Dear Emerson,--About this time probably you will be reading a
Letter I hurried off for you by Dr. Russell in the last steamer;
and your friendly anxieties will partly be set at rest. Had I
kept silence so very long? I knew it was a long while; but my
vague remorse had kept no date! It behoves me now to write again
without delay; to certify with all distinctness that I have
safely received your Letter of the 30th October, safely the Bill
for L25 it contained;--that you are a brave, friendly man, of
most serene, beneficient way of life; and that I--God help me!--
By all means appoint this Mr. Clark to the honorary office of
Account-keeper--if he will accept it! By Parker's list of
questions from him, and by earlier reminiscences recalled on that
occasion, I can discern that he is a man of lynx eyesight, of an
all-investigating curiosity: if he will accept this sublime
appointment, it will be the clearest case of elective affinity.
Accounts to you must be horrible; as they are to me: indeed, I
seldom read beyond the _last_ line of them, if I can find the
last; and one of the insupportabilities of Bookseller Accounts
is that nobody but a wizard, or regular adept in such matters,
can tell where the last line, and final net result of the whole
accursed babblement, is to be found! By all means solicit
Clark;--at all events, do you give it up, I pray you, and let the
Booksellers do their own wise way. It really is not material;
let the poor fellows have length of halter. Every new Bill from
America comes to me like a kind of heavenly miracle; a reaping
where I never sowed, and did not expect to reap: the quantity of
it is a thing I can never bring in question.--For your English
account with Nickerson I can yet say nothing more; perhaps about
Newyear's-day the poor man will enable me to say something. I
hear however that the Pirate has sold off, or nearly so, his
Two-shillings edition of the _Essays,_ and is preparing to print
another; this, directly in the teeth of Cash and double-entry
book-keeping, I take to be good news.
James is a very good fellow, better and better as we see him
more. Something shy and skittish in the man; but a brave
heart intrinsically, with sound, earnest sense, with plenty
of insight and even humor. He confirms an observation of mine,
which indeed I find is hundreds of years old, that a stammering
man is never a worthless one. Physiology can tell you why. It
is an excess of delicacy, excess of sensibility to the presence
of his fellow-creature, that makes him stammer. Hammond l'Estrange
says, "Who ever heard of a stammering man that was a fool?" Really
there is something in that.--James is now off to the Isle of Wight;
will see Sterling at Ventnor there; see whether such an Isle or
France will suit better for a winter residence.
W.E. Channing's _Poems_ are also a kind gift from you. I have
read the pieces _you had cut up for me:_ worthy indeed of
reading! That Poem _on Death_ is the utterance of a valiant,
noble heart, which in rhyme or prose I shall expect more news of
by and by. But at bottom "Poetry" is a most suspicious affair
for me at present! You cannot fancy the oceans of Twaddle that
human Creatures emit upon me, in these times; as if, when the
lines had a jingle in them, a Nothing could be Something, and the
point were gained! It is becoming a horror to me,--as all speech
without meaning more and more is. I said to Richard Milnes, "Now
in honesty what is the use of putting your accusative _before_
the verb, and otherwise entangling the syntax; if there really
is an image of any object, thought, or thing within you, for
God's sake let me have it the _shortest_ way, and I will so
cheerfully excuse the _omission_ of the jingle at the end:
cannot I do without that!"--Milnes answered, "Ah, my dear fellow,
it is because we have no thought, or almost none; a little
thought goes a great way when you put it into rhyme!" Let a man
try to the very uttermost to _speak_ what he means, before
_singing_ is had recourse to. Singing, in our curt English
speech, contrived expressly and almost exclusively for "despatch
of business," is terribly difficult. Alfred Tennyson, alone of
our time, has proved it to be possible in some measure. If
Channing will persist in melting such obdurate speech into music
he shall have my true wishes,--my augury that it will take an
enormous _heat_ from him!--Another Channing,* whom I once saw
here, sends me a Progress-of-the-Species Periodical from New
York. _Ach Gott!_ These people and their affairs seem all
"melting" rapidly enough, into thaw-slush or one knows not what.
Considerable madness is visible in them. _Stare super antiquas
vias:_ "No," they say, "we cannot stand, or walk, or do any good
whatever there; by God's blessing, we will fly,--will not you!--
here goes!" And their _flight,_ it is as the flight of the
unwinged,--of oxen endeavoring to fly with the "wings" of an ox!
By such flying, universally practised, the "ancient ways" are
really like to become very deep before long. In short, I am
terribly sick of all that;--and wish it would stay at home at
Fruitland, or where there is good pasture for it. Friend
Emerson, alone of all voices, out of America, has sphere-music in
him for me,--alone of them all hitherto; and is a prophecy and
sure dayspring in the East; immeasurably cheering to me. God
long prosper him; keep him duly apart from that bottomless
hubbub which is not, at all cheering! And so ends my Litany for
this day.
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* The Reverend William Henry Channing.
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The Cromwell business, though I punch daily at it with all manner
of levers, remains immovable as Ailsa Crag. Heaven alone knows
what I shall do with it. I see and say to myself, It is
heroical; Troy Town was probably not a more heroic business;
and this belongs to thee, to thy own people,--must it be dead
forever?--Perhaps yes,--and kill me too into the bargain. Really
I think it very shocking that we run to Greece, to Italy, to &c.,
&c., and leave all at home lying buried as a nonentity. Were I
absolute Sovereign and Chief Pontiff here, there should be a
study of the Old _English_ ages first of all. I will pit Odin
against any Jupiter of them; find Sea-kings that would have
given Jason a Roland for his Oliver! We are, as you sometimes
say, a book-ridden people,--a phantom-ridden people.--All this
small household is well; salutes you and yours with love old and
new. Accept this hasty messenger; accept my friendliest
farewell, dear Emerson.
Yours ever,
T. Carlyle