The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872 Volume II Part 14

I cannot tell you how glad I am that you have seen my brave Senator, and seen him as I see him. All my days I have wished that he should go to England, and never more than when I listened two or three times to debates in the House of Commons. We send out usually mean persons as public agents, mere partisans, for whom I can only hope that no man with eyes will meet them; and now those thirsty eyes, those portrait-eating, portrait-painting eyes of thine, those fatal perceptions, have fallen full on the great forehead which I followed about all my young days, from court-house to senate-chamber, from caucus to street. He has his own sins no doubt, is no saint, is a prodigal. He has drunk this rum of Party too so long, that his strong head is soaked, sometimes even like the soft sponges, but the "man's a man for a'

that." Better, he is a great boy,--as wilful, as nonchalant and good-humored. But you must hear him speak, not a show speech which he never does well, but _with cause_ he can strike a stroke like a smith. I owe to him a hundred fine hours and two or three moments of Eloquence. His voice in a great house is admirable.

I am sorry if you decided not to visit him. He loves a _man,_ too. I do not know him, but my brother Edward read law with him, and loved him, and afterwards in sick and unfortunate days received the steadiest kindness from him.

Well, I am glad you are to think in earnest in Scotland of our Cisatlantic claims. We shall have more rights over the wise and brave, I believe before many years or months. We shall have more men and a better cause than has yet moved on our stagnant waters.

I think our Church, so called, must presently vanish. There is a universal timidity, conformity, and rage; and on the other hand the most resolute realism in the young. The man Alcott bides his time. I have a young poet in this village named Th.o.r.eau, who writes the truest verses. I pine to show you my treasures; and tell your wife, we have women who deserve to know her.

--R.W. Emerson

The Yankees read and study the new volumes of _Miscellanies_ even more than the old. The "Sam Johnson" and "Scott" are great favorites. Stearns Wheeler corrected proofs affectionately to the last. Truth and Health be with you alway!

XLVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Scotsbrig, Ecclefechan, 4 September, 1839

Dear Emerson,--A cheerful and right welcome Letter of yours, dated 4th July, reached me here, duly forwarded, some three weeks ago; I delayed answering till there could some definite statement, as to bales of literature s.h.i.+pped or landed, or other matter of business forwarded a stage, be made. I am here, with my Wife, rusticating again, these two months; amid diluvian rains, Chartism, Teetotalism, deficient harvest, and general complaint and confusion; which not being able to mend, all that I can do is to heed them as little as possible. "What care I for the house? I am only a lodger." On the whole, I have sat under the wing of Saint Swithin; uncheery, sluggish, murky, as the wettest of his Days;--hoping always, nevertheless, that blue sky, figurative and real, does exist, and will demonstrate itself by and by. I have been the stupidest and laziest of men. I could not write even to you, till some palpable call told me I must.

Yesternight, however, there arrives a despatch from Fraser, apprising me that the American _Miscellanies,_ second cargo, are announced from Portsmouth, and "will probably be in the River tomorrow"; where accordingly they in all likelihood now are, a fair landing and good welcome to them! Fraser "knows not whether they are bound or not"; but will soon know. The first cargo, of which I have a specimen here, contented him extremely; only there was one fatality, the cloth of the binding was multiplex, party-colored, some sets done in green, others in red, blue, perhaps skyblue! Now if the second cargo were not multiplex, party-colored, nay multiplex, _in exact concordance with the first,_ as seemed almost impossible--?--Alas, in that case, one could not well predict the issue!--Seriously, it is a most handsome Book you have made; and I have nothing to return but thanks and again thanks. By the bye, if you do print a small second edition of the First Portion, I might have had a small set of errata ready: but _where are they?_ The Book only came into my hand here a few days ago; and I have been whipt from post to pillar without will of my own, without energy to form a will! The only glaring error I recollect at this moment is one somewhere in the second article on _Jean Paul:_ "Osion" (I think, or some such thing) instead of "Orson": it is not an original American error, but copied from the English; if the Printer get his eye upon it, let him rectify; if not, not, I _deserve_ to have it stand against me there. Fraser's joy, should the Books prove either unbound or multiplex in the right way, will be great and unalloyed; he calculates on selling all the copies very soon. He has begun reprinting Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_ too, the _Apprentices.h.i.+p_ and _Travels_ under one; and hopes to remunerate himself for that by and by: whether there will then remain any small peculium for me is but uncertain; meanwhile I correct the press, nothing doubting. One of these I call my best Translation, the other my worst; I have read that latter, the _Apprentices.h.i.+p,_ again in these weeks; not without surprise, disappointment, nay, aversion here and there, yet on the whole with ever new esteem. I find I can pardon _all_ things in a man except purblindness, falseness of vision,--for, indeed, does not that presuppose every other kind of falseness?

