My Dear Carlyle,--I was in Boston yesterday, and found at
Munroe's your promised packet of the two London Books. They are
very handsome,--that for my wife is beautiful,--and I am not so
old or so cold but that I can feel the hope and the pleasure that
lie in this gift. It seems I am to speak in England--great
England--fortified by the good word of one whose word is fame.
Well, it is a lasting joy to be indebted to the wise and
generous; and I am well contented that my little boat should
swim, whilst it can, beside your great galleys, nor will I allow
my discontent with the great faults of the book, which the rich
English dress cannot hide, to spoil my joy in this fine little
romance of friendship and hope. I am determined--so help me all
Muses--to send you something better another day.
But no more printing for me at present. I have just decided to
go to Boston once more, with a course of lectures, which I will
perhaps baptize "On the Times," by way of making once again the
experiment whether I cannot, not only speak the truth, but speak
it truly, or in proportion. I fancy I need more than another to
speak, with such a formidable tendency to the lapidary style. I
build my house of boulders; somebody asked me "if I built of
medals." Besides, I am always haunted with brave dreams of what
might be accomplished in the lecture-room,--so free and so
unpretending a platform,--a Delos not yet made fast. I imagine
an eloquence of infinite variety,--rich as conversation can be,
with anecdote, joke, tragedy, epics and pindarics, argument and
confession. I should love myself wonderfully better if I could
arm myself to go, as you go, with the word in the heart and not
in a paper.
When I was in Boston I saw the booksellers, the children of
Tantalus,--no, but they who trust in them are. This time, Little
and Brown render us their credit account to T.C. $366 (I think it
was), payable in three months from 1 October. They had sold all
the London _French Revolutions_ but fifteen copies. May we all
live until 1 January. J. Munroe & Co. acknowledge about $180 due
and now rightfully payable to T.C., but, unhappily, not yet paid.
By the help of brokers, I will send that sum more or less in some
English Currency, by the next steamship, which sails in about a
fortnight, and will address it, as you last bade me, to Chelsea.
What news, my dear friend, from your study? what designs ripened
or executed? what thoughts? what hopes? you can say nothing of
yourself that will not greatly interest us all. Harriet
Martineau, whose sicknesses may it please God to heal! wrote me a
kind, cheerful letter, and the most agreeable notice of your
health and spirit on a visit at her house. My little boy is five
years old today, and almost old enough to send you his love.
With kindest greetings to Jane Carlyle, I am her and your friend,
--R.W.E.