And above all things write. The instant you get home from California, or see this, let me hear from you what your adventures have been and what the next are to be. Adieu, dear Emerson.
Yours ever affectionately,
T. Carlyle
Mrs. —- sends a note from Piccadilly this new morning (June 5th); call to be made there today by Niece Mary, card left, etc., etc. Promises to be an agreeable Lady.
Did you ever hear of such a thing as this suicidal Finis of the French "Copper Captaincy"; gratuitous Attack on Germany, and ditto Blowing-up of Paris by its own hand! An event with meanings unspeakable,—deep as the. Abyss.—
If you ever write to C. Norton in Italy, send him my kind remembrances.
—T. C. (with about the velocity of Engraving—on lead!)*
————- * The letter was dictated, but the postscript, from the first signature, was written in a tremulous hand by Carlyle himself. ————-
CLXXXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 30 June, 1871
My Dear Carlyle,—'T is more than time that you should hear from me whose debts to you always accumulate. But my long journey to California ended in many distractions on my return home. I found Varioloid in my house… and I was not permitted to enter it for many days, and could only talk with wife, son, and daughter from the yard…. I had crowded and closed my Cambridge lectures in haste, and went to the land of Flowers invited by John M. Forbes, one of my most valued friends, father of my daughter Edith's husband. With him and his family and one or two chosen guests, the trip was made under the best conditions of safety, comfort, and company, I measuring for the first time one entire line of the Country.