But let me hasten to say that the _French Revolution,_ five hundred strong for the New England market, is also, as Fraser advises, "to go to sea in three days." It is bound in red cloth, gilt; a pretty book, James says; which he will sell for twenty-five s.h.i.+llings here;--nay, the London brotherhood have "subscribed" for one hundred and eighty at once, which he considers great work. I directed him to consign to Little and Brown in Boston, the _property_ of the thing _yours,_ with such phraseology and formalities as they use in those cases. I paid him for it yesterday (to save discount) L95; that is the whole cost to me, twenty or thirty pounds more than was once calculated on. Do the best with it you can, my friend; and never mind the result. If the thing fail, as is likely enough, we will simply quit that transport trade, and my experience must be _paid for._ The t.i.tle-page was "Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown,"

then in a second line and smaller type, "London James Fraser"; to which arrangement James made not the slightest objection, or indeed rather seemed to like it.--So much for trade matters: is it not _enough?_ I declare I blush sometimes, and wonder where the good Emerson gets all his patience. We shall be through the affair one day, and find something better to speak about than dollars and pounds. And yet, as you will say, why not even of dollars? Ah, there are leaden-worded [bills] of exchange I have seen which have had an almost sacred character to me!

_Pauca verba._

Doubt not your new utterances are eagerly waited for here; above all things the "Book" is what I want to see. You might have told me what it was about. We shall see by and by. A man that has discerned somewhat, and knows it for himself, let him speak it out, and thank Heaven. I pray that they do not confuse you by praises; their blame will do no harm at all. Praise is sweet to all men; and yet alas, alas, if the light of one's own heart go out, bedimmed with poor vapors and sickly false glitterings and flas.h.i.+ngs, what profit is it! Happier in darkness, in all manner of mere outward darkness, misfortune and neglect, "so that _thou canst endure,_"--which however one cannot to all lengths. G.o.d speed you, my Brother! I hope all good things of you; and wonder whether like Phoebus Apollo you are destined to be a youth forever.--Sterling will be right glad to hear your praises; not unmerited, for he is a man among millions that John of mine, though his perpetual mobility wears me out at times. Did he ever write to you? His latest speculation was that he should and would; but I fancy it is among the clouds again. I hear from him the other day, out of Welsh villages where he pa.s.sed his boyhood, &c., all in a flow of "lyrical recognition," hope, faith, and sanguine unrest; I have even some thoughts of returning by Bristol (in a week or so, that must be), and seeing him. The dog has been reviewing me, he says, and it is coming out in the next _Westminster!_ He hates terribly my doctrine of _"Silence."_ As to America and lecturing, I cannot in this torpid condition venture to say one word. Really it is not impossible; and yet lecturing is a thing I shall never grow to like; still less lionizing, Martineau-ing: _Ach Gott!_ My Wife sends a thousand regards; _she_ will never get across the ocean, you must come to her; she was almost _dead_ crossing from Liverpool hither, and declares she will never go to sea for any purpose whatsoever again. Never till next time! My good old Mother is here, my Brother John (home with his Duke from Italy); all send blessings and affection to you and yours. Adieu till I get to London.

Yours ever, T. Carlyle

XLVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 8 December, 1839

My Dear Emerson,--What a time since we have written to one another! was it you that defalcated? Alas, I fear it was myself; I have had a feeling these nine or ten weeks that you were expecting to hear from me; that I absolutely could not write.

