The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. CXV. Emerson to Carlyle
by John Stuart Mill
Concord, 31 July, 1846
My Dear Friend,--The new edition of Cromwell in its perfect
form and in excellent dress, and the copy of the Appendix, came
munificently safe by the last steamer. When thought is best,
then is there most,--is a faith of which you alone among writing
men at this day will give me experience. If it is the right
frankincense and sandal-wood, it is so good and heavenly to give
me a basketful and not a pinch. I read proudly, a little at a
time, and have not yet got through the new matter. But I think
neither the new letters nor the commentary could be spared.
Wiley and Putnam shall do what they can, and we will see if
New England will not come to reckon this the best chapter in
her Pentateuch.
I send this letter by Margaret Fuller, of whose approach I
believe I wrote you some word. There is no foretelling how you
visited and crowded English will like our few educated men or
women, and in your learned populace my luminaries may easily be
overlooked. But of all the travelers whom you have so kindly
received from me, I think of none, since Alcott went to England,
whom I so much desired that you should see and like, as this dear
old friend of mine. For two years now I have scarcely seen her,
as she has been at New York, engaged by Horace Greeley as a
literary editor of his Tribune newspaper. This employment was
made acceptable to her by good pay, great local and personal
conveniences of all kinds, and unbounded confidence and respect
from Greeley himself, and all other parties connected with this
influential journal (of 30,000 subscribers, I believe). And
Margaret Fuller's work as critic of all new books, critic of the
drama, of music, and good arts in New York, has been honorable to
her. Still this employment is not satisfactory to me. She is
full of all nobleness, and with the generosity native to her mind
and character appears to me an exotic in New England, a foreigner
from some more sultry and expansive climate. She is, I suppose,
the earliest reader and lover of Goethe in this Country, and
nobody here knows him so well. Her love too of whatever is good
in French, and specially in Italian genius, give her the best
title to travel. In short, she is our citizen of the world by
quite special diploma. And I am heartily glad that she has an
opportunity of going abroad that pleases her.
Mr. Spring, a merchant of great moral merits, (and, as I am
informed, an assiduous reader of your books,) has grown rich, and
resolves to see the world with his wife and son, and has wisely
invited Miss Fuller to show it to him. Now, in the first place,
I wish you to see Margaret when you are in special good humor,
and have an hour of boundless leisure. And I entreat Jane
Carlyle to abet and exalt and secure this satisfaction to me. I
need not, and yet perhaps I need say, that M.F. is the safest of
all possible persons who ever took pen in hand. Prince
Metternich's closet not closer or half so honorable. In the next
place, I should be glad if you can easily manage to show her the
faces of Tennyson and of Browning. She has a sort of right to
them both, not only because she likes their poetry, but because
she has made their merits widely known among our young people.
And be it known to my friend Jane Carlyle, whom, if I cannot see,
I delight to name, that her visitor is an immense favorite in the
parlor, as well as in the library, in all good houses where she
is known. And so I commend her to you.
