The _Miscellanies_ is published in two volumes, a copy of which
goes to you immediately. Munroe tells me that two hundred and
fifty copies of it are already sold. Writing in a bookshop, my
dear friend, I have no power to say aught than that I am heartily
and always,
Yours,
R. Waldo Emerson
XXVI. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 6 August, 1838
My Dear Friend,--The swift ships are slow when they carry our
letters. Your letter dated the 15th of June arrived here last
Friday, the 3d of August. That day I was in Boston, and I have
only now got the information necessary to answer it. You have
probably already learned from my letter sent by the "Royal
William" (enclosing a bill of exchange for L50), that our first
two volumes of the _Miscellanies_ are published. I have sent you
a copy. The edition consists of one thousand copies. Of these
five hundred are bound, five hundred remain in sheets. The
title-pages, of course, are all printed alike; but the
publishers assure me that new title-pages can be struck off at a
trifling expense, with the imprint of Saunders and Ottley. The
cost of a copy in sheets or "folded" (if that means somewhat
more?) is eighty-nine cents; and bound is $1.15. The retail
price is $2.50 a copy; and the author's profit, $1; and the
bookseller's, 35 cents per copy; according to my understanding
of the written contract.
Here I believe you have all the material facts. I think there is
no doubt that the book will sell very well here. But if, for the
reasons you suggest, you wish any part of it, you can have it as
soon as ships can bring your will.
When you see your copy, you will perceive that we have printed
half the matter. I should presently begin to print the
remainder, inclusive of the Article on Lockhart's Scott, in two
more volumes; but now I think I shall wait until I hear from
you. Of those books we will print a larger edition, say twelve
hundred and fifty or fifteen hundred, if you want a part of it in
London. For I feel confident now that our public here is one
thousand strong. Write me therefore _by the steam packet_
your wishes.
I am sure you will like our edition. It has been most carefully
corrected by two young gentlemen who successively volunteered
their services, (the second when the first was called away,) and
who, residing in Cambridge, where the book was printed, could
easilier oversee it. They are Henry S. McBean, an engineer, and
Charles Stearns Wheeler, a Divinity student,--working both for
love of you. To one other gentleman I have brought you in debt,
--Rev. Convers Francis* (brother of Mrs. Child), who supplied from
his library all the numbers of the _Foreign Review_ from which we
printed the work. We could not have done without his books, and
he is a noble-hearted man, who rejoices in you. I have sent to
all three copies of the work as from you, and I shall be glad if
you will remember to sanction this expressly in your next letter.
----------
* This worthy man and lover of good books was, from 1842 till his
death in 1863, Professor in the Divinity School of Harvard
University.
----------
Thanks for the letter: thanks for your friendliest seeking of
friends for the poor _Oration._ Poor little pamphlet, to have
gone so far and so high! I am ashamed. I shall however send you
a couple more of the thin gentry presently, maugre all your hopes
and cautions. I have written and read a kind of sermon to the
Senior Class of our Cambridge Theological School a fortnight ago;
and an address to the Literary Societies of Dartmouth College;*
for though I hate American pleniloquence, I cannot easily say No
to young men who bid me speak also. And both these are now in
press. The first I hear is very offensive. I will now try to
hold my tongue until next winter. But I am asked continually
when you will come to Boston. Your lectures are boldly and
joyfully expected by brave young men. So do not forget us: and
if ever the scale-beam trembles, I beseech you, let the love of
me decide for America. I will not dare to tease you on a matter
of so many relations, and so important, and especially as I have
written out, I believe, my requests in a letter sent two or three
months ago,--but I must see you somewhere, somehow, may it please
God! I grieve to hear no better news of your wife. I hoped she
was sound and strong ere this, and can only hope still. My wife
and I send her our hearty love.
Yours affectionately,
R.W. Emerson
-----------
* The Address at the Cambridge Divinity School was delivered on
the 15th of July, and that at Dartmouth College on the 24th of
the same month. The title of the latter was "Literary Ethics."
Both are reprinted in Emerson's _Miscellanies._ These remarkable
discourses excited deep interest and wide attention. They
established Emerson's position as the leader of what was known as
the Transcendental movement. They were the expressions of his
inmost convictions and his matured thought. The Address at the
Divinity School gave rise to a storm of controversy which did not
disturb the serenity of its author. "It was," said Theodore
Parker, "the noblest, the most inspiring strain I ever listened
to." To others it seemed "neither good divinity nor good sense."
