The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 316 pages of information about The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I.

The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 316 pages of information about The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I.

I hope you liked John Dwight’s translations of Goethe, and his notes.  He is a good, susceptible, yearning soul, not so apt to create as to receive with the freest allowance, but I like his books very much.

Do think to say in a letter whether you received from me a copy of our edition of your French Revolution. I ordered a copy sent to you,—­probably wrote your name in it,—­but it does not appear in the bookseller’s account.  Farewell.

—­R.W.  Emerson

XXXVI.  Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 13 April, 1839

My Dear Emerson,—­Has anything gone wrong with you?  How is it that you do not write to me?  These three or four weeks, I know not whether duly or not so long, I have been in daily hope of some sign from you; but none comes; not even a Newspaper,—­open at the ends.  The German Translator, Mr. Dwight, mentioned, at the end of a Letter I had not long ago, that you had given a brilliant course of Lectures at Boston, but had been obliged to intermit it on account of illness. Bad news indeed, that latter clause; at the same time, it was thrown in so cursorily I would not let myself be much alarmed; and since that, various New England friends have assured me here that there was nothing of great moment in it, that the business was all well over now, and you safe at Concord again.  Yet how is it that I do not hear?  I will tell you my guess is that those Boston Carlylean Miscellanies are to blame.  The Printer is slack and lazy as Printers are; and you do not wish to write till you can send some news of him?  I will hope and believe that only this is it, till I hear worse.

I sent you a Dumfries Newspaper the other week, for a sign of my existence and anxiety.  A certain Mr. Ellis of Boston is this day packing up a very small memorial of me to your Wife; a poor Print rolled about a bit of wood:  let her receive it graciously in defect of better.  It comes under your address.  Nay, properly it is my Wife’s memorial to your Wife.  It is to be hung up in the Concord drawing-room.  The two Households, divided by wide seas, are to understand always that they are united nevertheless.

My special cause for writing this day rather than another is the old story, book business.  You have brought that upon yourself, my friend; and must do the best you can with it.  After all, why should not Letters be on business too?  Many a kind thought, uniting man with man, in gratitude and helpfulness, is founded on business.  The speaker at Dartmouth College seems to think it ought to be so.  Nor do I dissent.—­But the case is this, Fraser and I are just about bargaining for a second edition of the Revolution. He will print fifteen hundred for the English market, in a somewhat closer style, and sell them here at twenty-four shillings a copy.  His first edition is all gone

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The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.