The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I LXXI. Carlyle to Emerson
by Thomas Carlyle
Chelsea, London, 19 November, 1841
Dear Emerson,--Since that going down of the American Timber-ship
on one of the Banks of the Solway under my window, I do not
remember that you have heard a word of me. I only added that the
men were all saved, and the beach all in agitation, certain women
not far from hysterics;--and there ended. I did design to send
you some announcement of our return hither; but fear there is no
chance that I did it! About ten days ago the Signor Gambardella
arrived, with a Note and Books from you: and here now is your
Letter of October 30th; which, arriving at a moment when I have
a little leisure, draws forth an answer almost instantly.
The Signor Gambardella, whom we are to see a second time tonight
or tomorrow, amuses and interests us not a little. His face is
the very image of the Classic God Pan's; with horns, and cloven
feet, we feel that he would make a perfect wood-god;--really,
some of Poussin's Satyrs are almost portraits of this brave
Gambardella. I will warrant him a right glowing mass of
Southern-Italian vitality,--full of laughter, wild insight,
caricature, and every sort of energy and joyous savagery: a most
profitable element to get introduced (in moderate quantity), I
should say, into the general current of your Puritan blood over
in New England there! Gambardella has behaved with magnanimity
in that matter of the Portrait: I have already sat, to men in
the like case, some four times, and Gambardella knows it is a
dreadful weariness; I directed him, accordingly, to my last
painter, one Laurence, a man of real parts, whom I wished
Gambardella to know,--and whom I wished to know Gambardella
withal, that he might tell me whether there was any probability
of a good picture by him in case one did decide on encountering
the weariness. Well: Gambardella returns with a magnanimous
report that Laurence's picture far transcends any capability of
his; that whoever in America or elsewhere will have a likeness
of the said individual must apply to Laurence, not to
Gambardella,--which latter artist heroically throws down his
brush, and says, Be it far from me! The brave Gambardella! if I
can get him this night to dilate a little farther on his Visit to
the Community of Shakers, and the things he saw and felt there,
it will be a most true benefit to me. Inextinguishable laughter
seemed to me to lie in Gambardella's vision of that Phenomenon,--
the sight and the seer, but we broke out too loud all at once,
and he was afraid to continue.--Alas! there is almost no laughter
going in the world at present. True laughter is as rare as any
other truth,--the sham of it frequent and detestable, like all
other shams. I know nothing wholesomer; but it is rarer even
than Christmas, which comes but once a year, and does always
come once.
Your satisfactions and reflections at sight of your English Book
are such as I too am very thankful for. I understand them well.
May worse guest never visit the Drawing-room at Concord than that
bound Book. Tell the good Wife to rejoice in it: she has all
the pleasure;--to her poor Husband it will be increase of pain
withal: nay, let us call it increase of valiant labor and
endeavor; no evil for a man, if he be fit for it! A man must
learn to digest praise too, and not be poisoned with it: some of
it is wholesome to the system under certain circumstances; the
most of it a healthy system will learn by and by to throw into
the slop-basin, harmlessly, without any trial to digest it. A
thinker, I take it, in the long run finds that essentially he
must ever be and continue alone;--alone: "silent, rest over
him the stars, and under him the graves"! The clatter of the
world, be it a friendly, be it a hostile world, shall not
intermeddle with him much. The Book of Essays, however, does
decidedly "speak to England," in its way, in these months; and
even makes what one may call a kind of appropriate "sensation"
here. Reviews of it are many, in all notes of the gamut;--of
small value mostly; as you might see by the two Newspaper
specimens I sent you. (Did you get those two Newspapers?) The
worst enemy admits that there are piercing radiances of perverse
insight in it; the highest friends, some few, go to a very high
point indeed. Newspapers are busy with extracts;--much
complaining that it is "abstruse," neological, hard to get the
meaning of. All which is very proper. Still better,--though
poor Fraser, alas, is dead, (poor Fraser!), and no help could
come from industries of the Bookshop, and Books indeed it seems
were never selling worse than of late months,--I learn that the
"sale of the Essays goes very steadily forward," and will wind
itself handsomely up in due time, we may believe! So Emerson
henceforth has a real Public in Old England as well as New. And
finally, my Friend, do not disturb yourself about turning
better, &c., &c.; write as it is given you, and not till it be
given you, and never mind it a whit.
The new Adelphi piece seems to me, as a piece of Composition,
the best written of them all. People cry over it: "Whitherward?
What, What?" In fact, I do again desiderate some concretion of
these beautiful abstracta. It seems to me they will never be
right otherwise; that otherwise they are but as prophecies yet,
not fulfilments.
The Dial too, it is all spirit-like, aeriform, aurora-borealis
like. Will no Angel body himself out of that; no stalwart
Yankee man, with color in the cheeks of him, and a coat on his
back! These things I say: and yet, very true, you alone can
decide what practical meaning is in them. Write you always as
it is given you, be it in the solid, in the aeriform, or
whatsoever way. There is no other rule given among men.--I have
sent the criticism on Landor* to an Editorial Friend of L.'s, by
whom I expect it will be put into the Newspapers here, for the
benefit of Walter Savage; he is not often so well praised among
us, and deserves a little good praise.
* From the Dial for October, 1841.
You propose again to send me Moneys,--surprising man! I am glad
also to hear that that beggarly misprinted French Revolution is
nearly out among you. I only hope farther your Booksellers will
have an eye on that rascal Appleton, and not let him reprint
and deface, if more copies of the Book turn out to be wanted.
Adieu, dear Emerson! Good speed to you at Boston, and in all
true things. I hope to write soon again.
