The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872 Volume II Part 19

** The author of a book once much admired, _De 'l'Art Chretien._ In a later work ent.i.tled _Epilogue a l'Art Chretien,_ but actually a sort of autobiography, written in the naivest spirit of personal conceit and pious sentimentalism, M. Rio gives an exceedingly entertaining account of his intercourse with Carlyle.

Enough, dear Emerson; and more than enough for a day so hurried.

Our Island is all in a ferment electioneering: Tories to come in;--perhaps not to come in; at all events not to stay long, without altering their figure much! I sometimes ask myself rather earnestly, What is the duty of a citizen? To be as I have been hitherto, a pacific _Alien?_ That is the _easiest,_ with my humor!--Our brave Dame here, just rallying for the _remove,_ sends loving salutations. Good be with you all always. Adieu, dear Emerson.

--T. Carlyle

Appleton's Book of _Hero-Wors.h.i.+p_ has come; for which pray thank Mr. Munroe for me: it is smart on the surface; but printed altogether scandalously!

LXVII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 July, 1841

My Dear Carlyle,--Eight days ago--when I had gone to Nantasket Beach, to sit by the sea and inhale its air and refresh this puny body of mine--came to me your letter, all bounteous as all your letters are, generous to a fault, generous to the shaming of me, cold, fastidious, ebbing person that I am. Already in a former letter you had said too much good of my poor little arid book,-- which is as sand to my eyes,--and now in this you tell me it shall be printed in London, and graced with a preface from the man of men. I can only say that I heartily wish the book were better, and I must try and deserve so much favor from the kind G.o.ds by a bolder and truer living in the months to come; such as may perchance one day relax and invigorate this cramp hand of mine, and teach it to draw some grand and adequate strokes, which other men may find their own account and not their good-nature in repeating. Yet I think I shall never be killed by my ambition.

I behold my failures and shortcomings there in writing, wherein it would give me much joy to thrive, with an equanimity which my worst enemy might be glad to see. And yet it is not that I am occupied with better things. One could well leave to others the record, who was absorbed in the life. But I have done nothing.

I think the branch of the "tree of life" which headed to a bud in me, curtailed me somehow of a drop or two of sap, and so dwarfed all my florets and drupes. Yet as I tell you I am very easy in my mind, and never dream of suicide. My whole philosophy--which is very real--teaches acquiescence and optimism. Only when I see how much work is to be done, what room for a poet--for any spiritualist--in this great, intelligent, sensual, and avaricious America, I lament my fumbling fingers and stammering tongue. I have sometimes fancied I was to catch sympathetic activity from contact with n.o.ble persons; that you would come and see me; that I should form stricter habits of love and conversation with some men and women here who are already dear to me,--and at some rate get off the numb palsy, and feel the new blood sting and tingle in my fingers' ends. Well, sure I am that the right word will be spoken though I cut out my tongue. Thanks, too, to your munificent Fraser for his liberal intention to divide the profits of the _Essays._ I wish, for the encouragement of such a bookseller, there were to be profits to divide. But I have no faith in your public for their heed to a mere book like mine.

There are things I should like to say to them, in a lecture-room or in a "steeple house," if I were there. Seven hundred and fifty copies! Ah no!

And so my dear brother has quitted the roaring city, and gone back in peace to his own land,--not the man he left it, but richer every way, chiefly in the sense of having done something valiantly and well, which the land, and the lands, and all that wide elastic English race in all their dispersion, will know and thank him for. The holy gifts of nature and solitude be showered upon you! Do you not believe that the fields and woods have their proper virtue, and that there are good and great things which will not be spoken in the city? I give you joy in your new and rightful home, and the same greetings to Jane Carlyle! with thanks and hopes and loves to you both.

--R.W. Emerson

As usual at this season of the year, I, incorrigible spouting Yankee, am writing an oration to deliver to the boys in one of our little country colleges, nine days hence.* You will say I do not deserve the aid of any Muse. O but if you knew how natural it is to me to run to these places! Besides, I always am lured on by the hope of saying something which shall stick by the good boys. I hope Brown did not fail to find you, with thirty-eight sovereigns (I believe) which he should carry you.

- * "The Method of Nature. An Address to the Society of the Adelphi, in Waterville College, Maine, August 11, 1841."

LXVIII. Carlyle to Emerson

Newby, Annan, Scotland, 18 August, 1841

My Dear Emerson,--Two days ago your Letter, direct from Liverpool, reached me here; only fifteen days after date on the other side of the Ocean: one of the swiftest messengers that have yet come from you. Steamers have been known to come, they say, in nine days. By and by we shall visibly be, what I always say we virtually are, members of neighboring Parishes; paying continual visits to one another. What is to hinder huge London from being to universal Saxondom what small Mycale was to the Tribes of Greece,--a place to hold your [Greek] in? A meeting of _All the English_ ought to be as good as one of All the Ionians; --and as Homeric "equal s.h.i.+ps" are to Bristol steamers, so, or somewhat so, may New York and New Holland be to Ephesus and Crete, with their distances, relations, and etceteras!--Few things on this Earth look to me greater than the Future of that Family of Men.