Your kind gift of Fuller's _Eckermann_* was handed in to our Hackney coach, in Regent Street, as we wended homewards from the railway and Scotland, on perhaps the 8th of September last; a welcome memorial of distant friends and doings: nay, perhaps there was a Letter two weeks prior to that:--I am a great sinner!

But the truth is, I could not write; and now I can and do it!

- * "Conversations with Goethe. Translated from the German of Eckermann. By S.M. Fuller." Boston, 1839. This was the fourth volume in the series of "Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature," edited by George Ripley. The book has a characteristic Preface by Miss Fuller, in which she speaks of Carlyle as "the only competent English critic" of Goethe.

Our sojourn in Scotland was stagnant, sad; but tranquil, _well let alone,_--an indispensable blessing to a poor creature fretted to fiddle-strings, as I grow to be in this Babylon, take it as I will. We had eight weeks of desolate rain; with about eight days bright as diamonds intercalated in that black monotony of bad weather. The old Hills are the same; the old Streams go gus.h.i.+ng along as in past years, in past ages; but he that looks on them is no longer the same: and the old Friends, where are they? I walk silent through my old haunts in that country; sunk usually in inexpressible reflections, in an immeasurable chaos of musings and mopings that cannot be reflected or articulated. The only work I had on hand was one that would not prosper with me: an Article for the _Quarterly Review_ on the state of the Working Cla.s.ses here. The thoughts were familiar to me, old, many years old; but the utterance of them, in what spoken dialect to utter them! The _Quarterly Review_ was not an eligible vehicle, and yet the eligiblest; of Whigs, abandoned to Dilettantism and withered sceptical conventionality, there was no hope at all; the _London-and-Westminster_ Radicals, wedded to their Benthamee Formulas, and tremulous at their own shadows, expressly rejected my proposal many months ago: Tories alone remained; Tories I often think have more stuff in them, in spite of their blindness, than any other cla.s.s we have;--Walter Scott's _sympathy_ with his fellow creatures, what is it compared with Sydney Smith's, with a Poor Law Commissioner's! Well: this thing would not prosper with me in Scotland at all; nor here at all, where nevertheless I had to persist writing; writing and burning, and cursing my destiny, and then again writing. Finally the thing came out, as an Essay on _Chartism;_ was shown to Lockhart, according to agreement; was praised by him, but was also found unsuitable by him; suitable to _explode_ a whole fleet of Quarterlies into sky-rockets in these times! And now Fraser publishes it himself, with some additions, as a little Volume; and it will go forth in a week or two on its own footing; and England will see what she has to say to it, whether something or nothing; and one man, as usual, is right glad that he has nothing more to do with it.

This is the reason why I could not write. I mean to send you the Proof-sheets of this thing, to do with as you see cause; there will be but some five or six, I think. It is probable my New England brothers may approve some portions of it; may be curious to see it reprinted; you ought to say Yes or No in regard to that. I think I will send all the sheets together; or at farthest, at two times.

Fraser, when we returned hither, had already received his _Miscellanies;_ had about despatched his five hundred _French Revolutions,_ insured and so, forth, consigned, I suppose, to your protection and the proper booksellers; probably they have got over from New York into your neighborhood before now. Much good may they do you! The _Miscellanies,_ with their variegated binding, proved to be in perfect order; and are now all sold; with much regret from poor James that we had not a thousand more of them! This thousand he now sets about providing by his own industry, poor man; I am revising the American copy in these days; the printer is to proceed forthwith. I admire the good Stearns Wheeler as I proceed; I write to him my thanks by this post, and send him by Kennet a copy of Goethe's _Meister,_ for symbol of acknowledgment. Another copy goes off for you, to the care of Little and Company. Fraser has got it out two weeks ago; a respectable enough book, now that the version is corrected somewhat. Tell me whether you dislike it less; what you do think of it? By the by, have you not learned to read German now?

I rather think you have. It is three months spent well, if ever months were, for a thinking Englishman of this age.--I hope Kennet will use more despatch than he sometimes does. Thank Heaven for these Boston Steamers they project! May the Nereids and Poseidon favor them! They will bring us a thousand miles nearer, at one step; by and by we shall be of one parish after all.

