find that this sunny-looking, courtly Goethe held veiled in him a Prophetic sorrow deep as Dante’s,—­all the nobler to me and to you, that he could so hold it.  I believe this; no man can see as he sees, that has not suffered and striven as man seldom did.—­ Apropos of this, Have you got Miss Martineau’s Hour and Man? How curious it were to have the real History of the Negro Toussaint, and his black Sansculottism in Saint Domingo,—­the most atrocious form Sansculottism could or can assume!  This of a “black Wilberforce-Washington,” as Sterling calls it, is decidedly something.  Adieu, dear Emerson:  time presses, paper is done.  Commend me to your good wife, your good Mother, and love me as well as you can.  Peace and health under clear winter skies be with you all.

—­T.  Carlyle

My Wife rebukes me sharply that I have “forgot her love.”  She is much better this winter than of old.

Having mentioned Sterling I should say that he is at Torquay (Devonshire) for the winter, meditating new publication of Poems.  I work still in Cromwellism; all but desperate of any feasible issue worth naming.  I “enjoy bad health” too, considerably!

LX.  Carlyle to Mrs. Emerson

Chelsea, London, 21 February, 1841

Dear Mrs. Emerson,—­Your Husband’s Letter shall have answer when some moment of leisure is granted me; he will wait till then, and must.  But the beautiful utterance which you send over to me; melodious as the voice of flutes, of Aeolian Harps borne on the rude winds so far,—­this must have answer, some word or growl of answer, be there leisure or none!  The “Acadia,” it seems, is to return from Liverpool the day after tomorrow.  I shove my paper-whirlpools aside for a little, and grumble in pleased response.

You are an enthusiast; make Arabian Nights out of dull foggy London Days; with your beautiful female imagination, shape burnished copper Castles out of London Fog!  It is very beautiful of you;—­nay, it is not foolish either, it is wise.  I have a guess what of truth there may be in that; and you the fair Alchemist, are you not all the richer and better that you know the essential gold, and will not have it called pewter or spelter, though in the shops it is only such?  I honor such Alchemy, and love it; and have myself done something in that kind.  Long may the talent abide with you; long may I abide to have it exercised on me!  Except the Annandale Farm where my good Mother still lives, there is no House in all this world which I should be gladder to see than the one at Concord.  It seems to stand as only over the hill, in the next Parish to me, familiar from boyhood.  Alas! and wide-waste Atlantics roll between; and I cannot walk over of an evening!—­I never give up the hope of getting thither some time.  Were I a little richer, were I a little healthier; were I this and that—!—­One has no Fortunatus’ “Time-annihilating” or even “Space-annihilating Hat”:  it were a thing worth having in this world.