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.'"
-------------