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

Farther I must not omit to say that Richard Monckton Milnes purposes, through the strength of Heaven, to _review_ you! In the next Number of the _London and Westminster,_ the courageous youth will do this feat, if they let him. Nay, he has already done it, the Paper being actually written he employed me last week in negotiating with the Editors about it; and their answer was, "Send us the Paper, it promises very well." We shall see whether it comes out or not; keeping silence till then. Milnes is a _Tory_ Member of Parliament; think of that! For the rest, he describes his religion in these terms: "I profess to be a Crypto-Catholic." Conceive the man! A most bland-smiling, semi- quizzical, affectionate, high-bred, Italianized little man, who has long olive-blond hair, a dimple, next to no chin, and flings his arm round your neck when he addresses you in public society!

Let us hear now what he will say, of the American _Vates._*

* The end of this letter has been cut off.

L. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 17 January, 1840

Dear Emerson,--Your Letter of the 12th of December, greatly, to my satisfaction, has arrived; the struggling Steams.h.i.+p, in spite of all hurricanes, has brought it safe across the waters to me.

I find it good to write you a word in return straightway; though I think there are already two, or perhaps even three, messages of mine to you flying about unacknowledged somewhere under the moon; nay, the last of them perhaps may go by the same packet as this, --having been forwarded, as this will be, to _Liverpool,_ after the "British Queen" sailed from London.

Your account of the _French Revolution_ packages, and prognosis of what Little and Brown will do with them, is altogether as it should be. I apprised Fraser instantly of his invoiceless Books, &c.; he answers, that order has been taken in that long since, "instructions" sent, and, I conclude, arrangements for _bills_ least of all forgotten. I mentioned what share of the duty was his; and that your men meant to draw on him for it. That is all right. As to the _French Revolution,_ I agree with your Booksellers altogether about it; the American Edition actually pleases myself better for looking at; nor do I know that this new English one has much superiority for use: it is despicably printed, I fear, so far as false spellings and other slovenlinesses can go. Fraser "finds the people like it"; _credat Judaeus;_--as for me, I have told him I will _not print any more_ with that man, but with some other man. Curious enough, the price Little and Brown have fixed upon was the price I remember guessing at beforehand, and the result they propose to realize for me corresponds closely with my prophecy too. Thanks, a thousand thanks, for all the trouble you never grudge to take.

We shall get ourselves handsomely out of this export and import speculation; and know, taught at a rather _cheap_ rate, not to embark in the like again.

There went off a _Wilhelm Meister_ for you, and a letter to announce it, several weeks ago; that was message first. Your traveling neighbor, Brown, took charge of a Pamphlet named _Chartism,_ to be put into the "British Queen's" Letter-bag (where I hope, and doubt not, he did put it, though I have seen nothing of him since); that and a letter in reference to it was message second. Thirdly, I sent off a volume of _Poems_ by Sterling, likewise announced in that letter. And now this that I actually write is the fourth (it turns out to be) and last of all the messages. Let us take Arithmetic along with us in all things.--Of _Chartism_ I have nothing farther to say, except that Fraser is striking off another One Thousand copies to be called Second Edition; and that the people accuse me, not of being an incendiary and speculative Sansculotte threatening to become practical, but of being a Tory,--thank Heaven. The _Miscellanies_ are at press; at _two_ presses; to be out, as Hope a.s.severates, in March: five volumes, without _Chartism;_ with Hoffmann and Tieck from German Romance, stuck in somewhere as Appendix; with some other trifles stuck in elsewhere, chiefly as Appendix; and no essential change from the Boston Edition.

Fraser, "overwhelmed with business," does not yet send me his net result of those Two Hundred and Fifty Copies sold off some time ago; so soon as he does, you shall hear of it for your satisfaction.--As to _German Romance,_ tell my friends that it has been out of print these ten years; procurable, of late not without difficulty, only in the Old-Bookshops. The comfort is that the best part of it stands in the new _Wilhelm Meister:_ Fraser and I had some thought of adding Tieck's and Richter's parts, had they suited for a volume; the rest may without detriment to anybody perish.

