My Dear Emerson,--It is a long weary time since I have had the
satisfaction of the smallest dialogue with you. The blame is all
my own; the reasons would be difficult to give,--alas, they are
properly no-reasons, children not of _Something,_ but of mere
Idleness, Confusion, Inaction, Inarticulation, of _Nothing_ in
short! Let us leave them there, and profit by the hour which
yet is.
I ran away from London into Bristol and, South Wales, when the
heats grew violent, at the end of June. South Wales, North
Wales, Lancashire, Scotland: I roved about everywhere seeking
some Jacob's-pillow on which to lay my head, and dream of things
heavenly;--yes, that at bottom was my modest prayer, though I
disguised it from myself and the result was, I could find no
pillow at all; but sank into ever meaner restlessness, blacker
and blacker biliary gloom, and returned in the beginning of
September thoroughly eclipsed and worn out, probably the weariest
of all men living under the sky. Sure enough I have a fatal
talent of converting all Nature into Preternaturalism for myself:
a truly horrible Phantasm-Reality it is to me; what of heavenly
radiances it has, blended in close neighborhood, in intimate
union, with the hideousness of Death and Chaos;--a very ghastly
business indeed! On the whole, it is better to hold one's peace
about it. I flung myself down on sofas here,--for my little Wife
had trimmed up our little dwelling-place into quite glorious
order in my absence, and I had only to lie down: there, in
reading books, and other make-believe employments, I could at
least keep silence, which was an infinite relief. Nay,
gradually, as indeed I anticipated, the black vortexes and
deluges have subsided; and now that it is past, I begin to feel
myself better for my travels after all. For one thing,
articulate speech having returned to me,--you see what use I make
of it.
On the table of the London Library, voted in by some unknown
benefactor whom I found afterwards to be Richard Milnes, there
lay one thing highly gratifying to me: the last two Numbers of
the _Dial._ It is to be one of our Periodicals henceforth; the
current Number lies on the Table till the next arrive; then the
former goes to the Binder; we have already, in a bound volume,
all of it that Emerson has had the editing of. This is right.
Nay, in Edinburgh, and indeed wherever ingenuous inquisitive
minds were met with, I have to report that the said Emerson could
number a select and most loving public; select, and I should say
fast growing: for good and indifferent reasons it may behove the
man to assure himself of this. Farther, to the horror of poor
Nickerson (Bookseller Fraser's Successor), a certain scoundrel
interloper here has reprinted _Emerson's Essays_ on grayish
paper, to be sold at two shillings,--distracting Nickerson with
the fear of change! I was glad at this, if also angry: it
indicates several things. Nickerson has taken his measures, will
reduce the price of his remaining copies; indeed, he informs me
the best part of his edition was already sold, and he has even
some color of money due from England to Emerson through me! With
pride enough will I transmit this mournful, noble peculium: and
after that, as I perceive, such chivalrous international doings
must cease between us. _Past and Present,_ some one told me,
was, in spite of all your precautions, straightway sent forth in
modest gray, and your benevolent speculation ruined. Here too,
you see, it is the same. Such chivalries, therefore, are now
impossible; for myself I say, "Well, let them cease; thank God
they once were, the Memory of that can never cease with us!"
In this last Number of the _Dial_ which by the bye your
Bookseller never forwarded to me, I found one little Essay, a
criticism on myself,* which, if it should do me mischief, may the
gods forgive you for! It is considerably the most dangerous
thing I have read for some years. A decided likeness of myself
recognizable in it, as in the celestial mirror of a friend's
heart; but so enlarged, exaggerated, all _transfigured,_--the
most delicious, the most dangerous thing! Well, I suppose I must
try to assimilate it also, to turn it also to good, if I be able.
Eulogies, dyslogies, in which one finds no features of one's own
natural face, are easily dealt with; easily left unread, as
stuff for lighting fires, such is the insipidity, the wearisome
_non_entity of pabulum like that: but here is another sort of
matter! "The beautifulest piece of criticism I have read for
many a day," says every one that speaks of it. May the gods
forgive you!--I have purchased a copy for three shillings, and
sent it to my Mother: one of the _indubitablest_ benefits I
could think of in regard to it.
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* A criticism by Emerson of _Past and Present,_ in the _Dial_
for July, 1843. It embodies a great part of the extract
from Emerson's Diary given in a preceding note, and is well
worth reading in full for its appreciation of Carlyle's powers
and defects.
---------
There have been two friends of yours here in these very days:
Dr. Russell, just returning from Paris; Mr. Parker, just bound
thither.* We have seen them rather oftener than common, Sterling
being in town withal. They are the best figures of strangers we
have had for a long time; possessions, both of them, to fall in
with in this pilgrimage of life. Russell carries friendliness in
his eyes, a most courteous, modest, intelligent man; an English
intelligence too, as I read, the best of it lying unspoken, not
as a logic but as an instinct. Parker is a most hardy, compact,
clever little fellow, full of decisive utterance, with humor and
good humor; whom I like much. They shine like suns, these two,
amid multitudes of watery comets and tenebrific constellations,
too sorrowful without such admixture on occasion!
------------
* Dr. Le Baron Russell; Theodore Parker.
------------
As for myself, dear Emerson, you must ask me no questions till--
alas, till I know not when! After four weary years of the most
unreadable reading, the painfulest poking and delving, I have
come at last to the conclusion--that I must write a Book on
Cromwell; that there is no rest for me till I do it. This point
fixed, another is not less fixed hitherto, That a Book on
Cromwell is _impossible._ Literally so: you would weep for me
if you saw how, between these two adamantine certainties, I am
whirled and tumbled. God only knows what will become of me in
the business. Patience, Patience!
By the bye, do you know a "Massachusetts Historical Society," and
a James Bowdoin, seemingly of Boston? In "Vol. II. third series"
of their _Collections,_ lately I met with a disappointment almost
ludicrous. Bowdoin, in a kind of dancing, embarrassed style,
gives long-winded, painfully minute account of certain precious
volumes, containing "Notes of the Long Parliament," which now
stand in the New York Library; poises them in his assaying
balance, speculates, prophesies, inquires concerning them: to me
it was like news of the lost Decades of Livy. Good Heavens, it
soon became manifest that these precious Volumes are nothing
whatever but a wretched broken old dead manuscript copy of part
of our printed _Commons Journals!_ printed since 1745, and known
to all barbers! If the Historical Society desired it, any Member
of Parliament could procure them the whole stock, _Lords and
Commons,_ a wheelbarrowful or more, with no cost but the
carriage. Every Member has the right to demand a copy, and few
do it, few will let such a mass cross their door-threshold! This
of Bowdoin's is a platitude of some magnitude.--Adieu, dear
Emerson. Rest not, haste not; you have work to do.
--T. Carlyle