My Dear Friend,--Your welcome little Letter, with the astonishing
inclosure, arrived safe four days ago; right welcome, as all
your Letters are, and bringing as these usually do the best news
I get here. The miraculous draught of Paper I have just sent to
a sure hand in Liverpool, there to lie till in due time it have
ripened into a crop of a hundred gold sovereigns! On this
subject, which gives room for so many thoughts, there is little
that can be said, that were not an impertinence more or less.
The matter grows serious to me, enjoins me to be silent and
reflect. I will say, at any rate, there never came money into my
hands I was so proud of; the promise of a blessing looks from
the face of it; nay, it _will_ be _twice_ blessed. So I will
ejaculate, with the Arabs, _Allah akbar!_ and walk silent by the
shore of the many-sounding Babel-tumult, meditating on much.
Thanks to the mysterious all-bounteous Guide of men, and to you
my true Brother, far over the sea!--For the rest, I showed Fraser
this Nehemiah document, and said I hoped he would blush very
deep;--which indeed the poor creature did, till I was absolutely
sorry for him.
But now first as to this question, What I mean? You must know
poor Fraser, a punctual but most pusillanimous mortal, has been
talking louder and louder lately of a "second edition" here;
whereupon, as labor-wages are not higher here than with you, and
printing-work, if well bargained for, ought to be about the same
price, it struck me that, as in the case of the _Miscellanies,_
so here inversely the supply of both the New and the Old England
might be profitably combined. Whether aught can come of this,
now that it is got close upon us, I yet know not. Fraser has
only seventy-five copies left; but when these will be done his
prophecy comprehends not,--"surely within the year"! For the
present I have set him to ascertain, and will otherwise ascertain
for myself, what the exact cost of _stereotyping_ the Book were,
in the same letter and style as yours; it is not so much more
than printing, they tell me: I should then have done with it
forever and a day. You on your side, and we on ours, might have
as many copies as were wanted for all time coming. This is, in
these very days, under inquisition; but there are many points to
be settled before the issue.
I have not yet succeeded in finding a Bookseller of any fitness,
but am waiting for one always. And even had I found such a one,
I mean an energetic seller that would sell on other terms than
forty percent for his trouble, it were still a question whether
one ought to venture on such a speculation: "quitting the old
highways," as I say, "in indignation at the excessive tolls, with
hope that you will arrive cheaper in the steeple-chase way!" It
is clear, however, that said highways are of the corduroy sort,
said tolls an anomaly that must be remedied soon; and also that
in all England there is no Book in a likelier case to adventure
it with than this same,--which did not sell at all for two
months, as I hear, which all Booksellers got terrified for, and
which has crept along mainly by its own gravitation ever since.
We will consider well, we shall see. You can understand that
such a thing, for your market too, is in agitation; if any
pirate step in before us in the meanwhile, we cannot help it.
Thanks again for your swift attention to the _Miscellanies;_
poor Fraser is in great haste to see them; hoping for his forty-
per-cent division of the spoil. If you have not yet got to the
very end with your printing, I will add a few errata; if they
come too late, never mind; they are of small moment....
This foggy Babylon tumbles along as it was wont; and, as for my
particular case, uses me not worse, but better, than of old.
Nay, there are many in it that have a real friendliness for me.
