a Colossus which may stand in the public square to defy all
competitors. To be sure, that is its least merit,--that nobody
can do the like,--yet is it a gag to Cerberus. Its better merit
is that it inspires self-trust, by teaching the immense resources
that are in human nature; so I sent it to be read by a brave man
who is poor and decried. The doctrine is indeed true and grand
which you preach as by cannonade, that God made a man, and it
were as well to stand by and see what is in him, and, if he act
ever from his impulses, believe that he has his own checks, and,
however extravagant, will keep his orbit, and return from far; a
faith that draws confirmation from the sempiternal ignorance and
stationariness of society, and the sempiternal growth of all
the individuals.
The _Diamond Necklace_ I read with joy, whilst I read with my own
eyes. When I read with English or New-English eyes, my joy is
marred by the roaring of the opposition. I doubt not the exact
story is there told as it fell out, and told for the first time;
but the eye of your readers, as you will easily guess, will be
bewildered by the multitude of brilliant-colored hieroglyphics
whereby the meaning is conveyed. And for the Gig,--the Gig,--it
is fairly worn out, and such a cloud-compeller must mock that
particular symbol no more.
I thought as I read this piece that your strange genius was the
instant fruit of your London. It is the aroma of Babylon. Such
as the great metropolis, such is this style: so vast, enormous,
related to all the world, and so endless in details. I think you
see as pictures every street, church, parliament-house, barrack,
baker's shop, mutton-stall, forge, wharf, and ship, and whatever
stands, creeps, rolls, or swims thereabouts, and make all your
own. Hence your encyclopediacal allusion to all knowables, and
the virtues and vices of your panoramic pages. Well, it is your
own; and it is English; and every word stands for somewhat;
and it cheers and fortifies me. And what more can a man ask of
his writing fellow-man? Why, all things; inasmuch as a good
mind creates wants at every stroke.
The proof-sheet rhymes well with _Mirabeau,_ and has abated my
fears from your own and your brother's account of the new book.
I greet it well. Auspicious Babe, be born! The first good of
the book is that it makes you free, and as I anxiously hope makes
your body sound. A possible good is that it will cause me to see
your face. But I seemed to read in _Mirabeau_ what you intimate
in your letter, that you will not come westward. Old England is
to find you out, and then the New will have no charm. For me it
will be the worst; for you, not. A man, a few men, cannot be to
you (with your ministering eyes) that which you should travel far
to find. Moreover, I observe that America looks, to those who
come hither, as unromantic and unexciting as the Dutch canals. I
see plainly that our Society, for the most part, is as bigoted to
the _respectabilities_ of religion and education as yours; that
there is no more appetite for a revelation here than elsewhere;
and the educated class are, of course, less fair-minded than
others. Yet, in the moments when my eyes are open, I see that
here are rich materials for the philosopher and poet, and, what
is more to your purpose as an artist, that we have had in these
parts no one philosopher or poet to put a sickle to the prairie
wheat. I have really never believed that you would do us that
crowning grace of coming hither, yet if God should be kinder to
us than our belief, I meant and mean to hold you fast in my
little meadows on the Musketaquid (now Concord) River, and show
you (as in this country we can anywhere) an America in miniature
in the April or November town meeting. Therein should you
conveniently study and master the whole of our hemispherical
politics reduced to a nutshell, and have a new version of
Oxenstiern's little wit; and yet be consoled by seeing that here
the farmers patient as their bulls of head-boards--provided for
them in relation to distant national objects, by kind editors of
newspapers--do yet their will, and a good will, in their own
parish. If a wise man would pass by New York, and be content to
sit still in this village a few months, he should get a thorough
native knowledge which no foreigner has yet acquired. So I leave
you with God, and if any oracle in the great Delphos should say
"Go," why fly to us instantly. Come and spend a year with me,
and see if I cannot respect your retirements.
I must love you for your interest in me and my way of life, and
the more that we only look for good-nature in the creative class.
They pay the tag of grandeur, and, attracted irresistibly to
make, their living is usually weak and hapless. But you are so
companionable--God has made you Man as well as Poet--that I
lament the three thousand miles of mountainous water. Burns
might have added a better verse to his poem, importing that one
might write Iliads or Hamlets, and yet come short of Truth by
infinity, as every written word must; but "the man's the gowd
for a' that." And I heartily thank the Lady for her good-will.
Please God she may be already well. We all grieve to know of her
ill health. People who have seen her never stop with _Mr._
Carlyle, but count him thrice blest in her. My wife believes in
nothing for her but the American voyage. I shall never cease to
expect you both until you come.