The Address at Dartmouth College set forth the high ideals of
intellectual life with an eloquence made irresistible by the
character of the speaker. From this time Emerson's influence
upon thought in America was acknowledged.
----------
XXVII. Carlyle to Emerson
Scotsbrig, Ecclefechan, (Annandale, Scotland)
25 September, 1838
My Dear Emerson,--There cannot any right answer be written you
here and now; yet I must write such answer as I can. You said,
"by steamship"; and it strikes me with a kind of remorse, on
this my first day of leisure and composure, that I have delayed
so long. For you must know, this is my Mother's house,--a place
to me unutterable as Hades and the Land of Spectres were;
likewise that my Brother is just home from Italy, and on the wing
thitherward or somewhither swiftly again; in a word, that all is
confusion and flutter with me here,--fit only for _silence!_ My
Wife sent me off hitherward, very sickly and unhappy, out of the
London dust, several weeks ago; I lingered in Fifeshire, I was
in Edinburgh, in Roxburghshire; have some calls to Cumberland,
which I believe I must refuse; and prepare to creep homeward
again, refreshed in health, but with a head and heart all
seething and tumbling (as the wont is, in such cases), and averse
to pens beyond all earthly implements. But my Brother is off
for Dumfries this morning; you before all others deserve an
hour of my solitude. I will abide by business; one must write
about that.
Your Bill and duplicate of a Bill for L50, with the two Letters
that accompanied them, you are to know then, did duly arrive at
Chelsea; and the larger Letter (of the 6th of August) was
forwarded to me hither some two weeks ago. I had also, long
before that, one of the friendliest of Letters from you, with a
clear and most inviting description of the Concord Household, its
inmates and appurtenances; and the announcement, evidently
authentic, that an apartment and heart's welcome was ready there
for my Wife and me; that we were to come quickly, and stay for a
twelvemonth. Surely no man has such friends as I. We ought to
say, May the Heavens give us thankful hearts! For, in truth,
there are blessings which do, like sun-gleams in wild weather,
make this rough life beautiful with rainbows here and there.
Indicating, I suppose, that there is a Sun, and general Heart of
Goodness, behind all that;--for which, as I say again, let us be
thankful evermore.
My Wife says she received your American Bill of so many pounds
sterling for the Revolution Book, with a "pathetic feeling" which
brought "tears" to her eyes. From beyond the waters there is a
hand held out; beyond the waters too live brothers. I would
only the Book were an Epic, a _Dante,_ or undying thing, that New
England might boast in after times of this feat of hers; and put
stupid, poundless, and penniless Old England to the blush about
it! But after all, that is no matter; the feebler the well-
meant Book is, the more "pathetic" is the whole transaction: and
so we will go on, fuller than ever of "desperate hope" (if you
know what that is), with a feeling one would not give and could
not get for several money-bags; and say or think, Long live true
friends and Emersons, and (in Scotch phrase) "May ne'er waur be
amang us!"--I will buy something permanent, I think, out of this
L50, and call it either _Ebenezer_ or _Yankee-doodle-doo._ May
good be repaid you manifold, my kind Brother! may good be ever
with you, my kind Friends all!
But now as to this edition of the _Miscellanies_ (poor things), I
really think my Wife is wisest, who says I ought to leave you
altogether to your own resources with it, America having an art
of making money out of my Books which England is unfortunately
altogether without. Besides, till I once see the Two Volumes now
under way, and can let a Bookseller see them, there could no
bargain be made on the subject. We will let it rest there,
therefore. Go on with your second Two Volumes, as if there were
no England extant, according to your own good judgment. When I
get to London, I will consult some of the blockheads with the
Book in my hand: if we do want Two Hundred copies, you can give
us them with a trifling loss. It is possible they may make some
better proposal about an Edition here: that depends on the fate
of _Sartor_ here, at present trying itself; which I have not in
the least ascertained. For the present, thank as is meet all
friends in your world that have interested themselves for me.
Alas! I have nothing to give them but thanks. Henry McKean,
Charles Wheeler, Convers Francis; these Names shall, if it
please Heaven, become Persons for me, one day. Well!--But I will
say nothing more. That too is of the things on which all Words
are poor to Silence. Good to the Good and Kind!
