Dear Emerson,--It is near three years since I last wrote to you;
from Mentone, under the Ligurian Olive and Orange trees, and
their sombre foreign shadows, and still more sombre suggestings
and promptings; the saddest, probably, of all living men. That
you made no answer I know right well means only, "Alas, what can
I say to him of consolatory that he does not himself know!" Far
from a fault, or perhaps even a mistake on your part;--nor have I
felt it otherwise. Sure enough, among the lights that have gone
out for me, and are still going, one after one, under the
inexorable Decree, in this now dusky and lonely world, I count
with frequent regret that our Correspondence (not by absolute
hest of Fate) should have fallen extinct, or into such abeyance:
but I interpret it as you see; and my love and brotherhood to
you remain alive, and will while I myself do. Enough of this.
By lucky chance, as you perceive, you are again to get one
written Letter from me, and I a reply from you, before the final
Silence come. The case is this.
For many years back, a thought, which I used to check again as
fond and silly, has been occasionally present to me,--Of
testifying my gratitude to New England (New England, acting
mainly through one of her Sons called Waldo Emerson), _by
bequeathing to it my poor Falstaf Regiment, latterly two Falstaf
Regiments of Books,_ those I purchased and used in writing
_Cromwell,_ and ditto those on _Friedrich the Great._ "This
could be done," I often said to myself; "this _could_ perhaps;
and this would be a real satisfaction to me. But who then
would march through Coventry with such a set!" The extreme
insignificance of the Gift, this and nothing else, always gave
me pause.
Last Summer, I was lucky enough to meet with your friend C.E.
Norton, and renew many old Massachusetts recollections, in free
talk with [him]....; to him I spoke of the affair; candidly
describing it, especially the above questionable feature of it,
so far as I could; and his answer, then, and more deliberately
afterwards, was so hopeful, hearty, and decisive, that--in effect
it has decided me; and I am this day writing to him that such is
the poor fact, and that I need farther instructions on it so soon
as you two have taken counsel together.
To say more about the infinitesimally small value of the Books
would be superfluous: nay, in truth, many or most of them are
not without intrinsic value, one or two are even excellent as
Books; and all of them, it may perhaps be said, have a kind of
_symbolic_ or _biographic_ value; and testify (a thing not
useless) _on what slender commissariat stores_ considerable
campaigns, twelve years long or so, may be carried on in this
world. Perhaps you already knew of me, what the _Cromwell_ and
_Friedrich_ collection might itself intimate, that much _buying_
of Books was never a habit of mine,--far the reverse, even to
this day!
Well, my Friend, you will have a meeting with Norton so soon as
handy; and let me know what is next to be done. And that, in
your official capacity, is all I have to say to you at present.
Unofficially there were much,--much that is mournful, but perhaps
also something that is good and blessed, and though the saddest,
also the highest, the lovingest and best; as beseems Time's
sunset, now coming nigh. At present I will say only that, in
bodily health, I am not to be called Ill, for a man who will be
seventy-four next month; nor, on the spiritual side, has
anything been laid upon me that is quite beyond my strength.
More miserable I have often been; though as solitary, soft of
heart, and sad, of course never.
Publisher Chapman, when I question him whether you for certain
_get_ your Monthly Volume of what they call "The Library
Edition," assures me that "it is beyond doubt":--I confess I
should still like to be _better_ assured. If all is _right,_ you
should, by the time this Letter arrives, be receiving or have
received your thirteenth Volume, last of the _Miscellanies._
Adieu, my Friend.
Ever truly yours,
T. Carlyle