Such press-correctings and arrangings waste my time here, not in the agreeablest way. I begin, though in as sulky a state of health as ever, to look again towards some new kind of work. I have often thought of Cromwell and Puritans; but do not see how the subject can be presented still alive. A subject dead is not worth presenting. Meanwhile I read rubbish of Books; Eichhorn, Grimm, &c.; very considerable rubbish; one grain in the cart load worth pocketing. It is pity I have no appet.i.te for lecturing! Many applications have been made to me here;--none more touching to me than one, the day before yesterday, by a fine, innocent-looking Scotch lad, in the name of himself and certain other Booksellers' shopmen eastward in the City! I cannot get them out of my head. Poor fellows! they have n.o.body to say an honest word to them, in this articulate-speaking world, and they apply to _me._--For you, good friend, I account you luckier; I do verily: lecture there what innumerable things you have got to say on "The Present Age";--yet withal do not forget to _write_ either, for that is the lasting plan after all. I have a curious Note, sent me for inspection the other day; it is addressed to a Scotch Mr. Erskine (famed among the saints here) by a Madame Necker, Madame de Stael's kinswoman, to whom he, the said Mr. Erskine, had lent your first Pamphlet at Geneva. She regards you with a certain love, yet a _shuddering_ love. She says, "Cela sent l'Americain qui apres avoir abattu les forets a coup de hache, croit qu'on doit de meme conquerir le monde intellectuel"! What R.M. Milnes will say of you we hope also to see.--I know both Heraud and Landor; but alas, what room is here! Another sheet with less of "Arithmetic" in it will soon be allowed me. Adieu, dear friend.

Yours, ever and ever, T. Carlyle

LI. Emerson to Carlyle*

New York, 18 March, 1840

My Dear Friend,--I have just seen the steamer "British Queen"

enter the harbor from sea, and here lies the "Great Western," to sail tomorrow. I will not resist hints so broad upon my long procrastinations. You shall have at least a tardy acknowledgment that I received in January your letter of December, which I should have answered at once had it not found me absorbed in writing foolish lectures which were then in high tide. I had written you, a little earlier, tidings of the receipt of your _French Revolution._ Your letter was very welcome, as all your letters are. I have since seen tidings of the _Essay on Chartism_ in an English periodical, but have not yet got my proof-sheets. They are probably still rolling somewhere outside of this port, for all our packets.h.i.+ps have had the longest pa.s.sages: only one has come in for many a week. We will be as patient as we can.

-------- * This letter appeared in the _Athenaeum,_ for July 22, 1882 --------

I am here on a visit to my brother, who is a lawyer in this city, and lives at Staten Island, at a distance of half an hour's sail.

The city has such immense natural advantages and such capabilities of boundless growth, and such varied and ever increasing accommodations and appliances for eye and ear, for memory and wit, for locomotion and lavation, and all manner of delectation, that I see that the poor fellows that live here do get some compensation for the sale of their souls. And how they multiply! They estimate the population today at 350,000, and forty years ago, it is said, there were but 20,000. But I always seem to suffer some loss of faith on entering cities. They are great conspiracies; the parties are all maskers, who have taken mutual oaths of silence not to betray each other's secret and each to keep the other's madness in countenance. You can scarce drive any craft here that does not seem a subornation of the treason. I believe in the spade and an acre of good ground.

Whoso cuts a straight path to his own bread, by the help of G.o.d in the sun and rain and sprouting of the grain, seems to me an _universal_ workman. He solves the problem of life, not for one, but for all men of sound body. I wish I may one day send you word, or, better, show you the fact, that I live by my hands without loss of memory or of hope. And yet I am of such a puny const.i.tution, as far as concerns bodily labor, that perhaps I never shall. We will see.