A Letter from me must have crossed that _descriptive_ Concord
one, on the Ocean, I think. Our correspondence is now standing
on its feet. I will write to you again, whether I hear from you
or not, so soon as my hand finds its cunning again in London,--so
soon as I can see there what is to be done or said. All goes
decidedly better, I think. My Wife was and is much healthier
than last year, than in any late year. I myself get visibly
quieter my preternatural _Meditations in Hades,_ apropos of this
Annandale of mine, are calm compared with those of last year. By
another Course of Lectures I have a fair prospect of living for
another season; nay, people call it a "new profession" I have
devised for myself, and say I may live by it as many years as I
like. This too is partly the fruit of my poor Book; one should
not say that it was worth nothing to me even in money. Last year
I fancied my Audience mainly the readers of it; drawn round me,
in spite of many things, by force of it. Let us be content. I
have Jesuits, Swedenborgians, old Quakeresses, _omne cum Proteus,_
--God help me, no man ever had so confused a public!--I
salute you, my dear Friend, and your hospitable circle. May
blessings be on your kind household, on your kind hearts!
--T. Carlyle
A copy of the English _Teufelsdrockh_ has lain with your name on
it these two months in Chelsea; waiting an opportunity. It is
worth nothing to you: a dingy, ill-managed edition; but correct
or nearly correct as to printing; it is right that such should
be in your hands in case of need. The New England Pamphlets will
be greedily expected. More than one inquires of me, Has that
Emerson of yours written nothing else? And I have lent them the
little Book _Nature,_ till it is nearly thumbed to pieces.
Sterling is gone to Italy for the winter since I left town;
swift as a flash! I cannot teach him the great art of _sitting
still;_ his fine qualities are really like to waste for want
of that.
I read your paragraph to Miss Martineau; she received it, as she
was bound, with a good grace. But I doubt, I doubt, O Ralph
Waldo Emerson, thou hast not been sufficiently ecstatic about
her,--thou graceless exception, confirmatory of a rule! In truth
there _are_ bores, of the first and of all lower magnitudes.
Patience and shuffle the cards.
XXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 17 October, 1838
My Dear Friend,--I am quite uneasy that I do not hear from you.
On the 21st of July I wrote to you and enclosed a remittance of
L50 by a Bill of Exchange on Baring Brothers, drawn by Chandler,
Howard, & Co., which was sent in the steamer "Royal William." On
the 2d of August I received your letter of inquiry respecting our
edition of the _Miscellanies,_ and wrote a few days later in
reply, that we could send you out two or three hundred copies of
our first two volumes, in sheets, at eighty-nine cents per copy
of two volumes, and the small additional price of the new title-
page. I said also that I would wait until I heard from you
before commencing the printing of the last two volumes of the
_Miscellanies,_ and, if you desired it, would print any number of
copies with a title-page for London. This letter went in a
steamer--he "Great Western" probably--about the 10th or 12th of
August. (Perhaps I misremember the names [of the steamers], and
the first should be last.) I have heard nothing from you since.
I trust my letters have not miscarried. (A third was sent also
by another channel inclosing a duplicate of the Bill of
Exchange.) With more fervency, I trust that all goes well in the
house of my friend,--and I suppose that you are absent on some
salutary errand of repairs and recreation. _Use, I pray you,
your earliest_ hour in certifying me of the facts.
One word more in regard to business. I believe I expressed some
surprise, in the July letter, that the booksellers should have no
greater balance for us at this settlement. I have since studied
the account better, and see that we shall not be disappointed in
the year of obtaining at least the sum first promised,--seven
hundred and sixty dollars; but the whole expense of the edition
is paid out of the copies first sold, and our profits depend on
the last sales. The edition is almost gone, and you shall have
an account at the end of the year.
