My Dear Emerson,--Today is American Postday; and by every rule
and law,--even if all laws but those of Cocker were abolished
from this universe,--a word from me is due to you! Twice I have
heard since I spoke last: prompt response about the Philadelphia
Bill; exact performance of your voluntary promise,--Indian Corn
itself is now here for a week past....
Still more interesting is the barrel of genuine Corn ears,--
Indian Cobs of edible grain, from the Barn of Emerson himself!
It came all safe and right, according to your charitable program;
without cost or trouble to us of any kind; not without curious
interest and satisfaction! The recipes contained in the
precedent letter, duly weighed by the competent jury of
housewives (at least by my own Wife and Lady Ashburton), were
judged to be of decided promise, reasonable-looking every one of
them; and now that the stuff itself is come, I am happy to
assure you that it forms a new epoch for us all in the Maize
department: we find the grain _sweet,_ among the sweetest, with
a touch even of the taste of _nuts_ in it, and profess with
contrition that properly we have never tasted Indian Corn before.
Millers of due faculty (with millstones of _iron_) being scarce
in the Cockney region, and even cooks liable to err, the
Ashburtons have on their resources undertaken the brunt of the
problem one of their own Surrey or Hampshire millers is to grind
the stuff, and their own cook, a Frenchman commander of a whole
squadron, is to undertake the dressing according to the rules.
Yesterday the Barrel went off to their country place in Surrey,--
a small Bag of select ears being retained here, for our own
private experimenting;--and so by and by we shall see what comes
of it.--I on my side have already drawn up a fit proclamation of
the excellences of this invaluable corn, and admonitions as to
the benighted state of English eaters in regard to it;--to appear
in _Fraser's Magazine,_ or I know not where, very soon. It is
really a small contribution towards World-History, this small act
of yours and ours: there is no doubt to me, now that I taste the
real grain, but all Europe will henceforth have to rely more and
more upon your Western Valleys and this article. How beautiful
to think of lean tough Yankee settlers, tough as gutta-percha,
with most occult unsubduable fire in their belly, steering over
the Western Mountains, to annihilate the jungle, and bring bacon
and corn out of it for the Posterity of Adam! The Pigs in about
a year eat up all the rattlesnakes for miles round: a most
judicious function on the part of the Pigs. Behind the Pigs
comes Jonathan with his all-conquering ploughshare,--glory to him
too! Oh, if we were not a set of Cant-ridden blockheads, there
is no _Myth_ of Athene or Herakles equal to this _fact;_--which I
suppose _will_ find its real "Poets" some day or other; when
once the Greek, Semitic, and multifarious other Cobwebs are swept
away a little! Well, we must wait.--For the rest, if this
skillful Naturalist and you will make any more experiments on
Indian Corn for us, might I not ask that you would try for a
method of preserving _the meal_ in a sound state for us?
Oatmeal, which would spoil directly too, is preserved all year by
kiln-drying the grain before it is ground,--parching it till it
is almost _brown,_ sometimes the Scotch Highlanders, by intense
parching, can keep their oatmeal good for a series of years. No
Miller here at present is likely to produce such beautiful meal
as some of the American specimens I have seen:--if possible, we
must learn to get the grain over in the shape of proper durable
meal. At all events, let your Friend charitably make some
inquiry into the process of millerage, the possibilities of it
for meeting our case;--and send us the result some day, on a
separate bit of paper. With which let us end, for the present.
Alas, I have yet written nothing; am yet a long way off writing,
I fear! Not for want of matter, perhaps, but for redundance of
it; I feel as if I had the whole world to write yet, with the
day fast bending downwards on me, and did not know where to
begin,--in what manner to address the deep-sunk populations of
the Theban Land. Any way my Life is very _grim,_ on these terms,
and is like to be; God only knows what farther quantity of
braying in the mortar this foolish clay of mine may yet need!--
They are printing a third Edition of _Cromwell;_ that bothered
me for some weeks, but now I am over with that, and the Printer
wholly has it: a sorrowful, not now or ever a joyful thing to
me, that. The _stupor_ of my fellow blockheads, for Centuries
back, presses too heavy upon that,--as upon many things, O
Heavens! People are about setting up some _Statue of Cromwell,_
at St. Ives, or elsewhere: the King-Hudson Statue is never yet
set up; and the King himself (as you may have heard) has been
_discovered_ swindling. I advise all men not to erect a statue
for Cromwell just now. Macaulay's _History_ is also out, running
through the fourth edition: did I tell you last time that I had
read it,--with wonder and amazement? Finally, it seems likely
Lord John Russell will shortly walk out (forever, it is hoped),
and Sir R. Peel come in; to make what effort is in him towards
delivering us from the _pedant_ method of treating Ireland. The
_beginning,_ as I think, of salvation (if he can prosper a
little) to England, and to all Europe as well. For they will all
have to learn that man does need government, and that an able-
bodied starving beggar is and remains (whatever Exeter Hall may
say to it) a _Slave_ destitute of a _Master;_ of which facts
England, and convulsed Europe, are fallen foundly ignorant in
these bad ages, and will plunge ever deeper till they rediscover
the same. Alas, alas, the Future for us is not to be made of
_butter,_ as the Platforms prophesy; I think it will be harder
than steel for some ages! No noble age was ever a soft one, nor
ever will or can be.--Your beautiful curious little discourse
(report of a discourse) about the English was sent me by Neuberg;
I thought it, in my private heart, one of the best words (for
_hidden_ genius lodged in it) I had ever heard; so sent it to
the _Examiner,_ from which it went to the _Times_ and all the
other Papers: an excellent sly little word.
Clough has gone to Italy; I have seen him twice,--could not
manage his hexameters, though I like the man himself, and
hope much of him. "Infidelity" has broken out in Oxford
itself,--immense emotion in certain quarters in consequence,
virulent outcries about a certain "Sterling Club," altogether
a secular society!
Adieu, dear Emerson; I had much more to say, but there is no
room. O, forgive me, forgive me all trespasses,--and love me
what you can!
Yours ever,
T. Carlyle