Did I tell you that we hope shortly to send you some American verses and prose of good intent? My vivacious friend Margaret Fuller is to edit a journal whose first number she promises for the 1st of July next, which I think will be written with a good will if written at all. I saw some poetical fragments which charmed me,--if only the writer consents to give them to the public.

I believe I have yet little to tell you of myself. I ended in the middle of February my ten lectures on the Present Age. They are attended by four hundred and fifty to five hundred people, and the young people are so attentive; and out of the hall ask me so many questions, that I a.s.sume all the airs of Age and Sapience. I am very happy in the sympathy and society of from six to a dozen persons, who teach me to hope and expect everything from my countrymen. We shall have many Richmonds in the field presently. I turn my face homeward to-morrow, and this summer I mean to resume my endeavor to make some presentable book of Essays out of my mountain of ma.n.u.script, were it only for the sake of clearance. I left my wife, and boy, and girl,--the softest, gracefulest little maiden alive, creeping like a turtle with head erect all about the house,--well at home a week ago.

The boy has two deep blue wells for eyes, into which I gladly peer when I am tired. Ellen, they say, has no such depth of orb, but I believe I love her better than ever I did the boy. I brought my mother with me here to spend the summer with William Emerson and his wife and ruddy boy of four years. All these persons love and honour you in proportion to their knowledge and years.

My letter will find you, I suppose, meditating new lectures for your London disciples. May love and truth inspire them! I can see easily that my predictions are coming to pa.s.s, and that.

having waited until your Fame wag in the floodtide, we shall not now see you at all on western sh.o.r.es. Our saintly Dr. T---, I am told, had a letter within a year from Lord Byron's daughter, _informing_ the good man of the appearance of a certain wonderful genius in London named Thomas Carlyle, and all his astonis.h.i.+ng workings on her own and her friends' brains, and him the very monster whom the Doctor had been honoring with his best dread and consternation these five years. But do come in one of Mr.

Cunard's s.h.i.+ps as soon as the booksellers have made you rich. If they fail to do so, come and read lectures which the Yankees will pay for. Give my love and hope and perpetual remembrance to your wife, and my wife's also, who bears her in her kindest heart, and who resolves every now and then to write to her, that she may thank her for the beautiful Guido.

You told me to send you no more accounts. But I certainly shall, as our financial relations are grown more complex, and I wish at least to relieve myself of this unwonted burden of booksellers'

accounts and long delays, by sharing them. I have had one of their estimates by me a year, waiting to send. Farewell.

--R.W.E.

LII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 1 April, 1840

My Dear Emerson,--A Letter has been due to you from me, if not by palpable law of reciprocity, yet by other law and right, for some week or two. I meant to write, so soon as Fraser and I had got a settlement effected. The traveling Sumner being about to return into your neighborhood, I gladly accept his offer to take a message to you. I wish I had anything beyond a dull Letter to send! But unless, as my Wife suggests, I go and get you a D'Orsay _Portrait_ of myself, I see not what there is! Do you read German or not? I now and then fall in with a curious German volume, not perhaps so easily accessible in the Western world.

Tell me. Or do you ever mean to learn it? I decidedly wish you would.--As to the D'Orsay Portrait, it is a real curiosity: Count D'Orsay the emperor of European Dandies portraying the Prophet of spiritual Sansculottism! He came rolling down hither one day, many months ago, in his sun-chariot, to the bedazzlement of all bystanders; found me in dusty gray-plaid dressing-gown, grim as the spirit of Presbyterianism (my Wife said), and contrived to get along well enough with me. I found him a man worth talking to, once and away; a man of decided natural gifts; every utterance of his containing in it a wild caricature _likeness_ of some object or other; a das.h.i.+ng man, who might, some twenty years sooner born, have become one of Bonaparte's Marshals, and _is,_ alas,--Count D'Orsay! The Portrait he dashed off in some twenty minutes (I was dining there, to meet Landor); we have not chanced to meet together since, and I refuse to undergo any more eight-o'clock dinners for such an object.--Now if I do not send you the Portrait, after all?

