My Dear Emerson,--Your Letter, dated Boston, 20th April, has been
here for some two weeks. Miss Sedgwick, whom it taught us to
expect in "about a fortnight," has yet given no note of herself,
but shall be right welcome whenever she appears. Miss
Martineau's absence (she is in Switzerland this summer) will
probably be a loss to the fair Pilgrim;--which of course the rest
of us ought to exert ourselves to make good.... My Lectures are
happily over ten days ago; with "success" enough, as it is
called; the only _valuable_ part of which is some L200, gained
with great pain, but also with great brevity:--economical respite
for another solar year! The people were boundlessly tolerant;
my agitation beforehand was less this year, my remorse afterwards
proportionally greater. There was but one moderately good
Lecture, the last,--on Sausculottism, to an audience mostly Tory,
and rustling with the beautifulest quality silks! Two things I
find: first that _I ought to have had a horse;_ I had only
three incidental rides or gallops, hired rides; my horse
_Yankee_ is never yet purchased, but it shall be, for I cannot
live, except in great pain, without a horse. It was sweet beyond
measure to escape out of the dustwhirlpool here, and _fly,_ in
solitude, through the ocean of verdure and splendor, as far as
Harrow and back again; and one's nerves were _clear_ next day,
and words lying in one like water in a well. But the _second_
thing I found was, that extempore speaking, especially in the way
of Lecture, is an _art_ or craft, and requires an apprenticeship,
which I have never served. Repeatedly it has come into my head
that I should go to America, this very Fall, and belecture you
from North to South till I learn it! Such a thing does lie in
the bottom-scenes, should hard come to hard; and looks pleasant
enough.--On the whole, I say sometimes, I must either begin a
Book, or do it. Books are the lasting thing; Lectures are like
corn ground into flour; there are loaves for today, but no wheat
harvests for next year. Rudiments of a new Book (thank Heaven!)
do sometimes disclose themselves in me. _Festina lente._ It
ought to be better than the _French Revolution;_ I mean better
written. The greater part of that Book, as I read proof-sheets
of it in these weeks, does nothing but _disgust_ me. And yet it
was, as nearly as was good, the utmost that lay in me. I should
not like to be nearer killed with any other Book!--Books too are
a triviality. Life alone is great; with its infinite spaces,
its everlasting times, with its Death, with its Heaven and its
Hell. Ah me!
Wordsworth is here at present; a garrulous, rather watery, not
wearisome old man. There is a freshness as of brooks and
mountain breezes in him; one says of him: Thou art not great,
but thou art genuine; well speed _thou._ Sterling is home from
Italy, recovered in health, indeed very well could he but _sit
still._ He is for Clifton, near Bristol, for the next three
months. I hear him speak of some sonnet or other he means to
address to you: as for me he knows well that I call his
verses timber toned, without true melody either in thought,
phrase or sound. The good John! Did you ever see such a vacant
turnip-lantern as that Walsingham Goethe? Iconoclast Collins
strikes his wooden shoe through him, and passes on, saying almost
nothing.--My space is done! I greet the little _maidkin,_ and
bid her welcome to this unutterable world. Commend her, poor
little thing, to her little Brother, to her Mother and Father;--
Nature, I suppose, has sent her strong letters of recommendation,
without our help, to them all. Where I shall be in six weeks is
not very certain; likeliest in Scotland, whither our whole
household, servant and all, is pressingly invited, where they
have provided horses and gigs. Letters sent hither will still
find me, or lie waiting for me, safe: but perhaps the
_speediest_ address will be "Care of Fraser, 215 Regent Street."
My Brother wants me to the Tyrol and Vienna; but I think I shall
not go. Adieu, dear friend. It is a great treasure to me that I
have you in this world. My Wife salutes you all.--
Yours ever and ever,
T. Carlyle