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-Worship_ 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
gods 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 noble 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 ships" 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. Analogous to
"philanthropy," "pleasures of virtue," &c., &c. I for my part,
in these singular circumstances, 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
Cockney 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 retards 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
passing 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 ship, just tumbled over on a sand-bank on the
Cumberland 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 God, the steamer's boat is out: "eleven men,"
says a person with a glass, "are saved: it is an American
timber-ship, coming up without a Pilot." And now--in ten minutes
more--there lies the melancholy mass 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 friendship 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 steamship, 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 God 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 noble 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-ship
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.
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 Classic God Pan's; with horns, and cloven
feet, we feel that he would make a perfect wood-god;--really,
some of Poussin's Satyrs are almost portraits of this brave
Gambardella. I will warrant him a right glowing mass 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 quantity), 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 circumstances; 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,
