Mentone, France, Alpes Maritimes
27 January, 1867
My Dear Emerson,--It is along time since I last wrote to you;
and a long distance in space and in fortune,--from the shores of
the Solway in summer 1865, to this niche of the Alps and
Mediterranean today, after what has befallen me in the interim.
A longer interval, I think, and surely by far a sadder, than ever
occurred between us before, since we first met in the Scotch
moors, some five and thirty years ago. You have written me
various Notes, too, and Letters, all good and cheering to me,--
almost the only truly human speech I have heard from anybody
living;--and still my stony silence could not be broken; not
till now, though often looking forward to it, could I resolve on
such a thing. You will think me far gone, and much bankrupt in
hope and heart;--and indeed I am; as good as without hope and
without fear; a gloomily serious, silent, and sad old man;
gazing into the final chasm of things, in mute dialogue with
"Death, Judgment, and Eternity" (dialogue _mute_ on _both_
sides!), not caring to discourse with poor articulate-speaking
fellow creatures on their sorts of topics. It is right of me;
and yet also it is not right. I often feel that I had better be
dead than thus indifferent, contemptuous, disgusted with the
world and its roaring nonsense, which I have no thought farther
of lifting a finger to help, and only try to keep out of the way
of, and shut my door against. But the truth is, I was nearly
killed by that hideous Book on Friedrich,--twelve years in
continuous wrestle with the nightmares and the subterranean
hydras;--nearly _killed,_ and had often thought I should be
altogether, and must die leaving the monster not so much as
finished! This is one truth, not so evident to any friend or
onlooker as it is to myself: and then there is another, known to
myself alone, as it were; and of which I am best not to speak to
others, or to speak to them no farther. By the calamity of April
last, I lost my little all in this world; and have no soul left
who can make any corner of this world into a _home_ for me any
more. Bright, heroic, tender, true and noble was that lost
treasure of my heart, who faithfully accompanied me in all the
rocky ways and climbings; and I am forever poor without her.
She was snatched from me in a moment,--as by a death from the
gods. Very beautiful her death was; radiantly beautiful (to
those who understand it) had all her life been _quid plura?_ I
should be among the dullest and stupidest, if I were not among
the saddest of all men. But not a word more on all this.
All summer last, my one solacement in the form of work was
writing, and sorting of old documents and recollections;
summoning out again into clearness old scenes that had now closed
on me without return. Sad, and in a sense sacred; it was like a
kind of _worship;_ the only _devout_ time I had had for a great
while past. These things I have half or wholly the intention to
burn out of the way before I myself die:--but such continues
still mainly my employment,--so many hours every forenoon; what
I call the "work" of my day;--to me, if to no other, it is
useful; to reduce matters to writing means that you shall know
them, see them in their origins and sequences, in their essential
lineaments, considerably better than you ever did before. To set
about writing my own _Life_ would be no less than horrible to me;
and shall of a certainty never be done. The common impious
vulgar of this earth, what has it to do with my life or me? Let
dignified oblivion, silence, and the vacant azure of Eternity
swallow _me;_ for my share of it, that, verily, is the
handsomest, or one handsome way, of settling my poor account with
the _canaille_ of mankind extant and to come. "Immortal glory,"
is not that a beautiful thing, in the Shakespeare Clubs and
Literary Gazettes of our improved Epoch?--I did not leave London,
except for fourteen days in August, to a fine and high old Lady-
friend's in Kent; where, riding about the woods and by the sea-
beaches and chalk cliffs, in utter silence, I felt sadder than
ever, though a little less _miserably_ so, than in the intrusive
babblements of London, which I could not quite lock out of doors.
We read, at first, Tennyson's _Idyls,_ with profound recognition
of the finely elaborated execution, and also of the inward
perfection of _vacancy,_--and, to say truth, with considerable
impatience at being treated so very like infants, though the
lollipops were so superlative. We gladly changed for one
Emerson's _English Traits;_ and read that, with increasing and
ever increasing satisfaction every evening; blessing Heaven that
there were still Books for grown-up people too! That truly is a
Book all full of thoughts like winged arrows (thanks to the
Bowyer from us both):--my Lady-friend's name is Miss Davenport
Bromley; it was at Wooton, in her Grandfather's House, in
Staffordshire, that Rousseau took shelter in 1760; and one
hundred and six years later she was reading Emerson to me with a
recognition that would have pleased the man, had he seen it.
About that same time my health and humors being evidently so, the
Dowager Lady Ashburton (not the high Lady you saw, but a
Successor of Mackenzie-Highland type), who wanders mostly about
the Continent since her widowhood, for the sake of a child's
health, began pressing and inviting me to spend the blade months
of Winter here in her Villa with her;--all friends warmly
seconding and urging; by one of whom I was at last snatched off,
as if by the hair of the head, (in spite of my violent No, no!)
on the eve of Christmas last, and have been here ever since,--
really with improved omens. The place is beautiful as a very
picture, the climate superlative (today a sun and sky like very
June); the _hospitality_ of usage beyond example. It is likely
I shall be here another six weeks, or longer. If you please to
write me, the address is on the margin; and I will answer. Adieu.
--T. Carlyle