It is some two months since I got into this region; my Wife followed me with her maid and equipments some five weeks ago.

Newington Lodge, when I came to inspect it with eyes, proved to be too rough an undertaking: upholsterers, expense and confusion,--the Cynic snarled, "Give me a whole Tub rather! I want nothing but shelter from the elements, and to be let alone of all men." After a little groping, this little furnished cottage, close by the beach of the Solway Frith, was got hold of: here we have been, in absolute seclusion, for a month,--no company but the corn-fields and the everlasting sands and brine; mountains, and thousand-voiced memories on all hands, sending their regards to one, from the distance. Daily (sometimes even nightly!) I have swashed about in the sea; I have been perfectly idle, at least inarticulate; I fancy I feel myself considerably sounder of body and of mind. Deeply do I agree with you in the great unfathomable meaning of a colloquy with the dumb Ocean, with the dumb Earth, and their eloquence! A Legislator would prescribe some weeks of that annually as a religious duty for all mortals, if he could. A Legislator will prescribe it for himself, since he can! You too have been at Nantasket; my Friend, this great rough purple sea-flood that roars under my little garret-window here, this too comes from Nantasket and farther,--swung hitherward by the Moon and the Sun.

It cannot be said that I feel "happy" here, which means joyful;-- as far as possible from that. The Cave of Trophonius could not be grimmer for one than this old Land of Graves. But it is a sadness worth any hundred "happinesses." _N'en parlons plus._ By the way, have you ever clearly remarked withal what a despicable function "view-hunting" is. a.n.a.logous to "philanthropy," "pleasures of virtue," &c., &c. I for my part, in these singular circ.u.mstances, often find an honestly ugly country the preferable one. Black eternal peat-bog, or these waste-howling sands with mews and seagulls: you meet at least no c.o.c.kney to exclaim, "How charming it is!"

One of the last things I did in London was to pocket Bookseller Brown's L38: a very honest-looking man, that Brown; whom I was sorry I could not manage to welcome better. You asked in that Letter about some other item of business,--Munroe's or Brown's account to acknowledge?--something or other that I was to _do:_ I only remember vaguely that it seemed to me I had as good as done it. Your Letter is not here now, but at Chelsea.

Three sheets of the _Essays_ lay waiting me at my Mother's, for correction; needing as good as none. The type and shape is the same as that of late _Lectures on Heroes._ Robson the Printer, who is a very punctual intelligent man, a scholar withal, undertook to be himself the corrector of the other sheets. I hope you will find them "exactly conformable to the text, _minus_ mere Typographical blunders and the more salient American spellings (labor for labour, &c.)." The Book is perhaps just getting itself subscribed in these very days. It should have been out before now: but poor Fraser is in the country, dangerously ill, which perhaps r.e.t.a.r.ds it a little; and the season, at any rate, is at the very dullest. By the first conveyance I will send a certain Lady two copies of it. Little danger but the Edition will sell; Fraser knows his own Trade well enough, and is as much a "desperado" as poor Attila Schmelzle was! Poor James, I wish he were well again; but really at times I am very anxious about him.--The Book will sell; will be liked and disliked. Harriet Martineau, whom I saw in pa.s.sing hitherward, writes with her accustomed enthusiasm about it. Richard Milnes too is very warm. John Sterling scolds and kisses it (as the manner of the man is), and concludes by inquiring, whether there is any procurable Likeness of Emerson?

Emerson himself can answer. There ought to be.

--Good Heavens! Here came my Wife, all in tears, pointing out to me a poor s.h.i.+p, just tumbled over on a sand-bank on the c.u.mberland coast; men still said to be alive on it,--a Belfast steamer doing all it can to get in contact with it! Moments are precious (say the people on the beach), the flood runs ten miles an hour. Thank G.o.d, the steamer's boat is out: "eleven men,"

says a person with a gla.s.s, "are saved: it is an American timber-s.h.i.+p, coming up without a Pilot." And now--in ten minutes more--there lies the melancholy ma.s.s alone among the waters, wreck-boats all hastening towards it, like birds of prey; the poor Canadians all up and away towards Annan. What an end for my Letter, which nevertheless must end! Adieu, dear Emerson.

Address to Chelsea next time. I can say no more.

Yours ever, T.C.

