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.
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* Mrs Fanny Kemble Butler.
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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*
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* 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."
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