The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. LXXX. Carlyle to Emerson
by Thomas Carlyle
Chelsea, London, 19 November, 1842
My Dear Emerson,--Your Letter finds me here today; busied with
many things, but not likely to be soon more at leisure;
wherefore I may as well give myself the pleasure of answering it
on the spot. The Fraser Bill by Brown and Little has come all
right; the Dumfries Banker apprises me lately that he has got
the cash into his hands. Pray do not pester yourself with these
Bookseller unintelligibilities: I suppose their accounts are all
reasonably correct, the cheating, such as it is, done according
to rule: what signifies it at any rate? I am no longer in any
vital want of money; alas, the want that presses far heavier on
me is a want of faculty, a want of sense; and the feeling of
that renders one comparatively very indifferent to money! I
reflect many times that the wealth of the Indies, the fame of ten
Shakespeares or ten Mahomets, would at bottom do me no good at
all. Let us leave these poor slaves of the Ingot and slaves
of the Lamp to their own courses,--within a certain extent
of halter!
What you say of Alcott seems to me altogether just. He is a man
who has got into the Highest intellectual region,--if that be the
Highest (though in that too there are many stages) wherein a man
can believe and discern for himself, without need of help from
any other, and even in opposition to all others: but I consider
him entirely unlikely to accomplish anything considerable, except
some kind of crabbed, semi-perverse, though still manful
existence of his own; which indeed is no despicable thing.
His "more than prophetic egoism,"--alas, yes! It is of such
material that Thebaid Eremites, Sect-founders, and all manner of
cross-grained fanatical monstrosities have fashioned themselves,
--in very high, and in the highest regions, for that matter.
Sect-founders withal are a class I do not like. No truly great
man, from Jesus Christ downwards, as I often say, ever founded a
Sect,--I mean wilfully intended founding one. What a view must a
man have of this Universe, who thinks "he can swallow it all,"
who is not doubly and trebly happy that he can keep it from
swallowing him! On the whole, I sometimes hope we have now done
with Fanatics and Agonistic Posture-makers in this poor world:
it will be an immense improvement on the Past; and the "New
Ideas," as Alcott calls them, will prosper greatly the better on
that account! The old gloomy Gothic Cathedrals were good; but
the great blue Dome that hangs over all is better than any
Cologne one.--On the whole, do not tell the good Alcott a word of
all this; but let him love me as he can, and live on vegetables
in peace; as I, living partly on vegetables, will continue to
love him!
The best thing Alcott did while he staid among us was to
circulate some copies of your Man the Reformer.* I did not get
a copy; I applied for one, so soon as I knew the right fountain;
but Alcott, I think, was already gone. And now mark,--for this I
think is a novelty, if you do not already know it: Certain
Radicals have reprinted your Essay in Lancashire, and it is
freely circulating there, and here, as a cheap pamphlet, with
excellent acceptance so far as I discern. Various Newspaper
reviews of it have come athwart me: all favorable, but all too
shallow for sending to you. I myself consider it a truly
excellent utterance; one of the best words you have ever
spoken. Speak many more such. And whosoever will distort them
into any "vegetable" or other crotchet,--let it be at his own
peril; for the word itself is true; and will have to make
itself a fact therefore; though not a distracted abortive
fact, I hope! Words of that kind are not born into Facts in
the seventh month; well if they see the light full-grown (they
and their adjuncts) in the second century; for old Time is a
most deliberate breeder!--But to speak without figure, I have
been very much delighted with the clearness, simplicity, quiet
energy and veracity of this discourse; and also with the fact of
its spontaneous appearance here among us. The prime mover of the
Printing, I find, is one Thomas Ballantyne, editor of a
Manchester Newspaper, a very good, cheery little fellow, once
a Paisley weaver as he informs me,--a great admirer of all
worthy things.
* "A Lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library
Association, Boston, January 25, 1841."
My paper is so fast failing, let me tell you of the writer on
Loyola. He is a James Stephen, Head Under-Secretary of the
Colonial Office,--that is to say, I believe, real governor of the
British Colonies, so far as they have any governing. He is of
Wilberforce's creed, of Wilberforce's kin; a man past middle
age, yet still in full vigor; reckoned an enormous fellow for
"despatch of business," &c., especially by Taylor (van
Artevelde) and others who are with him or under him in Downing
Street.... I regard the man as standing on the confines of Genius
and Dilettantism,--a man of many really good qualities, and
excellent at the despatch of business. There we will leave
him. --A Mrs. Lee of Brookline near you has made a pleasant
Book about Jean Paul, chiefly by excerpting.* I am sorry to
find Gunderode & Co. a decided weariness!** Cromwell--Cromwell?
Do not mention such a word, if you love me! And yet--Farewell,
my Friend, tonight!
Yours ever,
T. Carlyle
I will apprise Sterling before long: he is at Falmouth, and
well; urging me much to start a Periodical here!
Gambardella promises to become a real Painter; there is a glow
of real fire in the wild southern man: next to no articulate
intellect or the like, but of inarticulate much, or I mistake.
He has tried to paint me for you; but cannot, he says!
* "Life of Jean Paul Frederic Richter. Compiled from various
Sources. Together with his Autobiography. Translated from the
German." In Two Volumes. Boston, 1842. This book, which is one
of the best in English concerning Jean Paul, was the work of the
late Mrs. Thomas (Eliza Buckminster) Lee.
** In the Dial, for January, 1842, is an article by Miss Fuller
on "Bettine Brentano and Gunderode,"--a decided weariness. The
Canoness Gunderode was a friend of Bettine's, older and not much
wiser than herself.
