My Dear Carlyle,--I am the ignoblest of all men in my perpetual
short-comings to you. There is no example of constancy like
yours, and it always stings my stupor into temporary recovery and
wonderful resolution to accept the noble challenge. But "the
strong hours conquer us," and I am the victim of miscellany,--
miscellany of designs, vast debility, and procrastination.
Already many days before your letter came, Fields sent me a
package from you, which he said he had found a little late,
because they were covered up in a box of printed sheets of other
character, and this treasure was not at first discovered. They
are,--_Life of Sterling; Latter Day Pamphlets; Past and
Present; Heroes;_ 5 Vols. _Cromwell's Letters and Speeches._
Unhappily, Vol. II. of _Cromwell_ is wanting, and there is a
duplicate of Vol. V. instead of it. Now, two days ago came your
letter, and tells me that the good old gods have also inspired
you to send me Chapman's Homer! and that it came--heroes with
heroes--in the same enchanted box. I went to Fields yesterday
and demanded the book. He ignored all,--even to the books he had
already sent me; called Osgood to council, and they agreed that
it must be that all these came in a bog of sheets of Dickens from
Chapman, which was sent to the Stereotypers at Cambridge; and
the box shall be instantly explored. We will see what tomorrow
shall find. As to the duplicates, I will say here, that I have
received two: first, the above-mentioned Vol. II. of _Cromwell;_
and, second, long before, a second copy of _Sartor Resartus,_
apparently instead of the Vol. I. of the _French Revolution,_
which did not come. I proposed to Fields to send back to Chapman
these two duplicates. But he said, "No, it will cost as much as
the price of the books." I shall try to find in New York who
represents Chapman and sells these books, and put them to his
credit there, in exchange for the volumes I lack. Meantime, my
serious thanks for all these treasures go to you,--steadily good
to my youth and my age.
Your letter was most welcome, and most in that I thought I read,
in what you say of not making the long-promised visit hither, a
little willingness to come. Think again, I pray you, of that
Ocean Voyage, which is probably the best medicine and restorative
which remains to us at your age and mine. Nine or ten days will
bring you (and commonly with unexpected comfort and easements on
the way) to Boston. Every reading person in America holds you in
exceptional regard, and will rejoice in your arrival. They have
forgotten your scarlet sins before or during the war. I have
long ceased to apologize for or explain your savage sayings about
American or other republics or publics, and am willing that
anointed men bearing with them authentic charters shall be laws
to themselves as Plato willed. Genius is but a large infusion of
Deity, and so brings a prerogative all its own. It has a right
and duty to affront and amaze men by carrying out its perceptions
defiantly, knowing well that time and fate will verify and
explain what time and fate have through them said. We must not
suggest to Michel Angelo, or Machiavel, or Rabelais, or Voltaire,
or John Brown of Osawatomie (a great man), or Carlyle, how they
shall suppress their paradoxes and check their huge gait to keep
accurate step with the procession on the street sidewalk. They
are privileged persons, and may have their own swing for me.
I did not mean to chatter so much, but I wish you would come out
hither and read our possibilities now being daily disclosed, and
our actualities which are not nothing. I shall like to show you
my near neighbors, topographically or practically. A near
neighbor and friend, E. Rockwood Hoar, whom you saw in his youth,
is now an inestimable citizen in this State, and lately, in
President Grant's Cabinet, Attorney-General of the United States.
He lives in this town and carries it in his hand. Another is
John M. Forbes, a strictly private citizen, of great executive
ability, and noblest affections, a motive power and regulator
essential to our City, refusing all office, but impossible to
spare; and these are men whom to name the voice breaks and the
eye is wet. A multitude of young men are growing up here of high
promise, and I compare gladly the social poverty of my youth with
the power on which these draw. The Lowell race, again, in our
War yielded three or four martyrs so able and tender and true,
that James Russell Lowell cannot allude to them in verse or prose
but the public is melted anew. Well, all these know you well,
have read and will read you, yes, and will prize and use your
benefaction to the College; and I believe it would add hope,
health, and strength to you to come and see them.
In my much writing I believe I have left the chief things unsaid.
But come! I and my house wait for you.
Affectionately,
R.W. Emerson