My boy is five months old, he is called Waldo,--a lovely wonder
that made the Universe look friendlier to me.
My Wife, one of your best lovers, sends her affectionate regards
to Mrs. Carlyle, and says that she takes exception in your
letters only to that sentence that she would go to Scotland if
you came here. My Wife beseeches her to come and possess her
new-dressed chamber. Do not cease to write whenever you can
spare me an hour. A man named Bronson Alcott is great, and one
of the jewels we have to show you. Good bye.
--R.W. Emerson
The second edition of _Sartor_ is out and sells well. I
learned the other day that twenty-five copies of it were ordered
for England. It was very amiable of you, that word about it
in _Mirabeau._*
----------
* This refers to Carlyle's introducing, in his paper on
_Mirabeau,_ a citation from _Sartor,_ with the words, "We quote
from a New England Book."
----------
XVI. Carlyle to Emerson
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London, 1 June, 1857
My Dear Friend,--A word must go to Concord in answer to your last
kind word. It reached me, that word of yours, on the morning of
a most unspeakable day; the day when I, half dead with fret,
agitation, and exasperation, was to address extempore an audience
of London quality people on the subject of German Literature!
The heart's wish of me was that I might be left in deepest
oblivion, wrapped in blankets and silence, not speaking, not
spoken to, for a twelvemonth to come. My Printers had only let
me go, out of their Treadmill, the day before. However, all that
is over now; and I am still here alive to write to you, and hope
for better days.
Almost a month ago there went a copy of a Book called _French
Revolution,_ with your address on it, over to Red-Lion Square,
and thence, as old Rich declared, himself now _emeritus,_ back to
one Kennet (I think) near Covent Garden; who professes to
correspond with Hilliard and Company, Boston, and undertook the
service. The Book is not gone yet, I understand; but Kennet
engages that it shall leave Liverpool infallibly on the 5th of
June. I wish you a happy reading of it, therefore: it is the
only copy of my sending that has crossed the water. Ill printed
(there are many errors, one or two gross ones), ill written, ill
thought! But in fine it _is_ off my hands: that is a fact worth
all others. As to its reception here or elsewhere, I anticipate
nothing or little. Gabble, gabble, the astonishment of the dull
public brain is likely to be considerable, and its ejaculations
unedifying. We will let it go its way. Beat this thing, I say
always, under thy dull hoofs, O dull Public! trample it and
tumble it into all sinks and kennels; if thou canst kill it,
kill it in God's name: if thou canst not kill it, why then thou
wilt not.
By the by, speaking of dull Publics, I ought to say that I have
seen a review of myself in the _Christian Examiner_ (I think that
is it) of Boston; the author of which, if you know him, I desire
you to thank on my part. For if a dull million is good, then
withal a seeing unit or two is also good. This man images back a
beautiful idealized Clothes-Philosopher, very satisfactory to
look upon; in whose beatified features I did verily detect more
similitude to what I myself meant to be, than in any or all the
other criticisms I have yet seen written of me. That a man see
himself reflected from the soul of his brother-man in this
brotherly improved way: there surely is one of the most
legitimate joys of existence. Friend Ripley took the trouble to
send me this Review, in which I detected an Article of his own;
there came also some Discourses of his much to be approved of; a
Newspaper passage-of-fence with a Philistine of yours; and a set
of Essays on Progress-of-the-species and such like by a man whom
I grieved to see confusing himself with that. Progress of the
species is a thing I can get no good of at all. These Books,
which Miss Martineau has borrowed from me, did not arrive till
three weeks ago or less. I pray you to thank Ripley for them
very kindly; which at present I still have not time to do. He
seems to me a good man, with good aims; with considerable
natural health of mind, wherein all goodness is likely to grow
better, all clearness to grow clearer. Miss Martineau laments
that he does not fling himself, or not with the due impetuosity,
into the Black Controversy; a thing lamentable in the extreme,
when one considers what a world this is, and how perfect it would
be could Mungo once get his stupid case rectified, and eat his
squash as a stupid _Apprentice_ instead of stupid _Slave!_
Miss Martineau's Book on America is out, here and with you. I
have read it for the good Authoress's sake, whom I love much.
