My Dear Emerson,--What a time since we have written to one
another! was it you that defalcated? Alas, I fear it was myself;
I have had a feeling these nine or ten weeks that you were
expecting to hear from me; that I absolutely could not write.
Your kind gift of Fuller's _Eckermann_* was handed in to our
Hackney coach, in Regent Street, as we wended homewards from the
railway and Scotland, on perhaps the 8th of September last; a
welcome memorial of distant friends and doings: nay, perhaps
there was a Letter two weeks prior to that:--I am a great sinner!
But the truth is, I could not write; and now I can and do it!
----------
* "Conversations with Goethe. Translated from the German of
Eckermann. By S.M. Fuller." Boston, 1839. This was the fourth
volume in the series of "Specimens of Foreign Standard
Literature," edited by George Ripley. The book has a
characteristic Preface by Miss Fuller, in which she speaks of
Carlyle as "the only competent English critic" of Goethe.
----------
Our sojourn in Scotland was stagnant, sad; but tranquil, _well
let alone,_--an indispensable blessing to a poor creature fretted
to fiddle-strings, as I grow to be in this Babylon, take it as I
will. We had eight weeks of desolate rain; with about eight
days bright as diamonds intercalated in that black monotony of
bad weather. The old Hills are the same; the old Streams go
gushing along as in past years, in past ages; but he that looks
on them is no longer the same: and the old Friends, where are
they? I walk silent through my old haunts in that country; sunk
usually in inexpressible reflections, in an immeasurable chaos of
musings and mopings that cannot be reflected or articulated. The
only work I had on hand was one that would not prosper with me:
an Article for the _Quarterly Review_ on the state of the Working
Classes here. The thoughts were familiar to me, old, many years
old; but the utterance of them, in what spoken dialect to utter
them! The _Quarterly Review_ was not an eligible vehicle, and
yet the eligiblest; of Whigs, abandoned to Dilettantism and
withered sceptical conventionality, there was no hope at all;
the _London-and-Westminster_ Radicals, wedded to their Benthamee
Formulas, and tremulous at their own shadows, expressly rejected
my proposal many months ago: Tories alone remained; Tories I
often think have more stuff in them, in spite of their blindness,
than any other class we have;--Walter Scott's _sympathy_ with his
fellow creatures, what is it compared with Sydney Smith's, with a
Poor Law Commissioner's! Well: this thing would not prosper
with me in Scotland at all; nor here at all, where nevertheless
I had to persist writing; writing and burning, and cursing my
destiny, and then again writing. Finally the thing came out, as
an Essay on _Chartism;_ was shown to Lockhart, according to
agreement; was praised by him, but was also found unsuitable by
him; suitable to _explode_ a whole fleet of Quarterlies into
sky-rockets in these times! And now Fraser publishes it himself,
with some additions, as a little Volume; and it will go forth in
a week or two on its own footing; and England will see what she
has to say to it, whether something or nothing; and one man, as
usual, is right glad that he has nothing more to do with it.
This is the reason why I could not write. I mean to send you the
Proof-sheets of this thing, to do with as you see cause; there
will be but some five or six, I think. It is probable my New
England brothers may approve some portions of it; may be curious
to see it reprinted; you ought to say Yes or No in regard to
that. I think I will send all the sheets together; or at
farthest, at two times.
Fraser, when we returned hither, had already received his
_Miscellanies;_ had about despatched his five hundred _French
Revolutions,_ insured and so, forth, consigned, I suppose, to
your protection and the proper booksellers; probably they have
got over from New York into your neighborhood before now. Much
good may they do you! The _Miscellanies,_ with their variegated
binding, proved to be in perfect order; and are now all sold;
with much regret from poor James that we had not a thousand more
of them! This thousand he now sets about providing by his own
industry, poor man; I am revising the American copy in these
days; the printer is to proceed forthwith. I admire the good
Stearns Wheeler as I proceed; I write to him my thanks by this
post, and send him by Kennet a copy of Goethe's _Meister,_ for
symbol of acknowledgment. Another copy goes off for you, to the
care of Little and Company. Fraser has got it out two weeks ago;
a respectable enough book, now that the version is corrected
somewhat. Tell me whether you dislike it less; what you do
think of it? By the by, have you not learned to read German now?
