W.E. Channing's Poems are also a kind gift from you. I have read the pieces you had cut up for me: worthy indeed of reading! That Poem on Death is the utterance of a valiant, noble heart, which in rhyme or prose I shall expect more news of by and by. But at bottom "Poetry" is a most suspicious affair for me at present! You cannot fancy the oceans of Twaddle that human Creatures emit upon me, in these times; as if, when the lines had a jingle in them, a Nothing could be Something, and the point were gained! It is becoming a horror to me,—as all speech without meaning more and more is. I said to Richard Milnes, "Now in honesty what is the use of putting your accusative before the verb, and otherwise entangling the syntax; if there really is an image of any object, thought, or thing within you, for God's sake let me have it the shortest way, and I will so cheerfully excuse the omission of the jingle at the end: cannot I do without that!"—Milnes answered, "Ah, my dear fellow, it is because we have no thought, or almost none; a little thought goes a great way when you put it into rhyme!" Let a man try to the very uttermost to speak what he means, before singing is had recourse to. Singing, in our curt English speech, contrived expressly and almost exclusively for "despatch of business," is terribly difficult. Alfred Tennyson, alone of our time, has proved it to be possible in some measure. If Channing will persist in melting such obdurate speech into music he shall have my true wishes,—my augury that it will take an enormous heat from him!—Another Channing,* whom I once saw here, sends me a Progress-of-the-Species Periodical from New York. Ach Gott! These people and their affairs seem all "melting" rapidly enough, into thaw-slush or one knows not what. Considerable madness is visible in them. Stare super antiquas vias: "No," they say, "we cannot stand, or walk, or do any good whatever there; by God's blessing, we will fly,—will not you!— here goes!" And their flight, it is as the flight of the unwinged,—of oxen endeavoring to fly with the "wings" of an ox! By such flying, universally practised, the "ancient ways" are really like to become very deep before long. In short, I am terribly sick of all that;—and wish it would stay at home at Fruitland, or where there is good pasture for it. Friend Emerson, alone of all voices, out of America, has sphere-music in him for me,—alone of them all hitherto; and is a prophecy and sure dayspring in the East; immeasurably cheering to me. God long prosper him; keep him duly apart from that bottomless hubbub which is not, at all cheering! And so ends my Litany for this day.
———— * The Reverend William Henry Channing. ————
The Cromwell business, though I punch daily at it with all manner of levers, remains immovable as Ailsa Crag. Heaven alone knows what I shall do with it. I see and say to myself, It is heroical; Troy Town was probably not a more heroic business; and this belongs to thee, to thy own people,—must it be dead forever?—Perhaps yes,—and kill me too into the bargain. Really I think it very shocking that we run to Greece, to Italy, to &c., &c., and leave all at home lying buried as a nonentity. Were I absolute Sovereign and Chief Pontiff here, there should be a study of the Old English ages first of all. I will pit Odin against any Jupiter of them; find Sea-kings that would have given Jason a Roland for his Oliver! We are, as you sometimes say, a book-ridden people,—a phantom-ridden people.—All this small household is well; salutes you and yours with love old and new. Accept this hasty messenger; accept my friendliest farewell, dear Emerson.
Yours ever,
T. Carlyle
LXXXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 31 December, 1843
My Dear Friend,—I have had two good letters from you, and it is fully my turn to write, so you shall have a token on this latest day of the year. I rejoice in this good will you bear to so many friends of mine,—if they will go to you, you must thank yourself. Best when you are mutually contented. I wished lately I might serve Mr. Macready, who sent me your letter.—I called on him and introduced him to Sam G. Ward, my friend and the best man in the city, and, besides all his personal merits, a master of all the offices of hospitality. Ward was to keep himself informed of Macready's times, and bring me to him when there was opportunity. But he stayed but a few days in Boston, and, Ward said, was in very good hands, and promised to see us when he returns by and by. I saw him in Hamlet, but should much prefer to see him as Macready.
I must try to entice Mr. Macready out here into my pines and alder bushes. Just now the moon is shining on snow-drifts, four, five, and six feet high, but, before his return, they will melt; and already this my not native but ancestral village, which I came to live in nearly ten years ago because it was the quietest of farming towns, and off the road, is found to lie on the directest line of road from Boston to Montreal, a railroad is a-building through our secretest woodlands, and, tomorrow morning, our people go to Boston in two hours instead of three, and, next June, in one. This petty revolution in our country matters was very odious to me when it began, but it is hard to resist the joy of all one's neighbors, and I must be contented to be carted like a chattel in the cars and be glad to see the forest fall. This rushing on your journey is plainly a capital invention for our spacious America, but it is more dignified and man-like to walk barefoot.—But do you not see that we are getting to be neighbors? a day from London to Liverpool; twelve or eleven to Boston; and an hour to Concord; and you have owed me a visit these ten years.
I mean to send with your January Dial a copy of the number for Sterling, as it contains a review of his tragedy and poems, by Margaret Fuller. I have not yet seen the article, and the lady affirms that it is very bad, as she was ill all the time she was writing; but I hope and believe better. She, Margaret Fuller, is an admirable person, whose writing gives feeble account of her. But I was to say that I shall send this Dial for J.S. to your care, as I know not the way to the Isle of Wight.
Enclosed in this letter I send a bill of exchange for L32 8s. 2d. payable by Baring & Co. It happens to represent an exact balance on Munroe's books, and that slow mortal should have paid it before. I have not yet got to Clark, I who am a slow mortal, but have my eye fixed on him. Remember me and mine with kindest salutations to your wife and brother.