My Dear Emerson,--Your letter through Sumner was sent by him from
Paris about a month ago; the man himself has not yet made his
appearance, or been heard of in these parts: he shall be very
welcome to me, arrive when he will. The February letter came
yesterday, by direct conveyance from Dartmouth. I answer it
today rather than tomorrow; I may not for long have a day freer
than this. _Fronte capillata, post est occasio calva:_ true
either in Latin or English!
You send me good news, as usual. You have been very brisk and
helpful in this business of the _Revolution_ Book, and I give you
many thanks and commendations. It will be a very brave day when
cash actually reaches me, no matter what the _number_ of the
coins, whether seven or seven hundred, out of Yankee-land; and
strange enough, what is not unlikely, if it be the _first_ cash I
realize for that piece of work,--Angle-land continuing still
_in_solvent to me! Well, it is a wide Motherland we have here,
or are getting to have, from Bass's Straits all round to Columbia
River, already almost circling the Globe: it must be hard with a
man if somewhere or other he find not some one or other to take
his part, and stand by him a little! Blessings on you, my
brother: nay, your work is already twice blessed.--I believe
after all, with the aid of my Scotch thrift, I shall not be
absolutely thrown into the streets here, or reduced to borrow,
and become the slave of somebody, for a morsel of bread. Thank
God, no! Nay, of late I begin entirely to despise that whole
matter, so as I never hitherto despised it: "Thou beggarliest
Spectre of Beggary that hast chased me ever since I was man, come
on then, in the Devil's name, let us see what is in thee! Will
the Soul of a man, with Eternity within a few years of it, quail
before _thee?_" Better, however, is my good pious Mother's
version of it: "They cannot take God's Providence from thee;
thou hast never wanted yet."*
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* In his Diary, May 9, 1838, Emerson wrote: "A letter this
morning from T. Carlyle. How should he be so poor? It is the
most creditable poverty I know of."
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But to go on with business; and the republication of books in
that Transoceanic England, New and improved Edition of England.
In January last, if I recollect right, Miss Martineau, in the
name of a certain Mr. Loring, applied to me for a correct List of
all my fugitive Papers; the said Mr. Loring meaning to publish
them for my behoof. This List she, though not without
solicitation, for I had small hope in it, did at last obtain, and
send, coupled with a request from me that you should be consulted
in the matter. Now it appears you had of yourself previously
determined on something of the same sort, and probably are far on
with the printing of your Two select volumes. I confess myself
greatly better pleased with it on that footing than on another.
Who Mr. Loring may be I know not, with any certainty, at first
hand; but who Waldo Emerson is I do know; and more than one god
from the machine is not necessary. I pray you, thank Mr. Loring
for his goodness towards me (his intents are evidently charitable
and not wicked); but consider yourself as in nowise bound at all
by that blotted Paper he has, but do the best you can for me,
consulting with him or not taking any counsel just as you see to
be fittest on the spot. And so Heaven prosper you, both in your
"aroused Yankee" state, and in all others;--and let us for the
present consider that we have enough about Books and Guineas. I
must add, however, that Fraser and I have yet made no bargain.
We found, on computing, that there would be five good
volumes, including _Teufelsdrockh._ For an edition of Seven
hundred and Fifty I demanded L50 a volume, and Fraser refused:
the poor man then fell dangerously ill, and there could not be a
word farther said on the subject; till very lately, when it
again became possible, but has not yet been put in practice. All
the world cries out, Why _do you_ publish with Fraser? "Because
my soul is sick of Booksellers, and of trade, and deception, and
'need and greed' altogether; and this poor Fraser, not worse
than the rest of them, has in some sort grown less hideous to me
by custom." I fancy, however, either Fraser will publish these
things before long; or some Samaritan here will take me to some
bolder brother of the trade that will. Great Samuel Johnson
assisted at the beginning of Bibliopoly; small Thomas Carlyle
assists at the ending of it: both are sorrowful seasons for a
man. For the rest, people here continue to receive that
_Revolution_ very much as you say they do _there:_ I am right
well quit of it; and the elderly gentlemen on both sides of the
water may take comfort, they will not soon have to suffer the
like again. But really England is wonderfully changed within
these ten years; the old gentlemen all shrunk into nooks, some
of them even voting with the young.--The American ill-printed Two
and-a-half-dollars Copy shall, for Emerson's sake, be welcomest
to me of all. Kennet will send it when it comes.
The _Oration_ did arrive, with my name on it, one snowy night in
January. It is off to Madeira; probably there now. I can
dispose of a score of copies to good advantage. Friend Sterling
has done the best of all his things in the current _Blackwood,_--
"Crystals from a Cavern,"--which see. He writes kind things of
you from Madeira, in expectation of the Speech. I will gratify
him with your message; he is to be here in May; better, we
hope, and in the way towards safety. Miss Martineau has given
you a luminous section in her new Book about America; you are
one of the American "Originals,"--the good Harriet!
And now I have but one thing to add and to repeat: Be quiet, be
quiet! The fire that is in one's own stomach is enough, without
foreign bellows to blow it ever and anon. My whole heart
shudders at the thrice-wretched self-combustion into which I see
all manner of poor paper-lanterns go up, the wind of "popularity"
puffing at them, and nothing left erelong but ashes and sooty
wreck. It is sad, most sad. I shun all such persons and
circles, as much as possible; and pray the gods to make me a
brick layer's hodbearer rather. O the "cabriolets, neatflies,"
and blue twaddlers of both sexes therein, that drive many a poor
Mrs. Rigmarole to the Devil!*--As for me, I continue doing as
nearly nothing as I can manage. I decline all invitations of
society that are declinable: a London rout is one of the maddest
things under the moon; a London dinner makes me sicker for a
week, and I say often, It is better to be even dull than to be
witty, better to be silent than to speak.
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* This sentence is a variation on one at the beginning of the
article on Scott.
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Curious: your Course of Lectures "on Human Culture" seems to be
on the very subject I am to discourse upon here in May coming;
but I am to call it "on the History of Literature," and _speak_
it, not write it. While you read this, I shall be in the
agonies! Ah me! often when I think of the matter, how my one
sole wish is to be left to hold my tongue, and by what bayonets
of Necessity clapt to my back I am driven into that Lecture-room,
and in what mood, and ordered to speak or die, I feel as if my
only utterance should be a flood of tears and blubbering! But
that, clearly, will not do. Then again I think it is perhaps
better so; who knows? At all events, we will try what is in
this Lecturing in London. If something, well; if nothing, why
also well. But I do want to get out of these coils for a tune.
My Brother is to be home again in May; if he go back to Italy,
if our Lecturing proved productive, why might we not all set off
thitherward for the winter coming? There is a dream to that
effect. It would suit my wife, too: she was alarmingly weak
this time twelvemonth; and I can only yet tell you that she is
stronger, not strong: she has not ventured out except at midday,
and rarely then, since Autumn last; she sits here patiently
waiting Summer, and charges me to send you her love.--America
also always lies in the background: I do believe, if I live
long, I shall get to Concord one day. Your wife must love me.
If the little Boy be a well-behaved fellow, he shall ride on my
back yet: if not, tell him I will have nothing to do with him,
the riotous little imp that he is. And so God bless you always,
my dear friend! Your affectionate,
--T. Carlyle