Fraser's account of the _Miscellanies_ stood legibly extended over large s.p.a.ces of paper, and was in several senses amazing to look upon. I trouble _you_ only with the result. Two Hundred and forty-eight copies (for there were some one or two "imperfect"): all these he had sold, at two guineas each; and sold swiftly, for I recollect in December, or perhaps November, he told me he was "holding back," not to run entirely out. Well, of the L500 and odd so realized for these Books, the portion that belonged to me was L239,--the L261 had been the expense of handing the ware to Emerson over the counter, and drawing in the coin for it! "Rules of the Trade";--it is a Trade, one would surmise, in which the Devil has a large interest. However,--not to spend an instant polluting one's eyesight with that side of it,--let me feel joyfully, with thanks to Heaven and America, that I do receive such a sum in the shape of wages, by decidedly the n.o.blest method in which wages could come to a man. Without Friends.h.i.+p, without Ralph Waldo Emerson, there had been no sixpence of that money here. Thanks, and again thanks. This earth is not an unmingled ball of Mud, after all. Sunbeams visit it;--mud _and_ sunbeams are the stuff it has from of old consisted of.--I hasten away from the Ledger, with the mere good- news that James is altogether content with the "progress" of all these Books, including even the well-abused _Chartism_ Book. We are just on the point of finis.h.i.+ng our English reprint of the _Miscellanies;_ of which I hope to send you a copy before long.

And now why do not _you_ write to me? Your Lectures must be done long ago. Or are you perhaps writing a Book? I shall be right glad to hear of that; and withal to hear that you do not hurry yourself, but strive with deliberate energy to produce what in you is best. Certainly, I think, a right Book does lie in the man! It is to be remembered also always that the true value is determined by what we _do not_ write! There is nothing truer than that now all but forgotten truth; it is eternally true. He whom it concerns can consider it.--You have doubtless seen Milnes's review of you. I know not that you will find it to strike direct upon the secret of _Emerson,_ to hit the nail on the head, anywhere at all; I rather think not. But it is gently, not unlovingly done;--and lays the first plank of a kind of pulpit for you here and throughout all Saxondom: a thing rather to be thankful for. It on the whole surpa.s.sed my expectations. Milnes tells me he is sending you a copy and a Note, by Sumner. He is really a pretty little robin-redbreast of a man.

You asked me about Landor and Heraud. Before my paper entirely vanish, let me put down a word about them. Heraud is a loquacious scribacious little man, of middle age, of parboiled greasy aspect, whom Leigh Hunt describes as "wavering in the most astonis.h.i.+ng manner between being Something and Nothing." To me he is chiefly remarkable as being still--with his entirely enormous vanity and very small stock of faculty--out of Bedlam.

He picked up a notion or two from Coleridge many years ago; and has ever since been rattling them in his head, like peas in an empty bladder, and calling on the world to "List the Music of the spheres." He escapes _a.s.sa.s.sination,_ as I calculate, chiefly by being the cheerfulest best-natured little creature extant.--You cannot kill him he laughs so softly, even when he is like killing you. John Mill said, "I forgive him freely for interpreting the Universe, now when I find he cannot p.r.o.nounce the _h's!_" Really this is no caricature; you have not seen the match of Heraud in your days. I mentioned to him once that Novalis had said, "The highest problem of Authors.h.i.+p is the writing of a Bible."-- "That is precisely what I am doing!" answered the aspiring, unaspirating.*--Of Landor I have not got much benefit either. We met first, some four years ago, on Cheyne Walk here: a tall, broad, burly man, with gray hair, and large, fierce-rolling eyes; of the most restless, impetuous vivacity, not to be held in by the most perfect breeding,--expressing itself in high-colored superlatives, indeed in reckless exaggeration, now and then in a dry sharp laugh not of sport but of mockery; a wild man, whom no extent of culture had been able to tame! His intellectual faculty seemed to me to be weak in proportion to his violence of temper: the judgment he gives about anything is more apt to be wrong than right,--as the inward whirlwind shows him this side or the other of the object; and _sides_ of an object are all that he sees. He is not an original man; in most cases one but sighs over the spectacle of common place torn to rags. I find him painful as a writer; like a soul ever promising to take wing into the Aether, yet never doing it, ever splas.h.i.+ng webfooted in the terrene mud, and only splas.h.i.+ng the worse the more he strives! Two new tragedies of his that I read lately are the fatalest stuff I have seen for long: not an ingot; ah no, a distracted coil of wire-drawings salable in no market. Poor Landor has left his Wife (who is said to be a fool) in Italy, with his children, who would not quit her; but it seems he has honestly surrendered all his money to her, except a bare annuity for furnished lodgings; and now lives at Bath, a solitary s.e.xagenarian, in that manner. He visits London in May; but says always it would kill him soon: alas, I can well believe that!

