The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I L. Carlyle to Emerson
by Thomas Carlyle
Chelsea, London, 17 January, 1840
Dear Emerson,--Your Letter of the 12th of December, greatly, to
my satisfaction, has arrived; the struggling Steamship, in spite
of all hurricanes, has brought it safe across the waters to me.
I find it good to write you a word in return straightway; though
I think there are already two, or perhaps even three, messages of
mine to you flying about unacknowledged somewhere under the moon;
nay, the last of them perhaps may go by the same packet as this,
--having been forwarded, as this will be, to Liverpool, after
the "British Queen" sailed from London.
Your account of the French Revolution packages, and prognosis
of what Little and Brown will do with them, is altogether as it
should be. I apprised Fraser instantly of his invoiceless Books,
&c.; he answers, that order has been taken in that long since,
"instructions" sent, and, I conclude, arrangements for bills
least of all forgotten. I mentioned what share of the duty was
his; and that your men meant to draw on him for it. That is all
right. As to the French Revolution, I agree with your
Booksellers altogether about it; the American Edition actually
pleases myself better for looking at; nor do I know that
this new English one has much superiority for use: it is
despicably printed, I fear, so far as false spellings and other
slovenlinesses can go. Fraser "finds the people like it";
credat Judaeus;--as for me, I have told him I will not print
any more with that man, but with some other man. Curious
enough, the price Little and Brown have fixed upon was the price
I remember guessing at beforehand, and the result they propose to
realize for me corresponds closely with my prophecy too. Thanks,
a thousand thanks, for all the trouble you never grudge to take.
We shall get ourselves handsomely out of this export and import
speculation; and know, taught at a rather cheap rate, not to
embark in the like again.
There went off a Wilhelm Meister for you, and a letter to
announce it, several weeks ago; that was message first. Your
traveling neighbor, Brown, took charge of a Pamphlet named
Chartism, to be put into the "British Queen's" Letter-bag
(where I hope, and doubt not, he did put it, though I have seen
nothing of him since); that and a letter in reference to it was
message second. Thirdly, I sent off a volume of Poems by
Sterling, likewise announced in that letter. And now this that I
actually write is the fourth (it turns out to be) and last of all
the messages. Let us take Arithmetic along with us in all
things.--Of Chartism I have nothing farther to say, except that
Fraser is striking off another One Thousand copies to be called
Second Edition; and that the people accuse me, not of being
an incendiary and speculative Sansculotte threatening to
become practical, but of being a Tory,--thank Heaven. The
Miscellanies are at press; at two presses; to be out, as
Hope asseverates, in March: five volumes, without Chartism;
with Hoffmann and Tieck from German Romance, stuck in somewhere
as Appendix; with some other trifles stuck in elsewhere, chiefly
as Appendix; and no essential change from the Boston Edition.
Fraser, "overwhelmed with business," does not yet send me his net
result of those Two Hundred and Fifty Copies sold off some
time ago; so soon as he does, you shall hear of it for your
satisfaction.--As to German Romance, tell my friends that it
has been out of print these ten years; procurable, of late not
without difficulty, only in the Old-Bookshops. The comfort is
that the best part of it stands in the new Wilhelm Meister:
Fraser and I had some thought of adding Tieck's and Richter's
parts, had they suited for a volume; the rest may without
detriment to anybody perish.
Such press-correctings and arrangings waste my time here, not in
the agreeablest way. I begin, though in as sulky a state of
health as ever, to look again towards some new kind of work. I
have often thought of Cromwell and Puritans; but do not see how
the subject can be presented still alive. A subject dead is not
worth presenting. Meanwhile I read rubbish of Books; Eichhorn,
Grimm, &c.; very considerable rubbish; one grain in the cart
load worth pocketing. It is pity I have no appetite for
lecturing! Many applications have been made to me here;--none
more touching to me than one, the day before yesterday, by a
fine, innocent-looking Scotch lad, in the name of himself and
certain other Booksellers' shopmen eastward in the City! I
cannot get them out of my head. Poor fellows! they have nobody
to say an honest word to them, in this articulate-speaking world,
and they apply to me.--For you, good friend, I account you
luckier; I do verily: lecture there what innumerable things you
have got to say on "The Present Age";--yet withal do not forget
to write either, for that is the lasting plan after all. I
have a curious Note, sent me for inspection the other day; it is
addressed to a Scotch Mr. Erskine (famed among the saints here)
by a Madame Necker, Madame de Stael's kinswoman, to whom he, the
said Mr. Erskine, had lent your first Pamphlet at Geneva. She
regards you with a certain love, yet a shuddering love. She
says, "Cela sent l'Americain qui apres avoir abattu les forets a
coup de hache, croit qu'on doit de meme conquerir le monde
intellectuel"! What R.M. Milnes will say of you we hope also to
see.--I know both Heraud and Landor; but alas, what room is
here! Another sheet with less of "Arithmetic" in it will soon be
allowed me. Adieu, dear friend.
