Dear Carlyle,--There is no escape from the forces of time and
life, and we do not write letters to the gods or to our friends,
but only to attorneys, landlords, and tenants. But the planes
and platforms on which all stand remain the same, and we are ever
expecting the descent of the heavens, which is to put us into
familiarity with the first named. When I ceased to write to you
for a long time, I said to myself,--If anything really good
should happen here,--any stroke of good sense or virtue in our
politics, or of great sense in a book,--I will send it on the
instant to the formidable man; but I will not repeat to him
every month, that there are no news. Thank me for my resolution,
and for keeping it through the long night.--One book, last
summer, came out in New York, a nondescript monster which yet had
terrible eyes and buffalo strength, and was indisputably
American,--which I thought to send you; but the book throve so
badly with the few to whom I showed it, and wanted good morals so
much, that I never did. Yet I believe now again, I shall. It is
called _Leaves of Grass,_--was written and printed by a
journeyman printer in Brooklyn, New York, named Walter Whitman;
and after you have looked into it, if you think, as you may, that
it is only an auctioneer's inventory of a warehouse, you can
light your pipe with it.
By tomorrow's steamer goes Mrs. --- to Liverpool, and to
Switzerland and Germany, by the advice of physicians, and I
cannot let her go without praying you to drop your pen, and shut
up German history for an hour, and extend your walk to her
chambers, wherever they may be. _There's_ a piece of
republicanism for you to see and hear! That person was, ten or
fifteen years ago, the loveliest of women, and her speech and
manners may still give you some report of the same. She has
always lived with good people, and in her position is a centre of
what is called good society, wherein her large heart makes a
certain glory and refinement. She is one of nature's ladies, and
when I hear her tell I know not what stories of her friends, or
her children, or her pensioners, I find a pathetic eloquence
which I know not where to match. But I suppose you shall never
hear it. Every American is a little displaced in London, and, no
doubt, her company has grown to her. Her husband is a banker
connected in business with your ---, and is a man of elegant
genius and tastes, and his house is a resort for fine people.
Thorwaldsen distinguished Mrs. --- in Rome, formerly, by his
attentions. Powers the sculptor made an admirable bust of her;
Clough and Thackeray will tell you of her. Jenny Lind, like the
rest, was captivated by her, and was married at her house. Is
not Henry James in London? he knows her well. If Tennyson comes
to London, whilst she is there, he should see her for his "Lays
of Good Women." Now please to read these things to the wise and
kind ears of Jane Carlyle, and ask her if I have done wrong in
giving my friend a letter to her? I could not ask more than that
each of those ladies might appear to the other what each has
appeared to me.
I saw Thackeray, in the winter, and he said he would come and see
me here, in April or May; but he is still, I believe, in the
South and West. Do not believe me for my reticency less hungry
for letters. I grieve at the want and loss, and am about writing
again, that I may hear from you.
Ever affectionately yours,
R.W. Emerson