My Dear Friend,--You are very good to write to me in my silence,
in the mood you must be in. My silence you may well judge is not
forgetfulness; it is a forced silence; which this kind Letter
enforces into words. I write the day after your letter comes,
lest the morrow bring forth something new to hinder me.
What a bereavement, my Friend, is this that has overtaken you!
Such a Brother, with such a Life opening around him, like a
blooming garden where he was to labor and gather, all vanished
suddenly like frostwork, and hidden from your eye! It is a loss,
a sore loss; which God had appointed you. I do not tell you not
to mourn: I mourn with you, and could wish all mourners the
spirit you have in this sorrow. Oh, I know it well! Often
enough in this noisy Inanity of a vision where _we_ still linger,
I say to myself, Perhaps thy Buried Ones are not far from thee,
are with thee; they are in Eternity, which is a Now and HERE!
And yet Nature will have her right; Memory would feel desecrated
if she could forget. Many times in the crowded din of the
Living, some sight, some feature of a face, will recall to you
the Loved Face; and in these turmoiling streets you see the
little silent Churchyard, the green grave that lies there so
silent, inexpressibly _wae._ O, perhaps we _shall_ all meet
YONDER, and the tears be wiped from all eyes! One thing is no
Perhaps: surely we _shall_ all meet, if it be the will of the
Maker of us. If it be not His will,--then is it not better so?
Silence,--since in these days we have no speech! Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, in any day.
You inquire so earnestly about my welfare; hold open still the
hospitable door for me. Truly Concord, which I have sought out
on the Map, seems worthy of its name: no dissonance comes to me
from that side; but grief itself has acquired a harmony: in joy
or grief a voice says to me, Behold there is one that loves thee;
in thy loneliness, in thy darkness, see how a hospitable candle
shines from far over seas, how a friendly heart watches! It is
very good, and precious for me.
As for my health, be under no apprehension. I am always sick; I
am sicker and worse in body and mind, a little, for the present;
but it has no deep significance: it is _weariness_ merely; and
now, by the bounty of Heaven, I am as it were within sight
of land. In two months more, this unblessed Book will be
_finished;_ at Newyearday we begin printing: before the end of
March, the thing is out; and I am a free man! Few happinesses I
have ever known will equal that, as it seems to me. And yet I
ought not to call the poor Book unblessed: no, it has girdled me
round like a panoply these two years; kept me invulnerable,
indifferent, to innumerable things. The poorest man in London
has perhaps been one of the freest: the roaring press of gigs
and gigmen, with their gold blazonry and fierce gig-wheels, have
little incommoded him; they going their way, he going his.--As
for the results of the Book, I can rationally promise myself, on
the economical, pecuniary, or otherwise worldly side, simply
_zero._ It is a Book contradicting all rules of Formalism, that
have not a Reality within them, which so few have;--testifying,
the more quietly the worse, internecine war with Quacks high and
low. My good Brother, who was with me out of Italy in summer,
declared himself shocked, and almost terror-struck: "Jack," I
answered, "innumerable men give their lives cheerfully to defend
Falsehoods and Half-Falsehoods; why should not one writer give
his life cheerfully to say, in plain Scotch-English, in the
hearing of God and man, To me they seem false and half-false? At
all events, thou seest, I cannot help it. It is the nature of
the beast." So that, on the whole, I suppose there is no more
unpromotable, unappointable man now living in England than I.
Literature also, the miscellaneous place of refuge, seems done
here, unless you will take the Devil's wages for it; which one
does not incline to do. A _disjectum membrum;_ cut off from
relations with men? Verily so; and now forty years of age; and
extremely dyspeptical: a hopeless-looking man. Yet full of what
I call desperate-hope! One does verily stand on the Earth, a
Star-dome encompassing one; seemingly accoutred and enlisted and
sent to battle, with rations good, indifferent, or bad,--what can
one do but in the name of Odin, Tuisco, Hertha, Horsa, and
all Saxon and Hebrew Gods, fight it out?--This surely is very
idle talk.