For example, the other night, a massive portmanteau of Books,
sent according to my written list, from the Cambridge University
Library, from certain friends there whom I have never seen; a
gratifying arrival. For we have no Library here, from which we
can borrow books home; and are only in these weeks striving to
get one:* think of that! The worst is the sore tear and wear of
this huge roaring Niagara of things on such a poor excitable set
of nerves as mine. The velocity of all things, of the very word
you hear on the streets, is at railway rate: joy itself is
unenjoyable, to be avoided like pain; there is no wish one has
so pressing as for quiet. Ah me! I often swear I will be buried
at least in free breezy Scotland, out of this insane hubbub,
where Fate tethers me in life! If Fate always tether me;--but if
ever the smallest competence of worldly means be mine, I will fly
this whirlpool as I would the Lake of _Malebolge,_ and only visit
it now and then! Yet perhaps it is the proper place after all,
seeing all places are improper: who knows? Meanwhile I lead a
most dyspeptic, solitary, self-shrouded life: consuming, if
possible in silence, my considerable daily allotment of pain;
glad when any strength is left in me for working, which is the
only use I can see in myself,--too rare a case of late. The
ground of my existence is black as Death; too black, when all
void too but at times there paint themselves on it pictures of
gold and rainbow and lightning; all the brighter for the black
ground, I suppose. Withal I am very much of a fool.--Some people
will have me write on _Cromwell,_ which I have been talking
about. I do read on that and English subjects, finding that I
know nothing and that nobody knows anything of that: but whether
anything will come of it remains to be seen. Mill, the
_Westminster_ friend, is gone in bad health to the Continent, and
has left a rude Aberdeen Longear, a great admirer of mine too,
with whom I conjecture I cannot act at all: so good-bye to that.
The wisest of all, I do believe, were that I bought my nag
_Yankee_ and set to galloping about the elevated places here! A
certain Mr. Coolidge,** a Boston man of clear iron visage and
character, came down to me the other day with Sumner; he left
a newspaper fragment, containing "the Socinian Pope's denunciation
of Emerson."
---------
* The beginning of the London Library, a most useful institution,
from which books may be borrowed. It served Carlyle well in
later years, and for a long time he was President of it.
** The late Mr. Joseph Coolidge.
---------
The thing denounced had not then arrived, though often asked for
at Kennet's; it did not arrive till yesterday, but had lain buried
in bales of I know not what. We have read it only once, and are
not yet at the bottom of it. Meanwhile, as I judge, the Socinian
"tempest in a washbowl" is all according to nature, and will be
profitable to you, not hurtful. A man is called to let his light
shine before men; but he ought to understand better and better
what medium it is through, what retinas it falls on: wherefore
look _there._ I find in this, as in the two other Speeches, that
noblest self-assertion, and believing originality, which is like
sacred fire, the _beginning_ of whatsoever is to flame and work;
and for young men especially one sees not what could be more
vivifying. Speak, therefore, while you feel called to do it;
and when you feel called. But for yourself, my friend, I
prophesy it will not do always: a faculty is in you for a _sort_
of speech which is itself _action,_ an artistic sort. You _tell_
us with piercing emphasis that man's soul is great; _show_ us a
great soul of a man, in some work symbolic of such: this is the
seal of such a message, and you will feel by and by that you are
called to this. I long to see some concrete Thing, some Event,
Man's Life, American Forest, or piece of Creation, which this
Emerson loves and wonders at, well _Emersonized,_ depictured by
Emerson, filled with the life of Emerson, and cast forth from him
then to live by itself. If these Orations balk me of this, how
profitable soever they be for others. I will not love them.--And
yet, what am I saying? How do I know what is good for _you,_
what authentically makes your own heart glad to work in it? I
speak from _without,_ the friendliest voice must speak from
without; and a man's ultimate monition comes only from _within._
Forgive me, and love me, and write soon. _A Dieu!_
--T. Carlyle
My Wife, very proud of your salutation, sends a sick return of
greeting. After a winter of unusual strength, she took cold the
other day, and coughs again; though she will not call it serious
yet. One likes none of these things. She has a brisk heart and
a stout, but too weak a frame for this rough life of mine. I
will not get sad about it.
One of the strangest things about these New England Orations is a
fact I have heard, but not yet seen, that a certain W. Gladstone,
an Oxford crack Scholar, Tory M.P., and devout Churchman of great
talent and hope, has contrived to insert a piece of you (_first_
Oration it must be) in a work of his on _Church and State,_ which
makes some figure at present! I know him for a solid, serious,
silent-minded man; but how with his Coleridge Shovel-Hattism he
has contrived to relate himself to _you,_ there is the mystery.
True men of all creeds, it _would_ seem, are Brothers.
To write soon!