She is one of the strangest phenomena to me. A genuine little
Poetess, buckramed, swathed like a mummy into Socinian and
Political-Economy formulas; and yet verily alive in the inside
of that! "God has given a Prophet to every People in its own
speech," say the Arabs. Even the English Unitarians were one day
to have their Poet, and the best that could be said for them too
was to be said. I admire this good lady's integrity, sincerity;
her quick, sharp discernment to the depth it goes: her love
also is great; nay, in fact it is too great: the host of
illustrious obscure mortals whom she produces on you, of
Preachers, Pamphleteers, Antislavers, Able Editors, and other
Atlases bearing (unknown to us) the world on their shoulder, is
absolutely more than enough. What they say to her Book here I do
not well know. I fancy the general reception will be good, and
even brilliant. I saw Mrs. Butler* last night, "in an ocean of
blonde and broadcloth," one of those oceans common at present.
Ach Gott! They are not of Persons, these soirdes, but of
Cloth Figures.
----------
* Mrs Fanny Kemble Butler.
----------
I mean to retreat into Scotland very soon, to repose myself as I
intended. My Wife continues here with her Mother; here at least
till the weather grow too hot, or a journey to join me seem
otherwise advisable for her. She is gathering strength, but
continues still weak enough. I rest myself "on the sunny side of
hedges" in native Annandale, one of the obscurest regions; no
man shall speak to me, I will speak to no man; but have
dialogues yonder with the old dumb crags, of the most
unfathomable sort. Once rested, I think of returning to London
for another season. Several things are beginning which I ought
to see end before taking up my staff again. In this enormous
Chaos the very multitude of conflicting perversions produces
something more like a _calm_ than you can elsewhere meet with.
Men let you alone, which is an immense thing: they do it even
because they have no time to meddle with you. London, or else
the Backwoods of America, or Craigenputtock! We shall see.
I still beg the comfort of hearing from you. I am sick of soul
and body, but not incurable; the loving word of a Waldo Emerson
is as balm to me, medicinal now more than ever. My Wife
earnestly joins me in love to the Concord Household. May a
blessing be in it, on one and all! I do nowise give up the idea
of sojourning there one time yet. On the contrary, it seems
almost certain that I shall. Good be with you.
Yours always,
T. Carlyle*
-----------
* Emerson wrote in his Diary, July 27, 1837: "A letter today
from Carlyle rejoiced me. Pleasant would life be with such
companions. But if you cannot have them on good mutual terms you
cannot have them. If not the Deity but our wilfulness hews and
shapes the new relations, their sweetness escapes, as
strawberries lose their flavor by cultivation."
----------
XVII. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 13 September, 1837
My Dear Friend,--Such a gift as the _French Revolution_ demanded
a speedier acknowledgment. But you mountaineers that can scale
Andes before breakfast for an airing have no measures for the
performance of lowlanders and valetudinarians. I am ashamed to
think, and will not tell, what little things have kept me silent.
The _French Revolution_ did not reach me until three weeks ago,
having had at least two long pauses by the way, as I find, since
landing. Between many visits received, and some literary
haranguing done, I have read two volumes and half the third and I
think you a very good giant; disporting yourself with an
original and vast ambition of fun: pleasure and peace not being
strong enough for you, you choose to suck pain also, and teach
fever and famine to dance and sing. I think you have written a
wonderful book, which will last a very long time. I see that you
have created a history, which the world will own to be such. You
have recognized the existence of other persons than officers, and
of other relations than civism. You have broken away from all
books, and written a mind. It is a brave experiment, and the
success is great. We have men in your story and not names
merely; always men, though I may doubt sometimes whether I have
the historic men. We have great facts--and selected facts--truly
set down. We have always the co-presence of Humanity along with
the imperfect damaged individuals. The soul's right of wonder is
still left to us; and we have righteous praise and doom awarded,
assuredly without cant. Yes, comfort yourself on that
particular, O ungodliest divine man! thou cantest never. Finally
we have not--a dull word. Never was there a style so rapid as
yours,--which no reader can outrun; and so it is for the most
intelligent. I suppose nothing will astonish more than the
audacious wit and cheerfulness which no tragedy and no magnitude
of events can overpower or daunt. Henry VIII loved a Man, and I
see with joy my bard always equal to the crisis he represents.
And so I thank you for your labor, and feel that your
contemporaries ought to say, All hail, Brother! live forever:
not only in the great Soul which thou largely inhalest, but also
as a named, person in this thy definite deed.
I will tell you more of the book when I have once got it at focal
distance,--if that can ever be, and muster my objections when I
am sure of their ground. I insist, of course, that it might be
more simple, less Gothically efflorescent. You will say no rules
for the illumination of windows can apply to the Aurora borealis.
