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

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 306 pages of information about The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II..

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

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 306 pages of information about The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II..
I was at New York, lately, for a few days, and fell into some traces of Thackeray, who has made a good mark in this country by a certain manly blurting out of his opinion in various companies, where so much honesty was rare and useful.  I am sorry never once to have been in the same town with him whilst he was here.  I hope to see him, if he comes again.  New York would interest you, as I am told it did him; you both less and more.  The “society” there is at least self-pleased, and its own; it has a contempt of Boston, and a very modest opinion of London.  There is already all the play and fury that belong to great wealth.  A new fortune drops into the city every day; no end is to palaces, none to diamonds, none to dinners and suppers.  All Spanish America discovers that only in the U. States, of all the continent, is safe investment; and money gravitates therefore to New York.  The Southern naphtha, too, comes in as an ingredient, and lubricates manners and tastes to that degree, that Boston is hated for stiffness, and excellence in luxury is rapidly attained.  Of course, dining, dancing, equipaging, etc. are the exclusive beatitudes,—­and Thackeray will not cure us of this distemper.  Have you a physician that can?  Are you a physician, and will you come?  If you will come, cities will go out to meet you.

And now I see I have so much to say to you that I ought to write once a month, and I must begin at this point again incontinently.

Ever yours, R.W.  Emerson

CLIII.  Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 9 September, 1853

Dear Emerson,—­Your Letter came ten days ago; very kind, and however late, surely right welcome!  You ought to stir yourself up a little, and actually begin to speak to me again.  If we are getting old, that is no reason why we should fall silent, and entirely abstruse to one another.  Alas, I do not find as I grow older that the number of articulate-speaking human souls increases around me, in proportion to the inarticulate and palavering species!  I am often abundantly solitary in heart; and regret the old days when we used to speak oftener together.

I have not quitted Town this year at all; have resisted calls to Scotland both of a gay and a sad description (for the Ashburtons are gone to John of Groat’s House, or the Scottish Thule, to rusticate and hunt; and, alas, in poor old Annandale a tragedy seems preparing for me, and the thing I have dreaded all my days is perhaps now drawing nigh, ah me!)—­I felt so utterly broken and disgusted with the jangle of last year’s locomotion, I judged it would be better to sit obstinately still, and let my thoughts settle (into sediment and into clearness, as it might be); and so, in spite of great and peculiar noises moreover, here I am and remain.  London is not a bad place at all in these months,—­with its long clean streets, green parks, and nobody in

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