The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872 Volume II Part 10

* See _ante,_ p. 184. Sterling's essay on Montaigne was his first contribution, in 1837, to the _London and Westminster Review._ It is reprinted in "Essays and Tales, by John Sterling, collected and edited, with a Memoir of his Life, by Julius Charles Hare," London, 1848, Vol. I. p. 129.

_"Forgotten you?"_ O, no indeed! If there were nothing else to remember you by, I should never forget the Visitor, who years ago in the Desert descended on us, out of the clouds as it were, and made one day there look like enchantment for us, and left me weeping that it was only _one_ day. When I think of America, it is of you,--neither Harriet Martineau nor any one else succeeds in giving me a more extended idea of it. When I wish to see America it is still you, and those that are yours. I read all that you write with an interest which I feel in no other writing but my Husband's,--or it were nearer the truth to say there is no other writing of living men but yours and his that I _can_ read.

G.o.d Bless you and Weib and Kind. Surely I shall some day see you all.

Your affectionate Jane Carlyle

x.x.x. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 15 November, 1835

Dear Emerson,--Hardly above a week ago, I wrote you in immediate answer to some friendly inquiries produced by negligence of mine: the Letter is probably tumbling on the salt waves at this hour, in the belly of the "Great Western"; or perhaps it may be still on firm land waiting, in which case this will go along with it.

I had written before out of Scotland a Letter of mere acknowledgment and postponement; you must have received that before now, I imagine. Our small piece of business is now become articulate, and I will despatch it in a paragraph. Pity my stupidity that I did not put the thing on this footing long ago!

It never struck me till the other day that though no copy of our _Miscellanies_ would turn up for inspection here, and no Bookseller would bargain for a thing unseen, I myself might bargain, and leave their hesitations resting on their own basis. In fine, I have rejected all their schemes of printing _Miscellaneous Works_ here, printing _Sketches of German Literature,_ or printing anything whatever on the "half-profits system," which is like toilsomely scattering seed into the sea: and I settled yesterday with Fraser to give him the American sheets, and let them sell _themselves,_ on clear principles, or remain unsold if they like. I find it infinitely the best plan, and to all appearance the profitablest as to money that could have been devised for me.

What you have to do therefore is to get Two Hundred and Fifty copies (_in sheets_) of the whole Four Volumes, so soon as the second two are printed, and have them, with the proper t.i.tle- page, sent off hither to Fraser's address; the sooner the better. The American t.i.tle-page, instead of "Boston," &c. at the bottom, will require to bear, in three lines "London: / James Fraser, 215 Regent Street, / 1839." Fraser is anxious that you should not spell him with a z; your man can look on the Magazine and beware. I suppose also you should print _labels_ for the backs of the four volumes, to be used by the _half_-binder; they do the books in that way here now: but if it occasion any difficulty, never mind this; it was not spoken of to Fraser, and is my own conjecture merely; the thing can be managed in various other ways. Two Hundred and Fifty copies, then, of the entire book: there is nothing else to be attended to that you do not understand as well as I. Fraser will announce it in his Magazine: the eager, select public will wait. Probably, there is no chance before the middle of March or so? Do not hurry yourselves, or at all change your rate for _us:_ but so soon as the work is ready in the course of Nature, the earliest conveyance to the Port of London will bring a little cargo which one will welcome with a strange feeling! I declare myself delighted with the plan; an altogether romantic kind of plan, of romance and reality: fancy me riding on _Yankee_ withal, at the time, and considering what a curious world this is, that bakes bread for one beyond the great Ocean-stream, and how a poor man is not left after all to be trodden into the gutters, though the fight went sore against him, and he saw no backing anywhere.

_Allah akbar!_ G.o.d is great; no saying truer than that.--And so now, by the blessing of Heaven, we will talk no more of business this day.

My employments, my outlooks, condition, and history here, were a long chapter; on which I could like so well to talk with you face to face; but as for writing of them, it is a mere mockery.