During Autumn I speculated often about a Hegira into New England this very year: but alas! my horror of _Lecturing_ continues great; and what else is there for me to do there? These several years I have had no wish so pressing as to hold my peace. I begin again to feel some use in articulate speech; perhaps I shall one day have something that I want to utter even in your side of the water. We shall see. Patience, and shuffle the cards.--I saw no more of Webster; did not even learn well where he was, till lately I noticed in the Newspapers that he had gone home again. A certain Mr. Brown (I think) brought me a letter from you, not long since; I forwarded him to Cambridge and Scotland: a modest inoffensive man. He said he had never personally met with Emerson. My Wife recalled to him the story of the Scotch Traveler on the top of Vesuvius: "Never saw so beautiful a scene in the world!"--"Nor I," replied a stranger standing there, "except once; on the top of Dunmiot, in the Ochil Hills in Scotland."--"Good Heavens! That is a part of my Estate, and I was never there! I will go thither." Yes, do!--We have seen no other Transoceanic that I remember. We expect your _Book_ soon! We know the subject of your Winter Lectures too; at least Miss Martineau thinks she does, and makes us think so.

Heaven speed the work! Heaven send my good Emerson a clear utterance, in all right ways, of the n.o.bleness that dwells in him! He knows what silence means; let him know speech also, in its season the two are like canvas and pigment, like darkness and light-image painted thereon; the one is essential to the other, not possible without the other.

Poor Miss Martineau is in Newcastle-on-Tyne this winter; sick, painfully not dangerously; with a surgical brother-in-law. Her meagre didacticalities afflict me no more; but also her blithe friendly presence cheers me no more. We wish she were back.

This silence, I calculate, forced silence, will do her much good.

If I were a Legislator, I would order every man, once a week or so, to lock his lips together, and utter no vocable at all for four-and-twenty hours: it would do him an immense benefit, poor fellow. Such racket, and cackle of mere hearsay and sincere-cant, grows at last entirely deafening, enough to drive one mad, --like the voice of mere infinite rookeries answering your voice! Silence, silence! Sterling sent you a Letter from Clifton, which I set under way here, having added the address.

He is not well again, the good Sterling; talks of Madeira this season again: but I hope otherwise. You of course read his sublime "article"? I tell him it was--a thing untellable!

Mr. Southey has fallen, it seems, into a mournful condition: oblivion, mute hebetation, loss of all faculty. He suffered greatly, nursing his former wife in her insanity, for years till her relief by death; suffered, worked, and made no moan; the brunt of the task over, he sank into collapse in the hands of a new wife he had just wedded. What a lot for him; for her especially! The most excitable but most methodic man I have ever seen. [Greek] that is a word that awaits us all.--I have my brother here at present; though talking of Lisbon with his Buccleuchs. My Wife seems better than of late winters. I actually had a Horse, nay actually have it, though it has gone to the country till the mud abate again! It did me perceptible good; I mean to try it farther. I am no longer so desperately poor as I have been for twelve years back; sentence of starvation or beggary seems revoked at last, a blessedness really very considerable. Thanks, thanks! We send a thousand regards to the two little ones, to the two mothers. _Valete nostrum memores._

--T. Carlyle

XLVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 12 December, 1839

My Dear Friend,--Not until the 29th of November did the five hundred copies of the _French Revolution_ arrive in Boston.

Fraser unhappily sent them to New York, whence they came not without long delays. They came in perfectly good order, not in the pretty red you told us of, but in a sober green;--not so handsome and salable a back, our booksellers said, as their own; but in every other respect a good book. The duties at the New York Custom House on these and a quant.i.ty of other books sent by Fraser amounted to $400.36, whereof, I understand, the _French Revolution_ pays for its share $243. No bill has been brought us for freight, so we conclude that you have paid it. I confided the book very much to the conscience and discretion of Little and Brown, and after some ciphering they settle to sell it at $3.75 per copy, wherefrom you are to get the cost of the book, and (say) $1.10 per copy profit, and no more. The booksellers eat the rest. The book is rather too dear for our market of cheap manufactures, and therefore we are obliged to give the booksellers a good percentage to get it off at all: for we stand in daily danger of a cheap edition from some rival neighbor. I hope to give you good news of its sale soon, although I have been a.s.sured today that no book sells, the times are so bad. Brown had disposed of fifty or sixty copies to the trade, and twelve at retail. He doubted not to sell them all in six months....

