Dear Emerson,--The day before yesterday your welcome Letter came
to hand, with the welcome news in it; yesterday I put into my
poor Document here the few words still needed; locked everything
into its still repository (your Letter, President Eliot's,
Norton's, &c., &c.); and walked out into the sunshine, piously
thankful that a poor little whim, which had long lain fondly in
my heart, had realized itself with an emphasis I could never
hope, and was become (thanks to generous enthusiasm on New
England's part) a beautiful little fact, lying done there, so far
as I had to do with it. Truly your account of matters threw a
glow of _life_ into my thoughts which is very rare there now;
altogether a gratifying little Transaction to me,--and I must add
a surprising, for the enthusiasm of good-will is evidently great,
and the occasion is almost infinitesimally small! Well, well;
it is all finished off and completed,--(you can tell Mr. Eliot,
with many thanks from me, that I did introduce the proper style,
"President and Fellows," &c., and have forgotten nothing of what
he said, or of what he _did_);--and so we will say only, _Faustum
sit,_ as our last word on the subject;--and to me it will be, for
some days yet, under these vernal skies, something that is itself
connected with THE SPRING in a still higher sense; a little
white and red-lipped bit of _Daisy_ pure and poor, scattered into
TIME's Seedfield, and struggling above ground there, uttering
_its_ bit of prophecy withal, among the ox-hoofs and big jungles
that are everywhere about and not prophetic of much!--
One thing only I regret, that you _have_ spoken of the affair!
For God's sake don't; and those kindly people to whom you have,-
-swear them to silence for love of me! The poor little
_Daisy_kin will get into the Newspapers, and become the nastiest
of Cabbages:--silence, silence, I beg of you to the utmost
stretch of your power! Or is the case already irremediable? I
will hope not. Talk about such things, especially Penny Editor's
talk, is like vile coal-smoke filling your poor little world;
silence alone is azure, and has a _sky_ to it.--But, enough now.
The "little Book" never came; and, I doubt, never will: it is a
fate that seems to await three fourths of the Books that attempt
to reach me by the American Post; owing to some _informality in
wrapping_ (I have heard);--it never gave me any notable _regret_
till now. However, I had already bought myself an English copy,
rather gaudy little volume (probably intended for the _railways,_
as if _it_ were a Book to be read there), but perfectly printed,
ready to be read anywhere by the open eye and earnest mind;--
which I read here, accordingly, with great attention, clear
assent for most part, and admiring recognition. It seems to me
you are all your old self here, and something _more._ A calm
insight, piercing to the very centre; a beautiful sympathy, a
beautiful _epic_ humor; a soul peaceably irrefragable in this
loud-jangling world, of which it sees the ugliness, but _notices_
only the huge new _opulences_ (still so anarchic); knows the
electric telegraph, with all its vulgar botherations and
impertinences, accurately for what it is, and ditto ditto the
oldest eternal Theologies of men. All this belongs to the
Highest Class of thought (you may depend upon it); and again
seemed to me as, in several respects, the one perfectly Human
Voice I had heard among my fellow-creatures for a long time. And
then the "style," the treatment and expression,--yes, it is
inimitable, best--Emersonian throughout. Such brevity,
simplicity, softness, homely grace; with such a penetrating
meaning, _soft_ enough, but irresistible, going down to the
depths and up to the heights, as _silent electricity_ goes. You
have done _very well;_ and many will know it ever better by
degrees.--Only one thing farther I will note: How you go as if
altogether on the "Over-Soul," the Ideal, the Perfect or
Universal and Eternal in this life of ours; and take so little
heed of the frightful quantities of _friction_ and perverse
impediment there everywhere are; the reflections upon which in
my own poor life made me now and then very sad, as I read you.
Ah me, ah me; what a vista it is, mournful, beautiful,
_unfathomable_ as Eternity itself, these last fifty years of Time
to me.--
Let me not forget to thank you for that _fourth_ page of your
Note; I should say it was almost the most interesting of all.
News from yourself at first hand; a momentary glimpse into the
actual Household at Concord, face to face, as in years of old!
True, I get vague news of you from time to time; but what are
these in comparison?--If you _will,_ at the eleventh hour, turn
over a new leaf, and write me Letters again,--but I doubt _you
won't._ And yet were it not worth while, think you? [Greek]--
will be here _anon._--My kindest regards to your wife. Adieu, my
ever-kind Old Friend.
Yours faithfully always,
T. Carlyle