In these four years, so full of pain and toil, I seem to have lived four decades. By degrees, the creature gets accustomed to its element; the salamander learns to live in fire, and be of the same temperature with it. Ah me! I feel as if grown old innumerable things are become weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable. And yet perhaps I am not old, only wearied, and there is a stroke or two of work in me yet. For the rest, the fret and agitation of this Babylon wears me down: it is the most unspeakable life; of sunbeams and miry clay; a contradiction which no head can reconcile. Pain and poverty are not wholesome; but praise and flattery along with them are poison: G.o.d deliver us from that; it carries madness in the very breath of it! On the whole, I say to myself, what thing is there so good as _rest?_ A sad case it is and a frequent one in my circle, to be entirely cherubic, _all_ face and wings. "Mes enfans," said a French gentleman to the cherubs in the Picture, "Mes enfans, a.s.seyez-vous?"--"Monseigneur," answer they, "il n'y a pas de quoi!" I rejoice rather in my laziness; proving that I _can_ sit.--But, after all, ought I not to be thankful? I positively can, in some sort, exist here for the while; a thing I had been for many years ambitious of to no purpose. I shall have to lecture again in spring, Heaven knows on what; it will be a wretched fever for me; but once through it there will be board wages for another year. The wild Ishmael can hunt in _this_ desert too, it would seem. I say, I will be thankful; and wait quietly what farther is to come, or whether anything farther.

But indeed, to speak candidly, I do feel sometimes as if another Book were growing in me,--though I almost tremble to think of it.

Not for this winter, O no! I will write an Article merely, or some such thing, and read trash if better be not. This, I do believe, is my horoscope for the next season: an Article on something about New-Year's-day (the Westminster Editor, a good- natured, admiring swan-goose from the North Country, will not let me rest); then Lectures; then--what? I am for some practical subject too; none of your pictures in the air, or _aesthetisches Zeug_ (as Mullner's wife called it, Mullner of the _Midnight Blade_): nay, I cannot get up the steam on any such best; it is extremely irksome as well as fruitless at present. In the next _Westminster Review,_ therefore, if you see a small scrub of a paper signed "S.P." on one Varnhagen a German, say that it is by "Simon Pure," or by "Scissars and Paste," or even by "Soaped Pig"--whom no man shall _catch!_ Truly it is a secret which you must not mention: I was driven to it by the Swan-goose above mentioned, not Mill but another. Let this suffice for my winter's history: may the summer be more productive.

As for Concord and New England, alas! my Friend, I should but deface your Idyllion with an ugly contradiction, did I come in such mood as mine is. I am older in years than you; but in humor I am older by centuries. What a hope is in that ever young heart, cheerful, healthful as the morning! And as for me, you have no conception what a crabbed, sulky piece of sorrow and dyspepsia I am grown; and growing, if I do not draw bridle. Let me gather heart a little! I have not forgotten Concord or the West; no, it lies always beautiful in the blue of the horizon, afar off and yet attainable; it is a great possession to me; should it even never be attained. But I have got to consider lately that it is you who are coming hither first. That is the right way, is it not? New England is becoming more than ever part of Old England; why, you are nearer to us now than Yorks.h.i.+re was a hundred years ago; this is literally a fact: you can come _without_ making your will. It is one of my calculations that all Englishmen from all zones and hemispheres will, for a good while yet, resort occasionally to the Mother- Babel, and see a thing or two there. Come if you dare; I said there was a room, house-room and heart-room, constantly waiting you here, and you shall see blockheads by the million.