In a letter within a twelvemonth I have urged you to pay us a
visit in America, and in Concord. I have believed that you would
come one day, and do believe it. But if, on your part, you have
been generous and affectionate enough to your friends here--or
curious enough concerning our society--to wish to come, I think
you must postpone, for the present, the satisfaction of your
friendship and your curiosity. At this moment I would not have
you here, on any account. The publication of my _Address to the
Divinity College_ (copies of which I sent you) has been the
occasion of an outcry in all our leading local newspapers against
my "infidelity," "pantheism," and "atheism." The writers warn
all and sundry against me, and against whatever is supposed
to be related to my connection of opinion, &c.; against
Transcendentalism, Goethe, and _Carlyle._ I am heartily sorry to
see this last aspect of the storm in our washbowl. For, as
Carlyle is nowise guilty, and has unpopularities of his own, I do
not wish to embroil him in my parish differences. You were
getting to be a great favorite with us all here, and are daily a
greater with the American public, but just now, _in Boston,_
where I am known as your editor, I fear you lose by the
association. Now it is indispensable to your right influence
here, that you should never come before our people as one of a
clique, but as a detached, that is, universally associated
man; so I am happy, as I could not have thought, that you
have not yielded yourself to my entreaties. Let us wait a
little until this foolish clamor be overblown. My position
is fortunately such as to put me quite out of the reach of any
real inconvenience from the panic-strikers or the panic-struck;
and, indeed, so far as this uneasiness is a necessary result of
mere inaction of mind, it seems very clear to me that, if I live,
my neighbors must look for a great many more shocks, and perhaps
harder to bear.
The article on German Religious Writers in the last _Foreign
Quarterly Review_ suits our meridian as well as yours; as is
plainly signified by the circumstance that our newspapers copy
into their columns the opening tirade and _no more._ Who wrote
that paper? And who wrote the paper on Montaigne in the
_Westminster?_ I read with great satisfaction the Poems and
Thoughts of Archaeus in _Blackwood._ "The Sexton's Daughter" is
a beautiful poem: and I recognize in them all _the_ Soul, with
joy and love. Tell me of the author's health and welfare; or,
will not he love me so much as to write me a letter with his own
hand? And tell me of yourself, what task of love and wisdom the
Muses impose; and what happiness the good God sends to you and
yours. I hope your wife has not forgotten me.
Yours affectionately,
R.W. Emerson
The _Miscellanies,_ Vols. I. and II., are a popular book. About
five hundred copies have been sold. The second article on Jean
Paul works with might on the inner man of young men. I hate to
write you letters on business and facts like this. There are so
few Friends that I think some time I shall meet you nearer, for
I love you more than is fit to say. W.H. Channing has written
a critique on you, which I suppose he has sent you, in the
_Boston Review._
XXIX. Carlyle to Emerson
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London
7 November, 1838
My Dear Friend,--It is all right; all your Letters with their
inclosures have arrived in due succession: the last, inquiring
after the fate of the others, came this morning. I was in
Scotland, as you partly conjecture; I wrote to you already
(though not without blamable delay), from my Mother's house in
Annandale, a confused scrawl, which I hope has already got to
hand, and quieted your kind anxieties. I am as well as usual in
health, my Wife better than usual; nothing is amiss, except my
negligence and indolence, which has put you to this superfluous
solicitude on my account. However, I have an additional Letter
by it; you must pardon me, you must not grudge me that
undeserved pleasure, the reward of evil-doing. I may well say,
you are a blessing to me on this Earth; no Letter comes from you
with other than good tidings,--or can come while you live there
to love me.
The Bill was thrust duly into Baring's brass slit "for
acceptance," on my return hither some three weeks ago; and will,
no doubt, were the days of grace run, come out in the shape of
Fifty Pounds Sterling; a very curious product indeed. Do you
know what I think of doing with it? _Dyspepsia,_ my constant
attendant in London, is incapable of help in my case by any
medicine or appliance except one only, Riding on horseback. With
a good horse to whirl me over the world for two hours daily, I
used to keep myself supportably well. Here, the maintenance of a
Horse far transcends my means; yet it seems hard I should not
for a little while be in a kind of approximate health in this
Babylon where I have my bread to seek it is like swimming with a
millstone round your neck,--ah me! In brief, I am about half
resolved to buy myself a sharp little nag with Twenty of these
Transatlantic Pounds, and ride him till the other Thirty be
eaten: I will call the creature "Yankee," and kind thoughts of
those far away shall be with me every time I mount him. Will not
that do? My Wife says it is the best plan I have had for years,
and strongly urges it on. My kind friends!
As to those copies of the Carlyle Miscellanies, I unfortunately
still can say nothing, except what was said in the former
(Scotch) letter, that you must proceed in the business with an
eye to America and not to us. My Booksellers, Saunders and
Ottley, have no money for me, no definite offer in money to make
for those Two Hundred copies, of which you seem likely to make
money if we simply leave them alone. I have asked these
Booksellers, I have asked Fraser too: What will you _give me in
ready money_ for Two Hundred and Fifty copies of that work, sell
it afterwards as you can? They answer always, We must see it
first. Now the copy long ago sent me has never come to hand; I