As to the Book, I do say seriously that it is a wild, savage,
ruleless, very bad Book; which even you will not be able to
like; much less any other man. Yet it contains strange things;
sincerities drawn out of the heart of a man very strangely
situated; reverent of nothing but what is reverable in all ages
and places: so we will print it, and be done with it;--and try a
new turn next time. What I am to do, were the thing done, you
see therefore, is most uncertain. How gladly would I run to
Concord! And if I were there, be sure the do-nothing arrangement
is the only conceivable one for me. That my sick existence
subside again, this is the first condition; that quiet vision be
restored me. It is frightful what an impatience I have got for
many kinds of fellow-creatures. Their jargon really hurts me
like the shrieking of inarticulate creatures that ought to
articulate. There is no resource but to say: Brother, thou
surely art not hateful; thou art lovable, at lowest pitiable;--
alas! in my case, thou art dreadfully wearisome, unedifying: go
thy ways, with my blessing. There are hardly three people among
these two millions, whom I care much to exchange words with, in
the humor I have. Nevertheless, at bottom, it is not my purpose
to quit London finally till I have as it were _seen it out._ In
the very hugeness of the monstrous City, contradiction cancelling
contradiction, one finds a sort of composure for one's self that
is not to be met with elsewhere perhaps in the world: people
tolerate you, were it only that they have not time to trouble
themselves with you. Some individuals even love me here; there
are one or two whom I have even learned to love,--though, for the
present, cross circumstances have snatched them out of my orbit
again mostly. Wherefore, if you ask me, What I am to do?--the
answer is clear so far, "Rest myself awhile"; and all farther is
as dark as Chaos. Now for resting, taking that by itself, my
Brother, who has gone back to Rome with some thoughts of settling
as a Physician there, presses me to come thither, and rest in
Rome. On the other hand, a certain John Sterling (the best man I
have found in these regions) has been driven to Bordeaux lately
for his health; he will have it that I must come to him, and
walk through the South of France to Dauphine, Avignon, and over
the Alps next spring!* Thirdly, my Mother will have me return to
Annandale, and lie quiet in her little habitation;--which I
incline to think were the wisest course of all. And lastly from
over the Atlantic comes my good Emerson's voice. We will settle
nothing, except that all shall remain unsettled. _Die Zukunft
decket Schmerzen and Glucke._
------------
* In his _Life of Sterling,_ Carlyle prints a letter from
Sterling to himself, dated Bordeaux, October 26, 1836, in which
Sterling urges him to come "in the first fine days of spring."
It must have reached him a few days before he wrote this letter
to Emerson.
---------
I ought to say, however, that about New-year's-day I will send
you an Article on _Mirabeau,_ which they have printed here (for a
thing called the _London Review_), and some kind of Note to
escort it. I think Pamphlets travel as Letters in New England,
provided you leave the ends of them open: if I be mistaken, pray
instruct Messrs. Barnard to _refuse_ the thing, for it has small
value. _The Diamond Necklace_ is to be printed also, in
_Fraser;_ inconceivable hawking that poor Paper has had; till
now Fraser takes it--for L50: not being able to get it for
nothing. The _Mirabeau_ was written at the passionate request of
John Mill; and likewise for needful lucre. I think it is the
first shilling of money I have earned by my craft these four
years: where the money I have lived on has come from while I sat
here scribbling gratis, amazes me to think; yet surely it has
come (for I am still here), and Heaven only to thank for it,
which is a great fact. As for Mill's _London Review_ (for he is
quasi-editor), I do not recommend it to you. Hide-bound
Radicalism; a to me well-nigh insupportable thing! Open it not:
a breath as of Sahara and the Infinite Sterile comes from every
page of it. A young Radical Baronet* has laid out L3,000 on
getting the world instructed in that manner: it is very curious
to see.--Alas! the bottom of the sheet! Take my hurried but
kindest thanks for the prospect of your second Teufelsdrockh:
the _first_ too is now in my possession; Brother John went to
the Post-Office, and worked it out for a ten shillings. It is
a beautiful little Book; and a Preface to it such as no kindest
friend could have improved. Thank my kind Editor** very heartily
from me.
