The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. CXLII. Carlyle to Emerson
by Thomas Carlyle
Chelsea, 19 July, 1850
My Dear Emerson, My Friend, my Friend,--You behold before you a
remorseful man! It is well-nigh a year now since I despatched
some hurried rag of paper to you out of Scotland, indicating
doubtless that I would speedily follow it with a longer letter;
and here, when gray Autumn is at hand again, I have still written
nothing to you, heard nothing from you! It is miserable to think
of:--and yet it is a fact, and there is no denying of it; and so
we must let it lie. If it please Heaven, the like shall not
occur again. "Ohone Arooh!" as the Irish taught me to say,
"Ohone Arooh!"
The fact is, my life has been black with care and toil,--labor
above board and far worse labor below;--I have hardly had a
heavier year (overloaded too with a kind of "health" which may be
called frightful): to "burn my own smoke" in some measure, has
really been all I was up to; and except on sheer immediate
compulsion I have not written a word to any creature.--
Yesternight I finished the last of these extraordinary
Pamphlets; am about running off somewhither into the deserts,
of Wales or Scotland, Scandinavia or still remoter deserts;--and
my first signal of revived reminiscence is to you.
Nay I have not at any time forgotten you, be that justice done
the unfortunate: and though I see well enough what a great deep
cleft divides us, in our ways of practically looking at this
world,--I see also (as probably you do yourself) where the rock-
strata, miles deep, unite again; and the two poor souls are at
one. Poor devils!--Nay if there were no point of agreement at
all, and I were more intolerant "of ways of thinking" than I even
am,--yet has not the man Emerson, from old years, been a Human
Friend to me? Can I ever forget, or think otherwise than
lovingly of the man Emerson? No more of this. Write to me in
your first good hour; and say that there is still a brother-soul
left to me alive in this world, and a kind thought surviving far
over the sea!--Chapman, with due punctuality at the time of
publication, sent me the Representative Men; which I read in
the becoming manner: you now get the Book offered you for a
shilling, at all railway stations; and indeed I perceive the
word "representative man"' (as applied to the late tragic loss we
have had in Sir Robert Peel) has been adopted by the Able-
Editors, and circulates through Newspapers as an appropriate
household word, which is some compensation to you for the piracy
you suffer from the Typographic Letter-of-marque men here. I
found the Book a most finished clear and perfect set of
Engravings in the line manner; portraitures full of
likeness, and abounding in instruction and materials for
reflection to me: thanks always for such a Book; and Heaven
send us many more of them. Plato, I think, though it is the
most admired by many, did least for me: little save Socrates
with his clogs and big ears remains alive with me from it.
Swedenborg is excellent in likeness; excellent in many
respects;--yet I said to myself, on reaching your general
conclusion about the man and his struggles: "Missed the
consummate flower and divine ultimate elixir of Philosophy, say
you? By Heaven, in clutching at it, and almost getting it, he
has tumbled into Bedlam,--which is a terrible miss, if it were
never so near! A miss fully as good as a mile, I should say!"
--In fact, I generally dissented a little about the end of all
these Essays; which was notable, and not without instructive
interest to me, as I had so lustily shouted "Hear, hear!" all the
way from the beginning up to that stage.--On the whole, let us
have another Book with your earliest convenience: that is the
modest request one makes of you on shutting this.
I know not what I am now going to set about: the horrible
barking of the universal dog-kennel (awakened by these
Pamphlets) must still itself again; my poor nerves must
recover themselves a little:--I have much more to say; and
by Heaven's blessing must try to get it said in some way if
I live.--
Bostonian Prescott is here, infinitely lionized by a mob of
gentlemen; I have seen him in two places or three (but forbore
speech): the Johnny-cake is good, the twopence worth of currants
in it too are good; but if you offer it as a bit of baked
Ambrosia, Ach Gott!--
Adieu, dear Emerson, forgive, and love me a little.