LXIX. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 October, 1841

My Dear Carlyle,--I was in Boston yesterday, and found at Munroe's your promised packet of the two London Books. They are very handsome,--that for my wife is beautiful,--and I am not so old or so cold but that I can feel the hope and the pleasure that lie in this gift. It seems I am to speak in England--great England--fortified by the good word of one whose word is fame.

Well, it is a lasting joy to be indebted to the wise and generous; and I am well contented that my little boat should swim, whilst it can, beside your great galleys, nor will I allow my discontent with the great faults of the book, which the rich English dress cannot hide, to spoil my joy in this fine little romance of friends.h.i.+p and hope. I am determined--so help me all Muses--to send you something better another day.

But no more printing for me at present. I have just decided to go to Boston once more, with a course of lectures, which I will perhaps baptize "On the Times," by way of making once again the experiment whether I cannot, not only speak the truth, but speak it truly, or in proportion. I fancy I need more than another to speak, with such a formidable tendency to the lapidary style. I build my house of boulders; somebody asked me "if I built of medals." Besides, I am always haunted with brave dreams of what might be accomplished in the lecture-room,--so free and so unpretending a platform,--a Delos not yet made fast. I imagine an eloquence of infinite variety,--rich as conversation can be, with anecdote, joke, tragedy, epics and pindarics, argument and confession. I should love myself wonderfully better if I could arm myself to go, as you go, with the word in the heart and not in a paper.

When I was in Boston I saw the booksellers, the children of Tantalus,--no, but they who trust in them are. This time, Little and Brown render us their credit account to T.C. $366 (I think it was), payable in three months from 1 October. They had sold all the London _French Revolutions_ but fifteen copies. May we all live until 1 January. J. Munroe & Co. acknowledge about $180 due and now rightfully payable to T.C., but, unhappily, not yet paid.

By the help of brokers, I will send that sum more or less in some English Currency, by the next steams.h.i.+p, which sails in about a fortnight, and will address it, as you last bade me, to Chelsea.

What news, my dear friend, from your study? what designs ripened or executed? what thoughts? what hopes? you can say nothing of yourself that will not greatly interest us all. Harriet Martineau, whose sicknesses may it please G.o.d to heal! wrote me a kind, cheerful letter, and the most agreeable notice of your health and spirit on a visit at her house. My little boy is five years old today, and almost old enough to send you his love.

With kindest greetings to Jane Carlyle, I am her and your friend,

--R.W.E.

LXX. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 14 November, 1841

My Dear Carlyle,--Above, you have a bill of exchange for forty pounds sterling, with which sum you must credit the Munroe account. The bill, I must not fail to notice, is drawn by a lover of yours who expresses great satisfaction in doing us this courtesy; and courtesy I must think it when he gives me a bill at sight, whilst of all other merchants I have got only one payable at some remote day. ---- is a beautiful and n.o.ble youth, of a most subtle and magnetic nature, made for an artist, a painter, and in his art has made admirable sketches, but his criticism, I fancy, was too keen for his poetry (shall I say?); he sacrificed to Despair, and threw away his pencil. For the present, he buys and sells. I wrote you some sort of letter a fortnight ago, promising to send a paper like this. The hour when this should be despatched finds me by chance very busy with little affairs. I sent you by an Italian, Signor Gambardella,*-- who took a letter to you with good intent to persuade you to sit to him for your portrait,--a _Dial,_ and some copies of an oration I printed lately. If you should have any opportunity to send one of them to Harriet Martineau, my debts to her are great, and I wish to acknowledge her abounding kindness by a letter, as I must. I am now in the rage of preparation for my Lectures "On the Times;" which begin in a fortnight. There shall be eight, but I cannot yet accurately divide the topics. If it were eighty, I could better. In fear lest this sheet should not safely and timely reach its man, I must now write some duplicate.

Farewell, dear friend.

R.W. Emerson

-------- * Spiridione Gambardella was born at Naples. He was a refugee from Italy, having escaped, the story was, on board an American man-of-war. He had been educated as a public singer, but he had a facile genius, and turned readily to painting as a means of livelihood. He painted some excellent portraits in Boston, between 1835 and 1840, among them one of Dr. Channing, and one of Dr. Follen; both of these were engraved. He had some success for a time as a portrait-painter in London.

LXXI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 19 November, 1841

Dear Emerson,--Since that going down of the American Timber-s.h.i.+p on one of the Banks of the Solway under my window, I do not remember that you have heard a word of me. I only added that the men were all saved, and the beach all in agitation, certain women not far from hysterics;--and there ended. I did design to send you some announcement of our return hither; but fear there is no chance that I did it! About ten days ago the Signor Gambardella arrived, with a Note and Books from you: and here now is your Letter of October 30th; which, arriving at a moment when I have a little leisure, draws forth an answer almost instantly.