---------
* Sir William Molesworth. In his _Autobiography_ Mill gives an
interesting account of the founding of this _Review,_ and his
quasi-editorial relations to it. "In the beginning," he says,
"it did not, as a whole, by any means represent my opinion."
** Dr. Le-Baron Russell
---------
My wife was in Scotland in summer, driven thither by ill health;
she is stronger since her return, though not yet strong; she
sends over to Concord her kindest wishes. If I fly to the Alps
or the Ocean, her Mother and she must keep one another company,
we think, till there be better news of me. You are to thank Dr.
Channing also for his valued gift. I read the Discourse, and
other friends of his read it, with great estimation; but the
_end_ of that black question lies beyond my ken. I suppose, as
usual, Might and Right will have to make themselves synonymous in
some way. CANST and SHALT, if they are _very_ well understood,
mean the same thing under this Sun of ours. Adieu, my dear
Emerson. _Gehab' Dich wohl!_ Many affectionate regards to the
Lady Wife: it is far within the verge of Probabilities that I
shall see her face, and eat of her bread, one day. But she must
not get sick! It is a dreadful thing, sickness; really a thing
which I begin frequently to think _criminal_--at least in myself.
Nay, in myself it really is criminal; wherefore I determine to
be well one day.
Good be with you and Yours.
T. Carlyle
As to Goethe and your Friend: I know not anything out of
Goethe's own works (which have many notices in them) that treats
specially of those ten years. Doubtless your Friend knows
Jordens's _Lexicon_ (which dates all the writings, for one
thing), the _Conversations-Lexicon Supplement,_ and such like.
There is an essay by one Schubarth which has reputation; but it
is critical and ethical mainly. The Letters to Zelter, and the
Letters to Schiller, will do nothing for those years, but
are essential to see. Perhaps in some late number of the
_Zeitgenossen_ there may be something? Blackguard Heine is worth
very little; Mentzel is duller, decenter, not much wiser. A
very curious Book is Eckermann's _Conversations with Goethe,_
just published. No room more!*
-----------
* Concerning this letter Emerson wrote in his Diary: "January 7,
1837. Received day before yesterday a letter from Thomas
Carlyle, dated 5 November;--as ever, a cordial influence. Strong
he is, upright, noble, and sweet, and makes good how much of our
human nature. Quite in consonance with my delight in his
eloquent letters I read in Bacon this afternoon this sentence (of
Letters): 'And such as are written from wise men are of all the
words of men, in my judgment, the best; for they are more
natural than orations, public speeches, and more advised than
conferences or present speeches.'"
-------------
XIV. Carlyle to Emerson
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London, 13 February, 1837
My Dear Emerson,--You had promise of a letter to be despatched
you about New-year's-day; which promise I was myself in a
condition to fulfil at the time set, but delayed it, owing to
delays of printers and certain "Articles" that were to go with
it. Six weeks have not yet entirely brought up these laggard
animals: however, I will delay no longer for them. Nay, it
seems the Articles, were they never so ready, cannot go with the
Letter; but must fare round by Liverpool or Portsmouth, in a
separate conveyance. We will leave them to the bounty of Time.