They say he has a kind heart; nor does it seem unlikely: a perfectly honest heart, free and fearless, dwelling amid such hallucinations, excitations, tempestuous confusions, I can see he has. Enough of him! Me he likes well enough, more thanks to him; but two hours of such speech as his leave me giddy and undone. I have seen some other Lions, and Lion's-_providers;_ but consider them a worthless species.--When will you write, then? Consider my frightful outlook with a Course of Lectures to give "On Heroes and Hero-wors.h.i.+p,"--from Odin to Robert Burns!

My Wife salutes you all. Good be in the Concord Household!

Yours ever, T. Carlyle

-------- * There is an account of Heraud by an admirer in the _Dial_ for October, 1842, p. 241. It contrasts curiously and instructively with Carlyle's sketch.

LIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 21 April, 1840

My Dear Friend,--Three weeks ago I received a letter from you following another in the week before, which I should have immediately acknowledged but that I was promised a private opportunity for the 25th of April, by which time I promised myself to send you sheets of accounts. I had also written you from New York about the middle of March. But now I suppose Mr.

Grinnell--a hospitable, humane, modest gentleman in Providence, R.I., a merchant, much beloved by all his townspeople, and, though no scholar, yet very fond of silently listening to such-- is packing his trunk to go to England. He offered to carry any letters for me, and as at his house during my visit to Providence I was eagerly catechised by all comers concerning Thomas Carlyle, I thought it behoved me to offer him for his brethren, sisters, and companions' sake, the joy of seeing the living face of that wonderful man. Let him see thy face and pa.s.s on his way. I who cannot see it, nor hear the voice that comes forth of it, must even betake me to this paper to repay the best I can the love of the Scottish man, and in the hope to deserve more.

Your letter announces _Wilhelm Meister,_ Sterling's _Poems,_ and _Chartism._ I am very rich, or am to be. But Kennet is no Mercury. _Wilhelm_ and _Sterling_ have not yet made their appearance, though diligently inquired after by Stearns Wheeler and me. Little and Brown now correspond with Longman, not with Kennet. But they will come soon, perhaps are already arrived.

_Chartism_ arrived at Concord by mail not until one of the last days of March, though dated by you, I think, the 21st of December. I returned home on the 3d of April, and found it waiting. All that is therein said is well and strongly said, and as the words are barbed and feathered the memory of men cannot choose but carry them whithersoever men go. And yet I thought the book itself instructed me to look for more. We seemed to have a right to an answer less concise to a question so grave and humane, and put with energy and eloquence. I mean that whatever probabilities or possibilities of solution occurred should have been opened to us in some detail. But now it stands as a preliminary word, and you will one day, when the fact itself is riper; write the Second Lesson; or those whom you have influenced will. I read the book twice hastily through, and sent it directly to press, fearing to be forestalled, for the London book was in Boston already. Little and Brown are to print it.

Their estimate is:--

Printing page for page with copy ....... $63.35 Paper .....................................44.00 Binding .................................. 90.00 Total .................................... $197.35

Costing say twenty cents per copy for one thousand copies bound.