The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II | Page 4

CXCI. Carlyle. Chelsea, 2 April, 1872. Excuses for silence.--
Ill-health.--Emerson's letter about the West.--Aspect and meaning of
that Western World.--Ruskin.--Froude.--Write.
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CORRESPONDENCE OF CARLYLE AND EMERSON

LXXVI. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 1 July, 1842
My Dear Carlyle,--I have lately received from our slow friends, James
Munroe & Co., $246 on account of their sales of the
_Miscellanies,_--and I enclose a bill of Exchange for L51, which cost
$246.50. It is a long time since I sent you any sketch of the account
itself, and indeed a long time since it was posted, as the booksellers say;
but I will find a time and a clerk also for this.
I have had no word from you for a long space. You wrote me a letter
from Scotland after the death of your wife's mother, and full of pity for
me also; and since, I have heard nothing. I confide that all has gone
well and prosperously with you; that the iron Puritan is emerging from
the Past, in shape and stature as he lived; and you are recruited by
sympathy and content with your picture; and that the sure repairs of
time and love and active duty have brought peace to the orphan
daughter's heart. My friend Alcott must also have visited you before
this, and you have seen whether any relation could subsist betwixt men
so differently excellent. His wife here has heard of his arrival on your
coast,--no more.
I submitted to what seemed a necessity of petty literary patriotism,--I
know not what else to call it,--and took charge of our thankless little
_Dial,_ here, without subscribers enough to pay even a publisher, much
less any laborer; it has no penny for editor or contributor, nothing but
abuse in the newspapers, or, at best, silence; but it serves as a sort of
portfolio, to carry about a few poems or sentences which would
otherwise be transcribed and circulated; and always we are waiting
when somebody shall come and make it good. But I took it, as I said,
and it took me, and a great deal of good time, to a small purpose. I am
ashamed to compute how many hours and days these chores consume

for me. I had it fully in my heart to write at large leisure in noble
mornings opened by prayer or by readings of Plato or whomsoever else
is dearest to the Morning Muse, a chapter on Poetry, for which all
readings, all studies, are but preparation; but now it is July, and my
chapter is rudest beginnings. Yet when I go out of doors in the summer
night, and see how high the stars are, I am persuaded that there is time
enough, here or somewhere, for all that I must do; and the good world
manifests very little impatience.
Stearns Wheeler, the Cambridge tutor, a good Grecian, and the editor,
you will remember, of your American Editions, is going to London in
August probably, and on to Heidelberg, &c. He means, I believe, to
spend two years in Germany, and will come to see you on his way; a
man whose too facile and good-natured manners do some injustice to
his virtues, to his great industry and real knowledge. He has been
corresponding with your Tennyson, and editing his Poems here. My
mother, my wife, my two little girls, are well; the youngest, Edith, is
the comfort of my days. Peace and love be with you, with you both,
and all that is yours.
--R. W. Emerson
In our present ignorance of Mr. Alcott's address I advised his wife to
write to your care, as he was also charged to keep you informed of his
place. You may therefore receive letters for him with this.

LXXVII. Carlyle to Emerson
Chelsea, London, 19 July, 1842
My Dear Emerson,--Lest Opportunity again escape me, I will take her,
this time, by the forelock, and write while the matter is still hot. You
have been too long without hearing of me; far longer, at least, than I
meant. Here is a second Letter from you, besides various intermediate
Notes by the hands of Friends, since that Templand Letter of mine: the
Letter arrived yesterday; my answer shall get under way today.
First under the head of business let it be authenticated that the Letter
enclosed a Draft for L51; a new, unexpected munificence out of
America; which is ever and anon dropping gifts upon me,-- to be
received, as indeed they partly are, like Manna dropped out of the sky;
the gift of unseen Divinities! The last money I got from you changed
itself in the usual soft manner from dollars into sovereigns, and was

what they call "all right,"--all except the little Bill (of Eight Pounds and
odds, I think) drawn on Fraser's Executors