Your little Book and the Copy of _Teufelsdrockh_ came safely;
soon after I had written. The _Teufelsdrockh_ I instantaneously
despatched to Hamburg, to a Scottish merchant there, to whom
there is an allusion in the Book; who used to be my _Speditor_
(one of the politest extant though totally a stranger) in my
missions and packages to and from Weimar.* The other, former
Copy, more specially yours, had already been, as I think I told
you, delivered out of durance; and got itself placed in the
bookshelf, as _the_ Teufelsdrockh. George Ripley tells me you
are printing another edition; much good may it do you! There is
now also a kind of whisper and whimper rising _here_ about
printing one. I said to myself once, when Bookseller Fraser
shrieked so loud at a certain message you sent him: "Perhaps
after all they will print this poor rag of a thing into a Book,
after I am dead it may be,--if so seem good to them. _Either_
way!" As it is, we leave the poor orphan to its destiny, all the
more cheerfully. Ripley says farther he has sent me a critique
of it by a better hand than the _North American:_ I expect it,
but have not got it Yet.** The _North American_ seems to say
that he too sent me one. It never came to hand, nor any hint of
it,--except I think once before through you. It was not at all
an unfriendly review; but had an opacity, of matter-of-fact in
it that filled one with amazement. Since the Irish Bishop who
said there were some things in _Gulliver_ on which he for one
would keep his belief _suspended,_ nothing equal to it, on that
side, has come athwart me. However, he _has_ made out that
Teufelsdrockh is, in all human probability, a fictitious
character; which is always something, for an Inquirer into
Truth.--Will you, finally, thank Friend Ripley in my name, till I
have time to write to him and thank him.
-----------
* The allusion referred to is the following: "By the kindness of
a Scottish Hamburg merchant, whose name, known to the whole
mercantile world, he must not mention; but whose honorable
courtesy, now and before spontaneously manifested to him, a mere
literary stranger, he cannot soon forget,--the bulky Weissnichtwo
packet, with all its Custom-house seals, foreign hieroglyphs, and
miscellaneous tokens of travel, arrived here in perfect safety,
and free of cost."--_Sartor Resartus,_ Book I. ch. xi.
** An article by the Rev. N.L. Frothingham in the _Christian
Examiner._
----------
Your little azure-colored Nature gave me true satisfaction. I
read it, and then lent it about to all my acquaintance that had a
sense for such things; from whom a similar verdict always came
back. You say it is the first chapter of something greater. I
call it rather the Foundation and Ground-plan on which you may
build whatsoever of great and true has been given you to build.
It is the true Apocalypse, this when the "Open Secret" becomes
revealed to a man. I rejoice much in the glad serenity of soul
with which you look out on this wondrous Dwelling-place of yours
and mine--with an ear for the _Ewigen Melodien,_ which pipe in
the winds round us, and utter themselves forth in all sounds and
sights and things: not to be written down by gamut-machinery;
but which all right writing is a kind of attempt to write down.
You will see what the years will bring you. It is not one of
your smallest qualities in my mind, that you can wait so quietly
and let the years do their best. He that cannot keep himself
quiet is of a morbid nature; and the thing he yields us will be
like him in that, whatever else it be.
Miss Martineau (for I have seen her since I wrote) tells me you
"are the only man in America" who has quietly set himself down on
a competency to follow his own path, and do the work his own will
prescribes for him. Pity that you were the only one! But be
one, nevertheless; be the first, and there will come a second
and a third. It is a poor country where all men are _sold_ to
Mammon, and can make nothing but Railways and Bursts of
Parliamentary Eloquence! And yet your New England here too has
the upper hand of our Old England, of our Old Europe: we too are
sold to Mammon, soul, body, and spirit; but (mark that, I pray
you, with double pity) Mammon will not _pay_ us,--we, are "Two
Million three hundred thousand in Ireland that have not potatoes
enough"! I declare, in History I find nothing more tragical. I
find also that it will alter; that for me as one it has altered.
Me Mammon will _pay_ or not as he finds convenient; buy me he
will not.--In fine, I say, sit still at Concord, with such spirit
as you are of; under the blessed skyey influences, with an open
sense, with the great Book of Existence open round you: we shall
see whether you too get not something blessed to read us from it.
