Dear Emerson,--Long months ago there was sent off for you a copy
of _Friedrich_ of Prussia, two big red volumes (for which Chapman
the Publisher had found some "safe, swift" vehicle); and _now_ I
have reason to fear they are still loitering somewhere, or at
least have long loitered sorrow on them! This is to say: If you
have not _yet_ got them, address a line to "Saml. F. Flower, Esq,
Librarian of Antiquarian Society, _Worcester,_ Mass." (forty
miles from you, they say), and that will at once bring them. In
the Devil's name! I never in my life was so near choked;
swimming in this mother of Dead Dogs, and a long spell of it
still ahead! I profoundly _pity myself_ (if no one else does).
You shall hear of me again if I survive,--but really that is
getting beyond a joke with me, and I ought to hold my peace (even
to you), and swim what I can. Your little touch of Human Speech
on _Burns'_* was charming; had got into the papers here (and
been clipt out by me) before your copy came, and has gone far and
wide since. Newberg was to give it me in German, from the
_Allgemeine Zeitung,_ but lost the leaf. Adieu, my Friend; very
dear to me, tho' dumb.
--T. Carlyle (in such haste as seldom was).**
---------
* Emerson's fine speech was made at the celebration of the Burns
Centenary, Boston, January 25, 1859. See his _Miscellanies_
(Works, vol. xi.), p. 363.
** The preceding letter was discovered in 1893, in a little
package of letters put aside by Mr. Emerson and marked "Autographs."
---------