I am glad you have bought Spinoza. I am in no sort of hurry for him: you
may keep him a year if you like. I shall perhaps never read him now I
have him. Thank you for the trouble you took. . . .
Your Hafiz is fine: and his tavern world is a sad and just idea. I did
not send that vine leaf {205a} to A. T. but I have not forgotten it. It
sticks in my mind.
"In Time's fleeting river
The image of that little vine-leaf lay,
Immovably unquiet--and for ever
It trembles--but it cannot pass away." {205b}
I have read nothing you would care for since I saw you. It would be a
good work to give us some of the good things of Hafiz and the Persians;
of bulbuls and ghuls we have had enough.
Come and bring over Spinoza; or I must go and bring him.
_From T. Carlyle_.
CHELSEA, 8 _April_, 1846.