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.
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