The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872 Volume II Part 20

The Signor Gambardella, whom we are to see a second time tonight or tomorrow, amuses and interests us not a little. His face is the very image of the Cla.s.sic G.o.d Pan's; with horns, and cloven feet, we feel that he would make a perfect wood-G.o.d;--really, some of Poussin's Satyrs are almost portraits of this brave Gambardella. I will warrant him a right glowing ma.s.s of Southern-Italian vitality,--full of laughter, wild insight, caricature, and every sort of energy and joyous savagery: a most profitable element to get introduced (in moderate quant.i.ty), I should say, into the general current of your Puritan blood over in New England there! Gambardella has behaved with magnanimity in that matter of the Portrait: I have already sat, to men in the like case, some four times, and Gambardella knows it is a dreadful weariness; I directed him, accordingly, to my last painter, one Laurence, a man of real parts, whom I wished Gambardella to know,--and whom I wished to know Gambardella withal, that he might tell me whether there was any probability of a _good_ picture by him in case one did decide on encountering the weariness. Well: Gambardella returns with a magnanimous report that Laurence's picture far transcends any capability of his; that whoever in America or elsewhere will have a likeness of the said individual must apply to Laurence, not to Gambardella,--which latter artist heroically throws down his brush, and says, Be it far from me! The brave Gambardella! if I can get him this night to dilate a little farther on his Visit to the _Community of Shakers,_ and the things he saw and felt there, it will be a most true benefit to me. Inextinguishable laughter seemed to me to lie in Gambardella's vision of that Phenomenon,-- the sight and the seer, but we broke out too loud all at once, and he was afraid to continue.--Alas! there is almost no laughter going in the world at present. True laughter is as rare as any other truth,--the sham of it frequent and detestable, like all other shams. I know nothing wholesomer; but it is rarer even than Christmas, which comes but once a year, and does always come once.

Your satisfactions and reflections at sight of your English Book are such as I too am very thankful for. I understand them well.

May worse guest never visit the Drawing-room at Concord than that bound Book. Tell the good Wife to rejoice in it: she has all the pleasure;--to her poor Husband it will be increase of pain withal: nay, let us call it increase of valiant labor and endeavor; no evil for a man, if he be fit for it! A man must learn to digest praise too, and not be poisoned with it: some of it _is_ wholesome to the system under certain circ.u.mstances; the most of it a healthy system will learn by and by to throw into the slop-basin, harmlessly, without any _trial_ to digest it. A thinker, I take it, in the long run finds that essentially he must ever be and continue _alone;--alone:_ "silent, rest over him the stars, and under him the graves"! The clatter of the world, be it a friendly, be it a hostile world, shall not intermeddle with him much. The Book of _Essays,_ however, does decidedly "speak to England," in its way, in these months; and even makes what one may call a kind of appropriate "sensation"

here. Reviews of it are many, in all notes of the gamut;--of small value mostly; as you might see by the two Newspaper specimens I sent you. (Did you get those two Newspapers?) The worst enemy admits that there are piercing radiances of perverse insight in it; the highest friends, some few, go to a very high point indeed. Newspapers are busy with extracts;--much complaining that it is "abstruse," neological, hard to get the meaning of. All which is very proper. Still better,--though poor Fraser, alas, is dead, (poor Fraser!), and no help could come from industries of the Bookshop, and Books indeed it seems were never selling worse than of late months,--I learn that the "sale of the Essays goes very steadily forward," and will wind itself handsomely up in due time, we may believe! So Emerson henceforth has a real Public in Old England as well as New. And finally, my Friend, do _not_ disturb yourself about turning better, &c., &c.; write as it is given you, and not till it be given you, and never mind it a whit.

The new _Adelphi_ piece seems to me, as a piece of Composition, the best _written_ of them all. People cry over it: "Whitherward?

What, What?" In fact, I do again desiderate some _concretion_ of these beautiful _abstracta._ It seems to me they will never be _right_ otherwise; that otherwise they are but as prophecies yet, not fulfilments.

