My Dear Carlyle,--I am in your debt for at least two letters
since I sent you any word. I should be well content to receive
one of these stringent epistles of bark and steel and mellow wine
with every day's post, but as there is no hope that more will be
sent without my writing to signify that these have come, I hereby
certify that I love you well and prize all your messages. I read
with special interest what you say of these English studies, and
I doubt not the Book is in steady progress again. We shall see
what change the changed position of the author will make in the
book. The first _History_ expected its public; the second is
written to an expecting people. The tone of the first was
proud,--to defiance; we will see if applauses have mitigated the
master's temper. This time he has a hero, and we shall have a
sort of standard to try, by the hero who fights, the hero who
writes. Well; may grand and friendly spirits assist the work in
all hours; may impulses and presences from that profound world
which makes and embraces the whole of humanity, keep your feet on
the Mount of Vision which commands the Centuries, and the book
shall be an indispensable Benefit to men, which is the surest
fame. Let me know all that can be told of your progress in it.
You shall see in the last _Dial_ a certain shadow or mask of
yours, "another Richmond," who has read your lectures and
profited thereby.* Alcott sent me the paper from London, but I
do not know the name of the writer.
As for Alcott, you have discharged your conscience of him
manfully and knightly; I absolve you well... He is a great man
and was made for what is greatest, but I now fear that he has
already touched what best he can, and through his more than a
prophet's egotism, and the absence of all useful reconciling
talents, will bring nothing to pass, and be but a voice in the
wilderness. As you do not seem to have seen in him his pure and
noble intellect, I fear that it lies under some new and denser
clouds.
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* An article on Cromwell, in the _Dial_ for October, 1842.
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For the _Dial_ and its sins, I have no defence to set up. We
write as we can, and we know very little about it. If the
direction of these speculations is to be deplored, it is yet a
fact for literary history, that all the bright boys and girls in
New England, quite ignorant of each other, take the world so, and
come and make confession to fathers and mothers,--the boys that
they do not wish to go into trade, the girls that they do not
like morning calls and evening parties. They are all religious,
but hate the churches; they reject all the ways of living of
other men, but have none to offer in their stead. Perhaps, one
of these days, a great Yankee shall come, who will easily do the
unknown deed.
The booksellers have sent me accounts lately, but--I know not
why--no money. Little and Brown from January to July had sold
very few books. I inquired of them concerning the bill of
exchange on Fraser's Estate, which you mention, and they said it
had not been returned to them, but only some information, as I
think, demanded by Fraser's administrator, which they had sent,
and, as they heard nothing again, they suppose that it is allowed
and paid to you. Inform me on this matter.
Munroe & Co. allow some credits, but charge more debits for
binding, &c., and also allege few sales in the hard times. I
have got a good friend of yours, a banking man, to promise that
he will sift all the account and see if the booksellers have kept
their promises. But I have never yet got all the papers in
readiness for him. I am looking to see if I have matter for new
lectures, having left behind me last spring some half-promises in
New York. If you can remember it, tell me who writes about
Loyola and Xavier in the _Edinburgh._ Sterling's papers--if he
is near you--are all in Mr. Russell's hands.* I played my part
of Fadladeen with great rigor, and sent my results to Russell,
but have not now written to J. S.
Yours,
R.W.E.
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* Mr. A.L. Russell, who had been instrumental in procuring the
American edition of Sterling's _Poetical Works._
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