saved or d.a.m.ned!"

Oime! what a foolish goose of a world this is! If it were not [for] here and there an articulate-speaking man, one would be all-too lonely.

This is nothing at all like the letter I meant to write you; but I will write again, I trust, in few days, and the first paragraph shall, if possible, hold all the business. I have much to tell you, which perhaps is as well not written. O that I did see you face to face! But the time shall come, if Heaven will. Why not you come over, since I cannot? There is a room here, there is welcome here, and two friends always. It must be done one way or the other. I will take, care of your messages to Sterling. He is in Florence; he was the Author of _Montaigne._* The _Foreign Quarterly_ Reviewer of _Strauss_ I take to be one Blackie, an Advocate in Edinburgh, a frothy, semi-confused disciple of mine and other men's; I guess this, but I have not read the Article: the man Blackie is from Aberdeen, has been roaming over Europe, and carries more sail than ballast. Brother John, spoken of above, is knocking at the door even now; he is for Italy again, we expect, in few days, on a better appointment: know that you have a third friend in him under this roof,--a man who quarrels with me all day in a small way, and loves me with the whole soul of him. My Wife demanded to have "room for one line." What she is to write I know not, except it be what she has said, holding up the pamphlet, "Is it not a n.o.ble thing? None of them all but he," &c., &c. I will write again without delay when the stray volumes arrive; before that if they linger. Commend me to all the kind household of Concord: Wife, Mother, and Son.

Ever yours, T. Carlyle