_Pickwick_ himself shall be visible; innocent young d.i.c.kens reserved for a questionable fate. The great Wordsworth shall talk till you yourself p.r.o.nounce him to be a bore. Southey's complexion is still healthy mahogany-brown, with a fleece of white hair, and eyes that seem running at full gallop. Leigh Hunt, "man of genius in the shape of a c.o.c.kney," is my near neighbor, full of quips and cranks, with good humor and no common sense. Old Rogers with his pale head, white, bare, and cold as snow, will work on you with those large blue eyes, cruel, sorrowful, and that sardonic shelf-chin:--This is the Man, O Rogers, that wrote the German Poetry in American Prose; consider him well!--But whither am I running? My sheet is done! My Brother John returns again almost immediately to Italy. He has got appointed Traveling Doctor to a certain Duke of Buccleuch, the chief of our Scotch Dukes: an excellent position for him as far as externals go. His departure will leave me lonelier; but I must reckon it for the best: especially I must begin working.

Harriet Martineau is coming hither this evening; with beautiful enthusiasm for the Blacks and others. She is writing a Novel.

The first American book proved generally rather wearisome, the second not so; we have since been taught (not I) "How to observe." Suppose you and I promulgate a treatise next, "How to see"? The old plan was, to have a pair of _eyes _first of all, and then to open them: and endeavor with your whole strength to _look._ The good Harriet! But "G.o.d," as the Arabs say, "has given to every people a Prophet (or Poet) in its own speech": and behold now Unitarian mechanical Formalism was to have its Poetess too; and stragglings of genius were to spring up even through that like gra.s.s through a Macadam highway!--Adieu, my Friend, I wait still for your heterodox Speech; and love you always.

--T. Carlyle

An English _Sartor_ goes off to you this day; through Kennet, to C.C. Little and J. Brown of Boston; the likeliest conveyance.

It is correctly printed, and that is all. Its fate here (the fate of the publication, I mean) remains unknown; "unknown and unimportant."

x.x.xI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 2 December, 1838

My Dear Emerson,--Almost the very day after my last Letter went off, the long-expected two volumes of _Miscellanies_ arrived.

The heterodox pamphlet has never yet come to hand. I am now to write you again about that _Miscellany_ concern the fourth letter, I do believe; but it is confirmatory of the foregoing three, and will be the last, we may hope.

Fraser is charmed with the look of your two volumes; declares them unsurpa.s.sable by art of his; and wishes (what is the main part of this message) that you would send his cargo in the _bound_ state, bound and lettered as these are, with the sole difference that the leaves be _not_ cut, or shaved on the sides, our English fas.h.i.+on being to have them _rough._ He is impatient that the Book were here; desires further that it be sent to the Port of London rather than another Port, and that it be packed in _boxes_ "to keep the covers of the volumes safe,"--all which I doubt not the Packers and the s.h.i.+ppers of New England have dexterity enough to manage for the best, without desire of his.

If you have printed off nothing yet, I will desire for my own behoof that Two hundred and _Sixty_ be the number sent; I find I shall need some ten to give away: if your first sheet is printed off, let the number stand as it was. It would be an improvement if you could print our t.i.tle-pages on paper a little stronger; that would stand ink, I mean: the fly leaves in the same, if you have such paper convenient; if not, not. Farther as to the matter of the t.i.tle-page, it seems to me your Printer might give a bolder and a broader type to the words "Critical and Miscellaneous," and add after "Essays" with a colon (:), the line "Collected and Republished," with a colon also; then the "By," &c. "In Four Volumes, Vol. I.," &c. I mean that we want, in general, a little more ink and decisiveness: show your man the t.i.tle-page of the English _French Revolution,_ or look at it your self, and you will know. R.W.E.'s "Advertis.e.m.e.nt," friendly and good, as all his dealings are to me ward, will of course be suppressed in the English copies. I see not that with propriety I can say anything by way of subst.i.tute: silence and the New England _imprint_ will tell the story as eloquently as there is need.

