The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I LXVIII. Carlyle to Emerson
by Thomas Carlyle
Newby, Annan, Scotland, 18 August, 1841
My Dear Emerson,--Two days ago your Letter, direct from
Liverpool, reached me here; only fifteen days after date on the
other side of the Ocean: one of the swiftest messengers that
have yet come from you. Steamers have been known to come, they
say, in nine days. By and by we shall visibly be, what I always
say we virtually are, members of neighboring Parishes; paying
continual visits to one another. What is to hinder huge London
from being to universal Saxondom what small Mycale was to the
Tribes of Greece,--a place to hold your [Greek] in? A meeting of
All the English ought to be as good as one of All the Ionians;
--and as Homeric "equal ships" are to Bristol steamers, so, or
somewhat so, may New York and New Holland be to Ephesus and
Crete, with their distances, relations, and etceteras!--Few
things on this Earth look to me greater than the Future of that
Family of Men.
It is some two months since I got into this region; my Wife
followed me with her maid and equipments some five weeks ago.
Newington Lodge, when I came to inspect it with eyes, proved to
be too rough an undertaking: upholsterers, expense and
confusion,--the Cynic snarled, "Give me a whole Tub rather! I
want nothing but shelter from the elements, and to be let alone
of all men." After a little groping, this little furnished
cottage, close by the beach of the Solway Frith, was got hold of:
here we have been, in absolute seclusion, for a month,--no
company but the corn-fields and the everlasting sands and brine;
mountains, and thousand-voiced memories on all hands, sending
their regards to one, from the distance. Daily (sometimes even
nightly!) I have swashed about in the sea; I have been perfectly
idle, at least inarticulate; I fancy I feel myself considerably
sounder of body and of mind. Deeply do I agree with you in the
great unfathomable meaning of a colloquy with the dumb Ocean,
with the dumb Earth, and their eloquence! A Legislator would
prescribe some weeks of that annually as a religious duty for all
mortals, if he could. A Legislator will prescribe it for
himself, since he can! You too have been at Nantasket; my
Friend, this great rough purple sea-flood that roars under my
little garret-window here, this too comes from Nantasket and
farther,--swung hitherward by the Moon and the Sun.
It cannot be said that I feel "happy" here, which means joyful;--
as far as possible from that. The Cave of Trophonius could not
be grimmer for one than this old Land of Graves. But it is a
sadness worth any hundred "happinesses." N'en parlons plus.
By the way, have you ever clearly remarked withal what a
despicable function "view-hunting" is. Analogous to
"philanthropy," "pleasures of virtue," &c., &c. I for my part,
in these singular circumstances, often find an honestly ugly
country the preferable one. Black eternal peat-bog, or these
waste-howling sands with mews and seagulls: you meet at least no
Cockney to exclaim, "How charming it is!"
One of the last things I did in London was to pocket Bookseller
Brown's L38: a very honest-looking man, that Brown; whom I was
sorry I could not manage to welcome better. You asked in that
Letter about some other item of business,--Munroe's or Brown's
account to acknowledge?--something or other that I was to do:
I only remember vaguely that it seemed to me I had as good as
done it. Your Letter is not here now, but at Chelsea.
Three sheets of the Essays lay waiting me at my Mother's, for
correction; needing as good as none. The type and shape is the
same as that of late Lectures on Heroes. Robson the Printer,
who is a very punctual intelligent man, a scholar withal,
undertook to be himself the corrector of the other sheets. I
hope you will find them "exactly conformable to the text, minus
mere Typographical blunders and the more salient American
spellings (labor for labour, &c.)." The Book is perhaps just
getting itself subscribed in these very days. It should have
been out before now: but poor Fraser is in the country,
dangerously ill, which perhaps retards it a little; and the
season, at any rate, is at the very dullest. By the first
conveyance I will send a certain Lady two copies of it. Little
danger but the Edition will sell; Fraser knows his own Trade
well enough, and is as much a "desperado" as poor Attila
Schmelzle was! Poor James, I wish he were well again; but
really at times I am very anxious about him.--The Book will sell;
will be liked and disliked. Harriet Martineau, whom I saw in
passing hitherward, writes with her accustomed enthusiasm about
it. Richard Milnes too is very warm. John Sterling scolds and
kisses it (as the manner of the man is), and concludes by
inquiring, whether there is any procurable Likeness of Emerson?
Emerson himself can answer. There ought to be.
--Good Heavens! Here came my Wife, all in tears, pointing out to
me a poor ship, just tumbled over on a sand-bank on the
Cumberland coast; men still said to be alive on it,--a Belfast
steamer doing all it can to get in contact with it! Moments are
precious (say the people on the beach), the flood runs ten miles
an hour. Thank God, the steamer's boat is out: "eleven men,"
says a person with a glass, "are saved: it is an American
timber-ship, coming up without a Pilot." And now--in ten minutes
more--there lies the melancholy mass alone among the waters,
wreck-boats all hastening towards it, like birds of prey; the
poor Canadians all up and away towards Annan. What an end for my
Letter, which nevertheless must end! Adieu, dear Emerson.
Address to Chelsea next time. I can say no more.