However, I find refreshment when every now and then a special
fact slips into the narrative couched in sharp and businesslike
terms. This character-drawing in the book is certainly
admirable; the lines are ploughed furrows; but there was cake
and ale before, though thou be virtuous. Clarendon surely drew
sharp outlines for me in Falkland, Hampden, and the rest, without
defiance or sky-vaulting. I wish I could talk with you face to
face for one day, and know what your uttermost frankness would
say concerning the book. I feel assured of its good reception in
this country. I learned last Saturday that in all eleven hundred
and sixty-six copies of _Sartor_ have been sold. I have told the
publisher of that book that he must not print the _History_ until
some space has been given to people to import British copies. I
have ordered Hilliard, Gray, & Co. to import twenty copies as an
experiment. At the present very high rate of exchange, which
makes a shilling worth thirty cents, they think, with freight and
duties, the book would be too costly here for sale, but we
confide in a speedy fall of Exchange; then my books shall come.
I am ashamed that you should educate our young men, and that we
should pirate your books. One day we will have a better law, or
perhaps you will make our law yours.
I had your letter long before your book. Very good work you have
done in your lifetime, and very generously you adorn and cheer
this pilgrimage of mine by your love. I find my highest prayer
granted in calling a just and wise man my friend. Your profuse
benefaction of genius in so few years makes me feel very poor and
useless. I see that I must go on trust to you and to all the
brave for some longer time, hoping yet to prove one day my truth
and love. There are in this country so few scholars, that the
services of each studious person are needed to do what he can
for the circulation of thoughts, to the end of making some
counterweight to the money force, and to give such food as he may
to the nigh starving youth. So I religiously read lectures every
winter, and at other times whenever summoned. Last year, "the
Philosophy of History," twelve lectures; and now I meditate a
course on what I call "Ethics." I peddle out all the wit I can
gather from Time or from Nature, and am pained at heart to see
how thankfully that little is received.
Write to me, good friend, tell me if you went to Scotland,--what
you do, and will do,--tell me that your wife is strong and well
again as when I saw her at Craigenputtock. I desire to be
affectionately remembered to her. Tell me when you will come
hither. I called together a little club a week ago, who spent a
day with me,--counting fifteen souls,--each one of whom warmly
loves you. So if the _French Revolution_ does not convert the
"dull public" of your native Nineveh, I see not but you must
shake their dust from your shoes and cross the Atlantic to a New
England. Yours in love and honor.
--R. Waldo Emerson
May I trouble you with a commission when you are in the City?
You mention being at the shop of Rich in Red-Lion Square. Will
you say to him that he sent me some books two or three years ago
without any account of prices annexed? I wrote him once myself,
once through S. Burdett, bookseller, and since through C.P.
Curtis, Esq., who professes to be his attorney in Boston,--three
times,--to ask for this account. No answer has ever come. I
wish he would send me the account, that I may settle it. If he
persist in his self-denying contumacy, I think you may
immortalize him as a bookseller of the gods.
I shall send you an Oration presently, delivered before a
literary society here, which is now being printed.* Gladly I
hear of the Carlylet--so they say--in the new Westminster.
---------
* This was Emerson's famous Oration before the Phi Beta Kappa
Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837, on "The American
Scholar." In his admirable essay on Thoreau,--an essay which
might serve as introduction and comment to the letters of Carlyle
and Emerson during these years,--Lowell speaks of the impression
made by this remarkable discourse. It "was an event without any
former parallel in our literary annals, a scene to be always
treasured in the memory for its picturesqueness and its
inspiration. What crowded and breathless aisles, what windows
clustering with eager heads, what enthusiasm of approval, what
grim silence of foregone dissent! It was our Yankee version of a
lecture by Abelard, our Harvard parallel to the last public
appearances of Schelling."--_My Study Windows,_ p. 197
---------
XVIII. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 2 November, 1837
My Dear Friend,--Mr. Charles Sumner, a lawyer of high standing
for his age, and editor or one editor of a journal called _The
Jurist,_ and withal a lover of your writings, tells me he is
going to Paris and thence to London, and sets out in a few days.
I cannot, of course, resist his request for a letter to you, nor
let pass the occasion of a greeting. Health, Joy, and Peace be
with you! I hope you sit still yet, and do not hastily meditate
new labors. Phidias need not be always tinkering. Sit still
like an Egyptian. Somebody told me the other day that your
friends here might have made a sum for the author by publishing
_Sartor_ themselves, instead of leaving it with a bookseller.