The Dial too, it is all spirit-like, aeriform, aurora-borealis like. Will no _Angel_ body himself out of that; no stalwart Yankee _man,_ with color in the cheeks of him, and a coat on his back! These things I _say:_ and yet, very true, you alone can decide what practical meaning is in them. Write you always _as_ it is given you,_ be it in the solid, in the aeriform, or whatsoever way. There is no other rule given among men.--I have sent the criticism on Landor* to an Editorial Friend of L.'s, by whom I expect it will be put into the Newspapers here, for the benefit of Walter Savage; he is not often so well praised among us, and deserves a little good praise.

-------- * From the Dial for October, 1841.

You propose again to send me Moneys,--surprising man! I am glad also to hear that that beggarly misprinted _French Revolution_ is nearly out among you. I only hope farther your Booksellers will have an eye on that rascal Appleton, and not let _him_ reprint and deface, if more copies of the Book turn out to be wanted.

Adieu, dear Emerson! Good speed to you at Boston, and in all true things. I hope to write soon again.

Yours ever, T. Carlyle

LXXII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 6 December, 1841

Dear Emerson,--Though I wrote to you very lately, and am in great haste today, I must lose no time in announcing that the Letter with the L40 draught came to hand some mornings ago; and now, this same morning, a second Letter round by Dumfriess.h.i.+re, which had been sent as a duplicate, or subst.i.tute in case of accident, for the former. It is all right, my friend ----'s paper has got itself changed into forty gold sovereigns, and lies here waiting use; thanks, many thanks! Sums of that kind come always upon me like manna out of the sky; surely they, more emphatically than any others, are the gift of Heaven. Let us receive, use, and be thankful. I am not so poor now at all; Heaven be praised: indeed, I do not know, now and then when I reflect on it, whether being rich were not a considerably harder problem. With the wealth of Rothschild what farther good thing could one get,--if not perhaps some but to live in, under free skies, in the country, with a horse to ride and have a little less pain on?

_Angulus ille ridet!_--I will add, for practical purposes in the future, that it is in general of little or no moment whether an American Bill be at sight or after a great many days; that the paper can wait as conveniently here as the cash can,--if your New England House and Baring of Old England will forbear bankruptcy in the mean while. By the bye, will you tell me some time or other in _what_ American funds it is that your funded money, you once gave me note of, now lies? I too am creditor to America,-- State of Illinois or some such State: one thousand dollars of mine, which some years ago I had no use for, now lies there, paying I suppose for ca.n.a.ls, in a very obstructed condition! My Brother here is continually telling me that I shall lose it all, --which is not so bad; but lose it all by my own unreason,--which is very bad. It struck me I would ask where Emerson's money lies, and lay mine there too, let it live or perish as it likes!

Your _Adelphi_ went straightway off to Miss Martineau with a message. Richard Milnes has another; John Sterling is to have a third,--had certain other parties seen it first. For the man Emerson is become a person to be _seen_ in these times. I also gave a _Morning-Chronicle_ Editor your brave eulogy on Landor, with instructions that it were well worth publis.h.i.+ng there, for Landor's and others' sake. Landor deserves more praise than he gets at present; the world too, what is far more, should hear of him oftener than it does. A brave man after his kind,--though considerably "flamed on from the h.e.l.l beneath." He speaks notable things; and at lowest and worst has the faculty too of holding his peace.

The "Lectures on the Times" are even now in progress? Good speed to the Speaker, to the Speech. Your Country is luckier than most at this time; it has still real Preaching; the tongue of man is not, whensoever it begins wagging, entirely sure to emit babblement, twaddlement, sincere--cant, and other noises which awaken the pa.s.sionate wish for silence! That must alter everywhere the human tongue is no wooden watchman's-rattle or other _obsolete_ implement; it continues forever new and useful, nay indispensable.

As for me and my doings--_Ay de mi!_*

------- * The signature has been cut off.

LXXIII. Emerson to Carlyle

New York, 28 February, 1842

My Dear Friend,--I enclose a bill of exchange for forty-eight pounds sterling, payable by Baring Brothers & Co. after sixty days from the 25th of February.

This Sum is part of a payment from Little and Brown on account of sales of your London _French Revolution and of Chartism._ As another part of their payment they asked me if they might not draw on the estate of James Fraser for a balance due from his house to them, and pay you so. I, perhaps unwisely, consented to make the proffer to you, with the distinct stipulation, however, that if it should not prove perfectly agreeable to you, and exactly as available as another form of money, you should instantly return it to me, and they shall pay me the amount, $41.57, or L8 12s. 5d. in cash. My mercantile friend, Abel Adams, did not admire my wisdom in accepting this bill of Little and Brown; so I told them I should probably bring it back to them, and if there is a shadow of inconvenience in it you will send it back to me by the next steamer. For they have no claims on us. I decide not to enclose the Little and Brown bill in this sheet,--but to let it accompany this letter in the same packet.

