XXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 17 October, 1838
My Dear Friend,—I am quite uneasy that I do not hear from you. On the 21st of July I wrote to you and enclosed a remittance of L50 by a Bill of Exchange on Baring Brothers, drawn by Chandler, Howard, & Co., which was sent in the steamer "Royal William." On the 2d of August I received your letter of inquiry respecting our edition of the Miscellanies, and wrote a few days later in reply, that we could send you out two or three hundred copies of our first two volumes, in sheets, at eighty-nine cents per copy of two volumes, and the small additional price of the new title- page. I said also that I would wait until I heard from you before commencing the printing of the last two volumes of the Miscellanies, and, if you desired it, would print any number of copies with a title-page for London. This letter went in a steamer—he "Great Western" probably—about the 10th or 12th of August. (Perhaps I misremember the names [of the steamers], and the first should be last.) I have heard nothing from you since. I trust my letters have not miscarried. (A third was sent also by another channel inclosing a duplicate of the Bill of Exchange.) With more fervency, I trust that all goes well in the house of my friend,—and I suppose that you are absent on some salutary errand of repairs and recreation. Use, I pray you, your earliest hour in certifying me of the facts.
One word more in regard to business. I believe I expressed some surprise, in the July letter, that the booksellers should have no greater balance for us at this settlement. I have since studied the account better, and see that we shall not be disappointed in the year of obtaining at least the sum first promised,—seven hundred and sixty dollars; but the whole expense of the edition is paid out of the copies first sold, and our profits depend on the last sales. The edition is almost gone, and you shall have an account at the end of the year.
In a letter within a twelvemonth I have urged you to pay us a visit in America, and in Concord. I have believed that you would come one day, and do believe it. But if, on your part, you have been generous and affectionate enough to your friends here—or curious enough concerning our society—to wish to come, I think you must postpone, for the present, the satisfaction of your friendship and your curiosity. At this moment I would not have you here, on any account. The publication of my Address to the Divinity College (copies of which I sent you) has been the occasion of an outcry in all our leading local newspapers against my "infidelity," "pantheism," and "atheism." The writers warn all and sundry against me, and against whatever is supposed to be related to my connection of opinion, &c.; against Transcendentalism, Goethe, and Carlyle. I am heartily sorry to see this last aspect of the storm in our washbowl. For, as Carlyle is nowise guilty, and has unpopularities of his own, I do not wish to embroil him in my parish differences. You were getting to be a great favorite with us all here, and are daily a greater with the American public, but just now, in Boston, where I am known as your editor, I fear you lose by the association. Now it is indispensable to your right influence here, that you should never come before our people as one of a clique, but as a detached, that is, universally associated man; so I am happy, as I could not have thought, that you have not yielded yourself to my entreaties. Let us wait a little until this foolish clamor be overblown. My position is fortunately such as to put me quite out of the reach of any real inconvenience from the panic-strikers or the panic-struck; and, indeed, so far as this uneasiness is a necessary result of mere inaction of mind, it seems very clear to me that, if I live, my neighbors must look for a great many more shocks, and perhaps harder to bear.
The article on German Religious Writers in the last Foreign Quarterly Review suits our meridian as well as yours; as is plainly signified by the circumstance that our newspapers copy into their columns the opening tirade and no more. Who wrote that paper? And who wrote the paper on Montaigne in the Westminster? I read with great satisfaction the Poems and Thoughts of Archaeus in Blackwood. "The Sexton's Daughter" is a beautiful poem: and I recognize in them all the Soul, with joy and love. Tell me of the author's health and welfare; or, will not he love me so much as to write me a letter with his own hand? And tell me of yourself, what task of love and wisdom the Muses impose; and what happiness the good God sends to you and yours. I hope your wife has not forgotten me.
Yours affectionately,
R.W. Emerson
The Miscellanies, Vols. I. and II., are a popular book. About five hundred copies have been sold. The second article on Jean Paul works with might on the inner man of young men. I hate to write you letters on business and facts like this. There are so few Friends that I think some time I shall meet you nearer, for I love you more than is fit to say. W.H. Channing has written a critique on you, which I suppose he has sent you, in the Boston Review.
XXIX. Carlyle to Emerson
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London 7 November, 1838