My Dear Carlyle,--Your letter came with a blessing last week. I
had already learned from Margaret Fuller, at Paris, that you had
been very good and gentle to her;--brilliant and prevailing, of
course, but, I inferred, had actually restrained the volleys and
modulated the thunder, out of true courtesy and goodness of
nature, which was worthy of all praise in a spoiled conqueror at
this time of day. Especially, too, she expressed a true
recognition and love of Jane Carlyle; and thus her visit proved
a solid satisfaction; to me, also, who think that few people
have so well earned their pleasures as she.
She wrote me a long letter; she has been very happy in England,
and her time and strength fully employed. Her description of you
and your discourse (which I read with lively curiosity also) was
the best I have had on that subject.
I tried hard to write you by the December steamer, to tell you
how forward was my book of Poems; but a little affair makes me
much writing. I chanced to have three or four items of business
to despatch, when the steamer was ready to go, and you escaped
hearing of them. I am the trustee of Charles Lane, who came out
here with Alcott and bought land, which, though sold, is not
paid for.
Somebody or somebodies in Liverpool and Manchester* have proposed
once or twice, with more or less specification, that I should
come to those cities to lecture. And who knows but I may come
one day? Steam is strong, and Liverpool is near. I should
find my account in the strong inducement of a new audience to
finish pieces which have lain waiting with little hope for months
or years.
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* Mr. Alexander Ireland, who had made the acquaintance of Emerson
at Edinburgh, in 1833, was his Manchester correspondent. His
memorial volume on Emerson contains an interesting record of
their relations.
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Ah then, if I dared, I should be well content to add some golden
hours to my life in seeing you, now all full-grown and
acknowledged amidst your own people,--to hear and to speak is so
little yet so much. But life is dangerous and delicate. I
should like to see your solid England. The map of Britain is
good reading for me. Then I have a very ignorant love of
pictures, and a curiosity about the Greek statues and stumps in
the British Museum. So beware of me, for on that distant day
when I get ready I shall come.
Long before this time you ought to have received from John
Chapman a copy of Emerson's Poems, so called, which he was
directed to send you. Poor man, you need not open them. I know
all you can say. I printed them, not because I was deceived into
a belief that they were poems, but because of the softness or
hardness of heart of many friends here who have made it a point
to have them circulated.* Once having set out to print, I obeyed
the solicitations of John Chapman, of an ill-omened street in
London, to send him the book in manuscript, for the better
securing of copyright. In printing them here I have corrected
the most unpardonable negligences, which negligences must be all
stereotyped under his fair London covers and gilt paper to the
eyes of any curious London reader; from which recollection I
strive to turn away.
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* In the rough draft the following sentence comes in here "I
reckon myself a good beginning of a poet, very urgent and decided
in my bent, and in some coming millennium I shall yet sing."
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Little and Brown have just rendered me an account, by which it
appears that we are not quite so well off as was thought last
summer, when they said they had sold at auction the balance of
your books which had been lying unsold. It seems now that the
books supposed to be sold were not all taken, and are returned to
them; one hundred _Chartism,_ sixty-three _Past and Present._
Yet we are to have some eighty-three dollars ($83.68), which you
shall probably have by the next steamer.
Yours affectionately,
R.W. Emerson