I grieve to hear that you have bought any of our wretched Southern Stocks. In New England all Southern and Southwestern debt is usually regarded as hopeless, unless the debtor is personally known. Ma.s.sachusetts stock is in the best credit of any public stock. Ward told me that it would be safest for you to keep your Illinois stock, although he could say nothing very good of it.

Our city banks in Boston are in better credit than the banks in any other city here, yet one in which a large part of my own property is invested has failed, for the two last half-years, to pay any dividend, and I am a poor man until next April, when, I hope, it will not fail me again. If you wish to invest money here, my friend Abel Adams, who is the princ.i.p.al partner in one of our best houses, Barnard, Adams, & Co., will know how to give you the best a.s.sistance and action the case admits.

My dear friend, you should have had this letter and these messages by the last steamer; but when it sailed, my son, a perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his earthly life.* You can never sympathize with me; you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest of all. What would it avail to tell you anecdotes of a sweet and wonderful boy, such as we solace and sadden ourselves with at home every morning and evening? From a perfect health and as happy a life and as happy influences as ever child enjoyed, he was hurried out of my arms in three short days by Scarlatina.--We have two babes yet,--one girl of three years, and one girl of three months and a week, but a promise like that Boy's I shall never see. How often I have pleased myself that one day I should send to you this Morning Star of mine, and stay at home so gladly behind such a representative. I dare not fathom the Invisible and Untold to inquire what relations to my Departed ones I yet sustain. Lidian, the poor Lidian, moans at home by day and by night. You too will grieve for us, afar. I believe I have two letters from you since I wrote last. I shall write again soon, for Bronson Alcott will probably go to London in about a month, and him I shall surely send to you, hoping to atone by his great nature for many smaller one, that have craved to see you. Give me early advice of receiving these Bills of Exchange.

* The memory of this Boy, "born for the future, to the future lost;" is enshrined in the heart of every lover of childhood and of poetry by his father's impa.s.sioned _Threnody._ --

Tell Jane Carlyle our sorrowing story with much love, and with all good hope for her health and happiness. Tell us when you write, with as much particularity as you can, how it stands with you, and all your household; with the Doctor, and the friends; what you do, and propose to do, and whether you will yet come to America, one good day?

Yours with love, R. Waldo Emerson

LXXIV. Carlyle to Emerson

Templand, Thornhill, Dumfries, Scotland 28 March, 1842

My Dear Friend,--This is heavy news that you send me; the heaviest outward bereavement that can befall a man has overtaken you. Your calm tone of deep, quiet sorrow, coming in on the rear of poor trivial worldly businesses, all punctually despatched and recorded too, as if the Higher and Highest had not been busy with you, tells me a sad tale. What can we say in these cases? There is nothing to be said,--nothing but what the wild son of Ishmael, and every thinking heart, from of old have learned to say: G.o.d is great! He is terrible and stern; but we know also He is good. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Your bright little Boy, chief of your possessions here below, is rapt away from you; but of very truth he is with G.o.d, even as we that yet live are,--and surely in the way that was best for him, and for you, and for all of us.--Poor Lidian Emerson, poor Mother! To her I have no word. Such poignant unspeakable grief, I believe, visits no creature as that of a Mother bereft of her child. The poor sparrow in the bush affects one with pity, mourning for its young; how much more the human soul of one's Friend! I cannot bid her be of comfort; for there is as yet no comfort. May good Influences watch over her, bring her some a.s.suagement. As the Hebrew David said, "We shall go to him, he will not return to us."

I also am here in a house rendered vacant and sacred by Death. A sore calamity has fallen on us, or rather has fallen on my poor Wife (for what am I but like a spectator in comparison?): she has lost unexpectedly her good Mother, her sole surviving Parent, and almost only relative of much value that was left to her. The manner too was almost tragic. We had heard of illness here, but only of commonplace illness, and had no alarm. The Doctor himself, specially applied to, made answer as if there was no danger: his poor Patient, in whose character the like of that intimately lay, had rigorously charged him to do so: her poor Daughter was far off, confined to her room by illness of her own; why alarm her, make her wretched? The danger itself did seem over; the Doctor accordingly obeyed. Our first intimation of alarm was despatched on the very day which proved the final one.

