Dear Emerson,—This is the 18th of the month, and it is a frightful length of time, I know not how long, since I wrote to you,—sinner that I am! Truly we are in no case for paying debts at present, being all sick more or less, from the hard cold weather, and in a state of great temporary puddle but, as the adage says, "one should own debt, and crave days";—therefore accept a word from me, such as it may be.
I went, as usual, to the North Country in the Autumn; passed some two extremely disconsolate months,—for all things distress a wretched thin-skinned creature like me,—in that old region, which is at once an Earth and a Hades to me, an unutterable place, now that I have become mostly a ghost there! I saw Ireland too on my return, saw black potato-fields, a ragged noisy population, that has long in a headlong baleful manner followed the Devil's leading, listened namely to blustering shallow- violent Impostors and Children of Darkness, saying, "Yes, we know you, you are Children of Light!"—and so has fallen all out at elbows in body and in soul; and now having lost its potatoes is come as it were to a crisis; all its windy nonsense cracking suddenly to pieces under its feet: a very pregnant crisis indeed! A country cast suddenly into the melting-pot,—say into the Medea's-Caldron; to be boiled into horrid dissolution; whether into new youth, into sound healthy life, or into eternal death and annihilation, one does not yet know! Daniel O'Connell stood bodily before me, in his green Mullaghmart Cap; haranguing his retinue of Dupables: certainly the most sordid Humbug I have ever seen in this world; the emblem to me, he and his talk and the worship and credence it found, of all the miseries that can befall a Nation. I also conversed with Young Ireland in a confidential manner; for Young Ireland, really meaning what it says, is worth a little talk: the Heroism and Patriotism of a new generation; welling fresh and new from the breasts of Nature; and already poisoned by O'Connellism and the Old Irish atmosphere of bluster, falsity, fatuity, into one knows not what. Very sad to see. On the whole, no man ought, for any cause, to speak lies, or have anything to do with lies; but either hold his tongue, or speak a bit of the truth: that is the meaning of a tongue, people used to know!—Ireland was not the place to console my sorrows. I returned home very sad out of Ireland;—and indeed have remained one of the saddest, idlest, most useless of Adam's sons ever since; and do still remain so. I care not to write anything more,—so it seems to me at present. I am in my vacant interlunar cave (I suppose that is the truth);—and I ought to wrap my mantle round me, and lie, if dark, silent also. But, alas, I have wasted almost all your poor sheet first!—
Miss Fuller came duly as you announced; was welcomed for your sake and her own. A high-soaring, clear, enthusiast soul; in whose speech there is much of all that one wants to find in speech. A sharp, subtle intellect too; and less of that shoreless Asiatic dreaminess than I have sometimes met with in her writings. We liked one another very well, I think, and the Springs too were favorites. But, on the whole, it could not be concealed, least of all from the sharp female intellect, that this Carlyle was a dreadfully heterodox, not to say a dreadfully savage fellow, at heart; believing no syllable of all that Gospel of Fraternity, Benevolence, and new Heaven-on-Earth, preached forth by all manner of "advanced" creatures, from George Sand to Elihu Burritt, in these days; that in fact the said Carlyle not only disbelieved all that, but treated it as poisonous cant,—sweetness of sugar-of-lead,—a detestable phosphorescence from the dead body of a Christianity, that would not admit itself to be dead, and lie buried with all its unspeakable putrescences, as a venerable dead one ought!—Surely detestable enough.—To all which Margaret listened with much good nature; though of course with sad reflections not a few.*—She is coming back to us, she promises. Her dialect is very vernacular,—extremely exotic in the London climate. If she do not gravitate too irresistibly towards that class of New-Era people (which includes whatsoever we have of prurient, esurient, morbid, flimsy, and in fact pitiable and unprofitable, and is at a sad discount among men of sense), she may get into good tracks of inquiry and connection here, and be very useful to herself and others. I could not show her Alfred (he has been here since) nor Landor: but surely if I can I will,—that or a hundred times as much as that,—when she returns.—They tell me you are about collecting your Poems. Well, though I do not approve of rhyme at all, yet it is impossible Emerson in rhyme or prose can put down any thought that was in his heart but I should wish to get into mine. So let me have the Book as fast as may be. And do others like it if you will take circumbendibuses for sound's sake! And excuse the Critic who seems to you so unmusical; and say, It is the nature of beast! Adieu, dear Friend: write to me, write to me.
Yours ever,
T. Carlyle
———— * Miss Fullers impressions of Carlyle, much to this effect, may be found in the "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli," Boston, 1852, Vol. II. pp. 184-190. ————-
CXVII. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 31 January, 1847
My Dear Carlyle,—Your letter came with a blessing last week. I had already learned from Margaret Fuller, at Paris, that you had been very good and gentle to her;—brilliant and prevailing, of course, but, I inferred, had actually restrained the volleys and modulated the thunder, out of true courtesy and goodness of nature, which was worthy of all praise in a spoiled conqueror at this time of day. Especially, too, she expressed a true recognition and love of Jane Carlyle; and thus her visit proved a solid satisfaction; to me, also, who think that few people have so well earned their pleasures as she.
She wrote me a long letter; she has been very happy in England, and her time and strength fully employed. Her description of you and your discourse (which I read with lively curiosity also) was the best I have had on that subject.
I tried hard to write you by the December steamer, to tell you how forward was my book of Poems; but a little affair makes me much writing. I chanced to have three or four items of business to despatch, when the steamer was ready to go, and you escaped hearing of them. I am the trustee of Charles Lane, who came out here with Alcott and bought land, which, though sold, is not paid for.