For the rest you must tell Mr. Loring, and all men who had a hand in it along with you, that I am altogether right well pleased with this edition, and find it far beyond my expectation. To my two young Friends, Henry S. McKean (be so good as write these names more indisputably for me) and Charles Stearns Wheeler, in particular, I will beg you to express emphatically my grat.i.tude; they have stood by me with right faithfulness, and made the correctest printing; a _great_ service had I known that there were such eyes and heads acting in behalf of me there, I would have sc.r.a.ped out the Editorial blotches too (notes of admiration, dashes, "We think"s, &c., &c., common in Jeffrey's time in the _Edinburgh Review_) and London misprints; which are almost the only deformities that remain now. It is _extremely_ correct printing wherever I have looked, and many things are silently amended; it is the most fundamental service of all. I have not the other _Articles_ by me at present; I think they are of themselves a little more correct; at all events there are nothing but _misprints_ to deal with;--the Editors, by this time, had got bound up to let me alone. In the _Life of Scott,_ fourth page of it (p. 296 of our edition), there is a sentence to be deleted. "It will tell us, say they, little new and nothing pleasing to know": out with this, for it is nonsense, and was marked for erasure in the ma.n.u.script, I dare say. I know with certainty no more at present.

Fraser is to sell the Four Volumes at Two Guineas here. On studying accurately your program of the American mercantile method, I stood amazed to contrast it with our English one. The Bookseller here admits that he could, by diligent bargaining, get up such a book for something like the same cost or a _little_ more; but the "laws of the trade" deduct from the very front of the selling price--how much think you--_forty percent_ and odd, when your man has only _fifteen;_ for the mere act of vending!

To cover all, they charge that enormous price. (A man, while I stood consulting with Fraser, came in and asked for Carlyle's _Revolution;_ they showed it him, he asked the price; and exclaimed, "Guinea and a half! I can get it from America for nine s.h.i.+llings!" and indignantly went his way; not without reason.) There are "laws of the trade" which ought to be _repealed;_ which I will take the liberty of contravening to all lengths by all opportunities--if I had but the power! But if this joint-stock American plan prosper, it will answer rarely.

Fraser's first _French Revolution,_ for instance, will be done, he calculates, about New-Year's-day; and a second edition wanted; mine to do with what I like. If you in America wanted more also--? I leave you to think of this.--And now enough, enough!

My Brother went from us last Tuesday; ought to be in Paris yesterday. I am yet writing nothing; feel forsaken, sad, sick, --not unhappy. In general Death seems beautiful to me; sweet and great. But Life also is beautiful, is great and divine, were it never to be joyful any more. I read Books, my wife sewing by me, with the light of a sinumbra, in a little apartment made snug against the winter; and am happiest when all men leave me alone, or nearly all,--though many men love me rather, ungrateful that I am. My present book is _Horace Walpole;_ I get endless stuff out of it; epic, tragic, lyrical, didactic: all inarticulate indeed. An old blind Schoolmaster in Annan used to ask with endless anxiety when a new scholar was offered him, "But are ye sure _he's not a Dunce?_" It is really the one thing needful in a man; for indeed (if we will candidly understand it) all else is presupposed in that. Horace Walpole is no dunce, not a fibre of him is duncish.

Your Friend Sumner was here yesterday, a good while, for the first time: an ingenious, cultivated, courteous man; a little sensitive or so, and with no other fault that I discerned. He borrowed my copy of your Dartmouth business, and bound himself over to return with it soon. Some approve of that here, some condemn: my Wife and another lady call it better even than the former, I not so good. And now the Heterodox, the Heterodox, where is that? Adieu, my dear Friend. Commend me to the Concord Household; to the little Boy, to his Grandmother, and Mother, and Father; we must all meet some day,--or _some no-day_ then (as it shall please G.o.d)! My Wife heartily greets you all.

Ever yours, T. Carlyle

I sent your book, message, and address to Sterling; he is in Florence or Rome. Read the article _Simonides_ by him in the _London and Westminster_--brilliant prose, translations--wooden?