I rather think you have. It is three months spent well, if ever
months were, for a thinking Englishman of this age.--I hope
Kennet will use more despatch than he sometimes does. Thank
Heaven for these Boston Steamers they project! May the Nereids
and Poseidon favor them! They will bring us a thousand miles
nearer, at one step; by and by we shall be of one parish
after all.
During Autumn I speculated often about a Hegira into New England
this very year: but alas! my horror of _Lecturing_ continues
great; and what else is there for me to do there? These several
years I have had no wish so pressing as to hold my peace. I
begin again to feel some use in articulate speech; perhaps I
shall one day have something that I want to utter even in your
side of the water. We shall see. Patience, and shuffle the
cards.--I saw no more of Webster; did not even learn well where
he was, till lately I noticed in the Newspapers that he had gone
home again. A certain Mr. Brown (I think) brought me a letter
from you, not long since; I forwarded him to Cambridge and
Scotland: a modest inoffensive man. He said he had never
personally met with Emerson. My Wife recalled to him the story
of the Scotch Traveler on the top of Vesuvius: "Never saw so
beautiful a scene in the world!"--"Nor I," replied a stranger
standing there, "except once; on the top of Dunmiot, in the
Ochil Hills in Scotland."--"Good Heavens! That is a part of my
Estate, and I was never there! I will go thither." Yes, do!--We
have seen no other Transoceanic that I remember. We expect your
_Book_ soon! We know the subject of your Winter Lectures too;
at least Miss Martineau thinks she does, and makes us think so.
Heaven speed the work! Heaven send my good Emerson a clear
utterance, in all right ways, of the nobleness that dwells in
him! He knows what silence means; let him know speech also, in
its season the two are like canvas and pigment, like darkness and
light-image painted thereon; the one is essential to the other,
not possible without the other.
Poor Miss Martineau is in Newcastle-on-Tyne this winter; sick,
painfully not dangerously; with a surgical brother-in-law. Her
meagre didacticalities afflict me no more; but also her blithe
friendly presence cheers me no more. We wish she were back.
This silence, I calculate, forced silence, will do her much good.
If I were a Legislator, I would order every man, once a week or
so, to lock his lips together, and utter no vocable at all
for four-and-twenty hours: it would do him an immense benefit,
poor fellow. Such racket, and cackle of mere hearsay and
sincere-cant, grows at last entirely deafening, enough to drive
one mad, --like the voice of mere infinite rookeries answering
your voice! Silence, silence! Sterling sent you a Letter from
Clifton, which I set under way here, having added the address.
He is not well again, the good Sterling; talks of Madeira this
season again: but I hope otherwise. You of course read his
sublime "article"? I tell him it was--a thing untellable!
Mr. Southey has fallen, it seems, into a mournful condition:
oblivion, mute hebetation, loss of all faculty. He suffered
greatly, nursing his former wife in her insanity, for years till
her relief by death; suffered, worked, and made no moan; the
brunt of the task over, he sank into collapse in the hands of a
new wife he had just wedded. What a lot for him; for her
especially! The most excitable but most methodic man I have ever
seen. [Greek] that is a word that awaits us all.--I have my
brother here at present; though talking of Lisbon with his
Buccleuchs. My Wife seems better than of late winters. I
actually had a Horse, nay actually have it, though it has gone to
the country till the mud abate again! It did me perceptible
good; I mean to try it farther. I am no longer so desperately
poor as I have been for twelve years back; sentence of
starvation or beggary seems revoked at last, a blessedness
really very considerable. Thanks, thanks! We send a thousand
regards to the two little ones, to the two mothers. _Valete
nostrum memores._
--T. Carlyle