Several persons have asked me to get some copies of the _German Romance_ sent over here for sale. Last week a gentleman desired me to say he wanted four copies, and today I have been charged to procure another. I think, if you will send me by Little and Brown, through Longman, six copies, we can find an immediate market.

It gives me great joy to write to my friend once more, slow as you may think me to use the privilege. For a good while I dared believe you were coming hither, and why should I write?--and now for weeks I have been absorbed in my foolish lectures, of which only two are yet delivered and ended. There should be eight more; subject, "The Present Age." Out of these follies I remember you with glad heart. Lately I had Sterling's letter, which, since I have read his article on you, I am determined to answer speedily. I delighted in the spirit of that paper, loving you so well and accusing you so conscientiously. What does he at Clifton? If you communicate with him, tell him I thank him for his letter, and hold him dear. I am very happy lately in adding one or two new friends to my little circle, and you may be sure every friend of mine is a friend of yours. So when you come here you shall not be lonely. A new person is always to me a great event, and will not let me sleep.--I believe I was not wise to volunteer myself to this fever fit of lecturing again. I ought to have written instead in silence and serenity. Yet I work better under this base necessity, and then I have a certain delight (base also?) in speaking to a mult.i.tude. But my joy in friends, those sacred people, is my consolation for the mishaps of the adventure, and they for the most part come to me from this _publication_ of myself.--After ten or twelve weeks I think I shall address myself earnestly to writing, and give some form to my formless scripture.

I beg you will write to me and tell me what you do, and give me good news of your wife and your brother. Can they not see the necessity of your coming to look after your American interests?

My wife and mother love both you and them. A young man of New York told me the other day he was about getting you an invitation from an a.s.sociation in that city to give them a course of lectures on such terms as would at least make you whole in the expenses of coming thither. We could easily do that in Boston.

--R.W. Emerson

What manner of person is Heraud? Do you read Landor, or know him, O seeing man? Farewell!

XLIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 6 January, 1840

My Dear Emerson,--It is you, I surely think, that are in my debt now;* nevertheless I must fling you another word: may it cross one from you coming hither--as near the _Lizard Point_ as it likes!

* The preceding letter had not yet arrived.

Some four sheets making a Pamphlet called _Chartism_ addressed to you at Concord are, I suppose, snorting along through the waters this morning, part of the Cargo of the "British Queen." At least I gave them to Mr. Brown (your unseen friend) about ten days ago, who promised to dispose of them; the "British Queen," he said, was the earliest chance. The Pamphlet itself (or rather booklet, for Fraser has gilt it, &c., and asks five s.h.i.+llings for it as a Book) is out since then; radicals and others yelping considerably in a discordant manner about it; I have nothing other to say to _you_ about it than what I said last time, that the sheets were _yours_ to do with as you saw good,--to burn if you reckoned that fittest. It is not entirely a Political Pamphlet; nay, there are one or two things in it which my American Friends specially may like: but the interests discussed are altogether English, and cannot be considered as likely to concern New-Englishmen very much. However, it will probably be itself in your hand before this sheet, and you will have determined what is fit.

A copy of _Wilhelm Meister,_ two copies, one for Stearns Wheeler, are probably in some of the "Line s.h.i.+ps" at this time too: good voyage to them! The _French Revolutions_ were all s.h.i.+pped, invoiced, &c.; they have, I will suppose, arrived safe, as we shall hear by and by. What freightages, landings, and embarkments! For only two days ago I sent you off, through Kennet, another Book: John Sterling's _Poems,_ which he has collected into a volume. Poor John has overworked himself again, or the climate without fault on his side has proved too hard for him: he sails for Madeira again next week! His Doctors tell me there is no intrinsic danger; but they judge the measure safe as one of precaution. It is very mortifying he had nestled himself down at Clifton, thinking he might now hope to continue there; and lo! he has to fly again.--Did you get his letter? The address to him now will be, for three months to come, "_Edward_ Sterling, Esq., South Place, Knightsbridge, London," his Father's designation.