The Paper is declining fast, and all is yet speculation. Along
with these two "Articles" (to be sent by Liverpool; there are
two of them, _Diamond Necklace_ and _Mirabeau_), you will very
probably get some stray Proofsheet--of the unutterable _French
Revolution!_ It is actually at Press; two Printers working at
separate Volumes of it,--though still too slow. In not many
weeks, my hands will be washed of it! You, I hope, can have
little conception of the feeling with which I wrote the last word
of it, one night in early January, when the clock was striking
ten, and our frugal Scotch supper coming in! I did not cry; nor
I did not pray but could have done both. No such _spell_ shall
get itself fixed on me for some while to come! A beggarly
Distortion; that will please no mortal, not even myself; of
which I know not whether the fire were not after all the due
place! And yet I ought not to say so: there is a great blessing
in a man's doing what he utterly can, in the case he is in.
Perhaps great quantities of dross are burnt out of me by this
calcination I have had; perhaps I shall be far quieter and
healthier of mind and body than I have ever been since boyhood.
The world, though no man had ever less empire in it, seems to me
a thing lying _under_ my feet; a mean imbroglio, which I never
more shall fear, or court, or disturb myself with: welcome and
welcome to go wholly _its own way;_ I wholly clear for going
mine. Through the summer months I am, somewhere or other, to
rest myself, in the deepest possible sleep. The residue is vague
as the wind,--unheeded as the wind. Some way it will turn out
that a poor, well-meaning Son of Adam has bread growing for him
too, better or worse: _any_ way,--or even _no_ way, if that be
it,--I shall be content. There is a scheme here among Friends
for my Lecturing in a thing they call Royal Institution; but it
will not do there, I think. The instant two or three are
gathered together under any terms, who want to learn something I
can teach them,--then we will, most readily, as Burns says,
"loose our tinkler jaw"; but not I think till then; were the
Institution even Imperial.
America has faded considerably into the background of late:
indeed, to say truth, whenever I think of myself in America, it
is as in the Backwoods, with a rifle in my hand, God's sky over
my head, and this accursed Lazar-house of quacks and blockheads,
'and sin and misery (now near a head) lying all behind me
forevermore. A thing, you see, which is and can be at bottom but
a daydream! To rest through the summer: that is my only fixed
wisdom; a resolution taken; only the place where uncertain.--
What a pity this poor sheet is done! I had innumerable things to
tell you about people whom I have seen, about books,--Miss
Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Butler, Southey, Influenza, Parliament,
Literature and the Life of Man,--the whole of which must lie over
till next time. Write to me; do not forget me. My Wife, who is
sitting by me, in very poor health (this long while), sends
"kindest remembrances," "compliments" she expressly does not
send. Good be with you always, my dear Friend!
--T. Carlyle
We send our felicitation to the Mother and little Boy; which
latter you had better tell us the name of.
XV. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, Mass., 31 March, 1837
My Dear Friend,--Last night, I said I would write to you
forthwith. This morning I received your letter of February 13th,
and _with it_ the _Diamond Necklace,_ the _Mirabeau,_ and the
olive leaf of a proof-sheet. I write out the sum of my debt as
the best acknowledgment I can make. I had already received,
about New-Year's-Day, the preceding letter. It came in the midst
of my washbowl-storm of a course of Lectures on the Philosophy of
History. For all these gifts and pledges,--thanks. Over the
finished _History,_ joy and evergreen laurels. I embrace you
with all my heart. I solace myself with the noble nature God has
given you, and in you to me, and to all. I had read the _Diamond
Necklace_ three weeks ago at the Boston Athenaeum, and the
_Mirabeau_ I had just read when my copy came. But the proof-sheet
was virgin gold. The _Mirabeau_ I forebode is to establish your
kingdom in England. That is genuine thunder, which nobody that
wears ears can affect to mistake for the rumbling of cart-wheels.
I please myself with thinking that my Angelo has blocked
