I send you by this ship a volume of translations from Dante, by Doctor Parsons of Boston, a practising dentist and the son of a dentist. It is his gift to you. Lately went Henry James to you with a letter from me. He is a fine companion from his intelligence, valor, and worth, and is and has been a very beneficent person as I learn. He carried a volume of poems from my friend and nearest neighbor, W. Ellery Channing, whereof give me, I pray you, the best opinion you can. I am determined he shall be a poet, and you must find him such.* I have too many things to tell you to begin at the end of this sheet, which after all this waiting I have been compelled to scribble in a corner, with company waiting for me. Send me instant word of yourself if you love me, and of those whom you love, and so God keep you and yours.
—R. Waldo Emerson
————— * In the second number of the Dial, in October, 1840, Emerson had published, under the title of "New Poetry," an article warmly commending Mr. Channing's then unpublished poems. —————
LXXXVI. Carlyle to Emerson
Chelsea, London, 31 October, 1843
My Dear Emerson,—It is a long weary time since I have had the satisfaction of the smallest dialogue with you. The blame is all my own; the reasons would be difficult to give,—alas, they are properly no-reasons, children not of Something, but of mere Idleness, Confusion, Inaction, Inarticulation, of Nothing in short! Let us leave them there, and profit by the hour which yet is.
I ran away from London into Bristol and, South Wales, when the heats grew violent, at the end of June. South Wales, North Wales, Lancashire, Scotland: I roved about everywhere seeking some Jacob's-pillow on which to lay my head, and dream of things heavenly;—yes, that at bottom was my modest prayer, though I disguised it from myself and the result was, I could find no pillow at all; but sank into ever meaner restlessness, blacker and blacker biliary gloom, and returned in the beginning of September thoroughly eclipsed and worn out, probably the weariest of all men living under the sky. Sure enough I have a fatal talent of converting all Nature into Preternaturalism for myself: a truly horrible Phantasm-Reality it is to me; what of heavenly radiances it has, blended in close neighborhood, in intimate union, with the hideousness of Death and Chaos;—a very ghastly business indeed! On the whole, it is better to hold one's peace about it. I flung myself down on sofas here,—for my little Wife had trimmed up our little dwelling-place into quite glorious order in my absence, and I had only to lie down: there, in reading books, and other make-believe employments, I could at least keep silence, which was an infinite relief. Nay, gradually, as indeed I anticipated, the black vortexes and deluges have subsided; and now that it is past, I begin to feel myself better for my travels after all. For one thing, articulate speech having returned to me,—you see what use I make of it.
On the table of the London Library, voted in by some unknown benefactor whom I found afterwards to be Richard Milnes, there lay one thing highly gratifying to me: the last two Numbers of the Dial. It is to be one of our Periodicals henceforth; the current Number lies on the Table till the next arrive; then the former goes to the Binder; we have already, in a bound volume, all of it that Emerson has had the editing of. This is right. Nay, in Edinburgh, and indeed wherever ingenuous inquisitive minds were met with, I have to report that the said Emerson could number a select and most loving public; select, and I should say fast growing: for good and indifferent reasons it may behove the man to assure himself of this. Farther, to the horror of poor Nickerson (Bookseller Fraser's Successor), a certain scoundrel interloper here has reprinted Emerson's Essays on grayish paper, to be sold at two shillings,—distracting Nickerson with the fear of change! I was glad at this, if also angry: it indicates several things. Nickerson has taken his measures, will reduce the price of his remaining copies; indeed, he informs me the best part of his edition was already sold, and he has even some color of money due from England to Emerson through me! With pride enough will I transmit this mournful, noble peculium: and after that, as I perceive, such chivalrous international doings must cease between us. Past and Present, some one told me, was, in spite of all your precautions, straightway sent forth in modest gray, and your benevolent speculation ruined. Here too, you see, it is the same. Such chivalries, therefore, are now impossible; for myself I say, "Well, let them cease; thank God they once were, the Memory of that can never cease with us!"
In this last Number of the Dial which by the bye your Bookseller never forwarded to me, I found one little Essay, a criticism on myself,* which, if it should do me mischief, may the gods forgive you for! It is considerably the most dangerous thing I have read for some years. A decided likeness of myself recognizable in it, as in the celestial mirror of a friend's heart; but so enlarged, exaggerated, all transfigured,—the most delicious, the most dangerous thing! Well, I suppose I must try to assimilate it also, to turn it also to good, if I be able. Eulogies, dyslogies, in which one finds no features of one's own natural face, are easily dealt with; easily left unread, as stuff for lighting fires, such is the insipidity, the wearisome _non_entity of pabulum like that: but here is another sort of matter! "The beautifulest piece of criticism I have read for many a day," says every one that speaks of it. May the gods forgive you!—I have purchased a copy for three shillings, and sent it to my Mother: one of the indubitablest benefits I could think of in regard to it.
————- * A criticism by Emerson of Past and Present, in the Dial for July, 1843. It embodies a great part of the extract from Emerson's Diary given in a preceding note, and is well worth reading in full for its appreciation of Carlyle's powers and defects. ————-