His signature is L (Pounds Sterling!).--_Now_ you are to write _soon?_ I always forgot to tell you, there came long since two packages evidently in your hand, marked "One printed sheet," and "one Newspaper," for which the Postman demanded about Fifteen s.h.i.+llings: _rejected._ After considerable correspondence the Newspaper was again offered me at _ten pence;_ the _sheet_ unattainable altogether: "No," even at tenpence. The fact is, it was wrong wrapped, that Newspaper. Leave it open at the ends, and try me again, once; I think it will come almost gratis.

Steam and Iron are making all the Planet into one Village.--A Mr.

Dwight wrote to me about the dedicating of some German translations: _Yes._ What are they or he?*--Your _Sartor_ is off through Kennet. Could you send me two copies of the American _Life of Schiller,_ if the thing is fit for making a present of, and easy to be got? If not, do not mind it at all.--Addio!

---- * Mr. John S. Dwight, whose volume of _Select Minor Poems from the German of Goethe and Schiller,_ published in 1839, was dedicated to Carlyle. It was the third volume of _Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature, edited by George Ripley. Beside Mr.

Dwight's own excellent versions, it contained translations by Mr.

Bancroft, Dr. Hedge, Dr. Frothingham, and others. For many years Mr. Dwight rendered a notable public service as the editor of _Dwight's Journal of Music,_--a publication which did more than any other to raise and to maintain high the standard of musical taste and culture in America.

x.x.xII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 13 January, 1839

My Dear Friend,--I am not now in any Condition to write a letter, having neither the facts from the booksellers which you would know touching our future plans, nor yet a satisfactory account balanced and settled of our past dealings; and lastly, no time to write what I would say,--as my poor lectures are in full course, and absorb all my wits; but as the "Royal William" will not wait, and as I have a hundred pounds to send on account of the sales of the _French Revolution,_ I must steal a few minutes to send my salutation. I have received all your four good letters: and you are a good and generous man to write so many.

Two came on the 2d and 3d of January, and the last on the 9th.

If the bookselling Munroe had answered me yesterday, as he ought, I should be able to satisfy you as to the time when to expect our cargo of _Miscellanies._ The third and fourth volumes are now printing: 't is a fortnight since we began. You shall have two hundred and fifty copies,--I am not quite sure you can have more,--bound, and _ent.i.tled,_ and directed as you desire, at least according to the best ability of our printer as far as the typography is concerned, and we will speed the work as fast as we can; but as we have but a single copy of _Fraser's Magazine_--we do not get on rapidly. The _French Revolution_ was all sold more than a month since. We should be glad of more copies, but the bookseller thinks not of enough copies to justify a new edition yet. I should not be surprised, however, to see that some bold brother of the trade had undertaken it. Now, what does your question point at in reference to your new edition, asking "if we want more"? Could you send us out a part of your edition at American prices, and at the same time to your advantage? I wish I knew the precise answer to this question, then perhaps I could keep all pirates out of our bay.

I shall convey in two days your message to Stearns Wheeler, who is now busy in correcting the new volumes. He is now Greek Tutor in Harvard College.*--Kindest thanks to Jane Carlyle for her generous remembrances, which I will study to deserve. Has the heterodoxy arrived in Chelsea, and quite destroyed us even in the charity of our friend? I am sorry to have worried you so often about the summer letter. Now am I your debtor four times. The parish commotion, too, has long ago subsided here, and my course of Lectures on "Human Life" finds a full attendance. I wait for the coming of the _Westminster,_ which has not quite yet arrived here, though I have seen the London advertis.e.m.e.nt. It sounds prosperously in my ear what you say of Dr. Carlyle's appointments. I was once very near the man in Rome, but did not see him. I will atone as soon as I can for this truncated epistle. You must answer it immediately, so far as to acknowledge the receipt of the enclosed bill of exchange, and soon I will send you the long promised _account_ of the _French Revolution,_ and also such moral account of the same as is over due.

Yours affectionately, R.W. Emerson

* This promising young scholar edited with English notes the first American edition of Herodotus. He went to Europe to pursue his studies, and died, greatly regretted, at Rome, of a fever, in 1848.

x.x.xIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 8 February, 1859