Dear Emerson,--Many thanks for your Letter, which found me here
about a week ago, and gave a full solution to my bibliopolic
difficulties. However sore your eyes, or however taciturn your
mood, there is no delay of writing when any service is to be done
by it! In fact you are very good to me, and always were, in all
manner of ways; for which I do, as I ought, thank the Upper
Powers and you. That truly has been and is one of the
possessions of my life in this perverse epoch of the world....
I have sent off by John Chapman a Copy of the _Life of Sterling,_
which is all printed and ready, but is not to appear till the
first week of October.... Along with the _Sheets_ was a poor
little French Book for you,--Book of a poor Naval _Mississippi_
Frenchman, one "Bossu," I think; written only a Century ago, yet
which already seemed old as the Pyramids in reference to those
strange fast-growing countries. I read it as a kind of defaced
_romance;_ very thin and lean, but all _true,_ and very
marvelous as such.
It is above three weeks since my Wife and I left London, (the
Printer having done,) and came hither with the purpose of a month
of what is called "Water Cure"; for which this place, otherwise
extremely pleasant and wholesome, has become celebrated of late
years. Dr. Gully, the pontiff of the business in our Island,
warmly encouraged my purpose so soon as he heard of it; nay,
urgently offered at once that both of us should become his own
guests till the experiment were tried: and here accordingly we
are; I water-curing, assiduously walking on the sunny mountains,
drinking of the clear wells, not to speak of wet wrappages,
solitary sad _steepages,_ and other singular procedures; my Wife
not meddling for her own behoof, but only seeing me do it. These
have been three of the idlest weeks I ever spent, and there is
still one to come: after which we go northward to Lancashire,
and across the Border where my good old Mother still expects me;
and so, after some little visiting and dawdling, hope to find
ourselves home again before September end, and the inexpressible
Glass Palace with its noisy inanity have taken itself quite away
again. It was no increase of ill-health that drove me hither,
rather the reverse; but I have long been minded to try this
thing: and now I think the result will be,--_zero_ pretty
nearly, and one imagination the less. My long walks, my
strenuous idleness, have certainly done me good; nor has the
"water" done me any _ill,_ which perhaps is much to say of it.
For the rest, it is a strange quasi-monastic--godless and yet
_devotional_--way of life which human creatures have here, and
useful to them beyond doubt. I foresee, this "Water Cure," under
better forms, will become the _Ramadhan_ of the overworked
unbelieving English in time coming; an institution they were
dreadfully in want of, this long while!--We had Twisleton* here
(often speaking of you), who is off to America again; will sail,
I think, along with this Letter; a semi-articulate but solid-
minded worthy man. We have other officials and other
_litterateurs_ (T.B. Macaulay in his hired villa for one): but
the mind rather shuns than seeks them, one finds solitary quasi-
devotion preferable, and [Greek], as Pindar had it!
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* The late Hon. Edward Twisleton, a man of high character and
large attainments, and with a personal disposition that won the
respect and affection of a wide circle of friends on both sides
of the Atlantic. He was the author of a curious and learned
treatise entitled "The Tongue not Essential to Speech," and his
remarkable volume on "The Handwriting of Junius" seems to have
effectually closed a long controversy.
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Richard Milnes is married, about two weeks ago, and gone to
Vienna for a jaunt. His wife, a Miss Crewe (Lord Crewe's
sister), about forty, pleasant, intelligent, and rather rich:
that is the end of Richard's long first act. Alfred
Tennyson, perhaps you heard, is gone to Italy with his wife:
their baby died or was dead-born; they found England wearisome:
Alfred has been taken up on the top of the wave, and a good deal
jumbled about since you were here. Item Thackeray; who is
coming over to lecture to you: a mad world, my Masters! Your
Letter to Mazzini was duly despatched; and we hear from him that
he will write to you, on the subject required, without delay.
Browning and his wife, home from Florence, are both in London at
present; mean to live in Paris henceforth for some time. They
had seen something both of Margaret and her d'Ossoli, and
appeared to have a true and lively interest in them; Browning
spoke a long while to me, with emphasis, on the subject: I think
it was I that had introduced poor Margaret to them. I said he
ought to send these reminiscences to America,--that was the night
before we left London, three weeks ago; his answer gave me the
impression there had been some hindrance somewhere. Accordingly,
when your Letter and Mazzini's reached me here, I wrote to
Browning urgently on the subject: but he informs me that they
_have_ sent all their reminiscences, at the request of Mr. Story;
so that it is already all well.--Dear Emerson, you see I am at
the bottom of my paper. I will write to you again before long;
we cannot let you lie fallow in that manner altogether. Have you
got proper _spectacles_ for your eyes? I have adopted that
beautiful symbol of old age, and feel myself very venerable:
take care of your eyes!
Yours ever,
T. Carlyle