I must love you for your interest in me and my way of life, and the more that we only look for good-nature in the creative class.  They pay the tag of grandeur, and, attracted irresistibly to make, their living is usually weak and hapless.  But you are so companionable—­God has made you Man as well as Poet—­that I lament the three thousand miles of mountainous water.  Burns might have added a better verse to his poem, importing that one might write Iliads or Hamlets, and yet come short of Truth by infinity, as every written word must; but “the man’s the gowd for a’ that.”  And I heartily thank the Lady for her good-will.  Please God she may be already well.  We all grieve to know of her ill health.  People who have seen her never stop with Mr. Carlyle, but count him thrice blest in her.  My wife believes in nothing for her but the American voyage.  I shall never cease to expect you both until you come.

My boy is five months old, he is called Waldo,—­a lovely wonder that made the Universe look friendlier to me.

My Wife, one of your best lovers, sends her affectionate regards to Mrs. Carlyle, and says that she takes exception in your letters only to that sentence that she would go to Scotland if you came here.  My Wife beseeches her to come and possess her new-dressed chamber.  Do not cease to write whenever you can spare me an hour.  A man named Bronson Alcott is great, and one of the jewels we have to show you.  Good bye.

—­R.W.  Emerson

The second edition of Sartor is out and sells well.  I learned the other day that twenty-five copies of it were ordered for England.  It was very amiable of you, that word about it in Mirabeau.*

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* This refers to Carlyle’s introducing, in his paper on
Mirabeau, a citation from Sartor, with the words, “We quote
from a New England Book.”
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XVI.  Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London, 1 June, 1857

My Dear Friend,—­A word must go to Concord in answer to your last kind word.  It reached me, that word of yours, on the morning of a most unspeakable day; the day when I, half dead with fret, agitation, and exasperation, was to address extempore an audience of London quality people on the subject of German Literature!  The heart’s wish of me was that I might be left in deepest oblivion, wrapped in blankets and silence, not speaking, not spoken to, for a twelvemonth to come.  My Printers had only let me go, out of their Treadmill, the day before.  However, all that is over now; and I am still here alive to write to you, and hope for better days.