My poor Wife, casting sickness behind her, got instantly ready, set off by the first railway train: traveling all night, on the morrow morning at her Uncle's door in Liverpool she is met by tidings that all is already ended. She broke down there; she is now home again at Chelsea, a cheery, amiable younger Jane Welsh to nurse her: the tone of her Letters is still full of disconsolateness. I had to proceed hither, and have to stay here till this establishment can be abolished, and all the sad wrecks of it in some seemly manner swept away. It is above three weeks that I have been here; not till eight days ago could I so much as manage to command solitude, to be left altogether alone. I lead a strange life; full of sadness, of solemnity, not without a kind of blessedness. I say it is right and fitting that one be left entirely alone now and then, alone with one's own griefs and sins, with the mysterious ancient Earth round one, the everlasting Heaven over one, and what one can make of these.

Poor rustic businesses, subletting of Farms, disposal of houses, household goods: these strangely intervene, like matter upon spirit, every day;--wholesome this too perhaps. It is many years since I have stood so in close contact face to face with the reality of Earth, with its haggard ugliness, its divine beauty, its depths of Death and of Life. Yesterday, one of, the stillest Sundays, I sat long by the side of the swift river Nith; sauntered among woods all vocal only with rooks and pairing birds.* The hills are often white with snow-powder, black brief spring-tempests rush fiercely down from them, and then again the sky looks forth with a pale pure brightness,--like Eternity from behind Time.

The _Sky,_ when one thinks of it, is _always_ blue, pure changeless azure; rains and tempests are only for the little dwellings where men abide. Let us think of this too. Think of this, thou sorrowing Mother! Thy Boy has escaped many showers.

* "Templand has a very fine situation; old Walter's walk, at the south end of the house, was one of the most picturesque and pretty to be found in the world. Nith valley (river half a mile off, winding through green holms, now in its border of clean s.h.i.+ngle, now lost in pleasant woods and rushes) lay patent to the South. "Carlyle's Reminiscences," Vol. II. p. 137.

In some three weeks I shall probably be back at Chelsea. Write thitherward so soon as you have opportunity; I will write again before long, even if I do not hear from you. The moneys, &c. are all safe here as you describe: if Fraser's' Executors make any demur, your Bookseller shall soon hear of it.

I had begun to write some Book on Cromwell: I have often begun, but know not how to set about it; the most unutterable of all subjects I ever felt much meaning to lie in. There is risk yet that, with the loss of still farther labor, I may have to abandon it;--and then the great dumb Oliver may lie unspoken forever; gathered to the mighty _Silent_ of the Earth; for, I think, there will hardly ever live another man that will believe in him and his Puritanism as I do. To _him_ small matter.

Adieu, my good kind Friend, ever dear to me, dearer now in sorrow. My Wife when she hears of your affliction will send a true thought over to you also. The poor Lidian!--John Sterling is driven off again, setting out I think this very day for Gibraltar, Malta, and Naples. Farewell, and better days to us.

Your affectionate T. Carlyle

LXXV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 81 March, 1842

My Dear Carlyle,--I wrote you a letter from my brother's office in New York nearly a month ago to tell you how hardly it had fared with me here at home, that the eye of my home was plucked out when that little innocent boy departed in his beauty and perfection from my sight. Well, I have come back hither to my work and my play, but he comes not back, and I must simply suffer it. Doubtless the day will come which will resolve this, as everything gets resolved, into light, but not yet.

I write now to tell you of a piece of life. I wish you to know that there is shortly coming to you a man by the name of Bronson Alcott. If you have heard his name before, forget what you have heard. Especially if you have ever read anything to which this name was attached, be sure to forget that; and, inasmuch as in you lies, permit this stranger when he arrives at your gate to make a new and primary impression. I do not wish to bespeak any courtesies or good or bad opinion concerning him. You may love him, or hate him, or apathetically pa.s.s by him, as your genius shall dictate; only I entreat this, that you do not let him go quite out of your reach until you are sure you have seen him and know for certain the nature of the man. And so I leave contentedly my pilgrim to his fate.