The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. CLXXIII. Emerson to Carlyle
by John Stuart Mill
Concord, 7 January, 1866
Dear Carlyle,--Is it too late to send a letter to your door to
claim an old right to enter, and to scatter all your convictions
that I had passed under the earth? You had not to learn what a
sluggish pen mine is. Of course, the sluggishness grows on me,
and even such a trumpet at my gate as a letter from you
heralding-in noble books, whilst it gives me joy, cannot heal the
paralysis. Yet your letter deeply interested me, with the
account of your rest so well earned. You had fought your great
battle, and might roll in the grass, or ride your pony, or shout
to the Cumberland or Scotland echoes, with largest leave of men
and gods. My lethargies have not dulled my delight in good
books. I read these in the bright days of our new peace, which
added a lustre to every genial work. Now first we had a right to
read, for the very bookworms were driven out of doors whilst the
war lasted. I found in the book no trace of age, which your
letter so impressively claimed. In the book, the hand does not
shake, the mind is ubiquitous. The treatment is so spontaneous,
self-respecting, defiant,--liberties with your hero as if he were
your client, or your son, and you were proud of him, and yet can
check and chide him, and even put him in the corner when he is
not a good boy, freedoms with kings, and reputations, and
nations, yes, and with principles too,--that each reader, I
suppose, feels complimented by the confidences with which he is
honored by this free-tongued, masterful Hermes.--Who knows what
the [Greek] will say next? This humor of telling the story in a
gale,--bantering, scoffing, at the hero, at the enemy, at the
learned reporters,--is a perpetual flattery to the admiring
student,--the author abusing the whole world as mad dunces,--all
but you and I, reader! Ellery Channing borrowed my Volumes V.
and VI., worked slowly through them,--midway came to me for
Volumes I., II., III., IV., which he had long already read, and
at last returned all with this word, "If you write to Mr.
Carlyle, you may say to him, that I have read these books,
and they have made it impossible for me to read any other books
but his."
'T is a good proof of their penetrative force, the influence on
the new Stirling, who writes "The Secret of Hegel." He is quite
as much a student of Carlyle to learn treatment, as of Hegel for
his matter, and plays the same game on his essence-dividing
German, which he has learned of you on Friedrich. I have
read a good deal in this book of Stirling's, and have not done
with it.
One or two errata I noticed in the last volumes of Friedrich,
though the books are now lent, and I cannot indicate the pages.
Fort Pulaski, which is near Savannah, is set down as near
Charleston. Charleston, South Carolina, your printer has twice
called Charlestown, which is the name of the town in
Massachusetts in which Bunker Hill stands.--Bancroft told me
that the letters of Montcalm are spurious. We always write and
say Ticonderoga.
I am sorry that Jonathan looks so unamiable seen from your
island. Yet I have too much respect for the writing profession
to complain of it. It is a necessity of rhetoric that there
should be shades, and, I suppose, geography and government always
determine, even for the greatest wits, where they shall lay their
shadows. But I have always 'the belief that a trip across the
sea would have abated your despair of us. The world is laid out
here in large lots, and the swing of natural laws is shared by
the population, as it is not--or not as much--in your feudal
Europe. My countrymen do not content me, but they are
susceptible of inspirations. In the war it was humanity that
showed itself to advantage,--the leaders were prompted and
corrected by the intuitions of the people, they still demanding
the more generous and decisive measure, and giving their sons and
their estates as we had no example before. In this heat, they
had sharper perceptions of policy, of the ways and means and the
life of nations, and on every side we read or heard fate-words,
in private letters, in railway cars, or in the journals. We were
proud of the people and believed they would not go down from this
height. But Peace came, and every one ran back into his shop
again, and can hardly be won to patriotism more, even to the
point of chasing away the thieves that are stealing not only
the public gold, but the newly won rights of the slave, and
the new muzzles we had contrived to keep the planter from
sucking his blood.
Very welcome to me were the photographs,--your own, and Jane
Carlyle's. Hers, now seen here for the first time, was closely
scanned, and confirmed the better accounts that had come of her
improved health. Your earlier tidings of her had not been
encouraging. I recognized still erect the wise, friendly
presence first seen at Craigenputtock. Of your own--the hatted
head is good, but more can be read in the head leaning on the
hand, and the one in a cloak.
At the end of much writing, I have little to tell you of myself.
I am a bad subject for autobiography. As I adjourn letters, so I
adjourn my best tasks.... My wife joins me in very kind regards
to Mrs. Carlyle. Use your old magnanimity to me, and punish my
stony ingratitudes by new letters from time to time.
Ever affectionately and gratefully yours,
R.W. Emerson
