is, I am about going into Scotland, in two days, into deep solitude, for a couple of months beside the Solway sea:  I absolutely need to have the dust blown out of me, and my mad nerves rested (there is nothing else quite gone wrong):  this unblest Life of Frederick is now actually to get along into the Printer’s hand; —­a good Book being impossible upon it, there shall a bad one be done, and one’s poor existence rid of it:—­for which great object two months of voluntary torpor are considered the fair preliminary.  In another year’s time, (if the Fates allow me to live,) I expect to have got a great deal of rubbish swept into chaos again.  Unlucky it should ever have been dug up, much of it!—­

Your Mrs. —–­ should have had our best welcome, for the sake of him who sent her, had there been nothing more:  but the Lady never showed face at all; nor could I for a long time get any trace—­and then it was a most faint and distant one as if by double reflex—­of her whereabout:  too distant, too difficult for me, who do not make a call once in the six months lately.  I did mean to go in quest (never had an address); but had not yet rallied for the Enterprise, when Mrs. —–­ herself wrote that she had been unwell, that she was going directly for Paris, and would see us on her return.  So be it:—­pray only I may not be absent next!  I have not seen or distinctly heard of Miss Bacon for a year and half past:  I often ask myself, what has become of that poor Lady, and wish I knew of her being safe among her friends again.  I have even lost the address (which at any rate was probably not a lasting one); perhaps I could find it by the eye,—­but it is five miles away; and my non-plus-ultra for years past is not above half that distance.  Heigho!

My time is all up and more; and Chaos come again is lying round me, in the shape of “packing,” in a thousand shapes!—­Browning is coming tonight to take leave.  Do you know Browning at all?  He is abstruse, but worth knowing.—­And what of the Discourse on England by a certain man?  Shame!  We always hear of it again as “out”; and it continues obstinately in. Adieu, my friend.

Ever yours,
        T. Carlyle

CLX.  Carlyle to Emerson

The Gill, Cummertrees, Annan, N.B.
28 August, 1856

Dear Emerson,—­Your Letter alighted here yesterday;* like a winged Mercury, bringing “airs from Heaven” (in a sense) along with his news.  I understand very well your indisposition to write; we must conform to it, as to the law of Chronos (oldest of the gods); but I will murmur always, “It is such a pity as of almost no other man!”—­You are citizen of a “Republic,” and perhaps fancy yourself republican in an eminent degree:  nevertheless I have remarked there is no man of whom I am so certain always to get something kingly:—­and whenever your huge inarticulate America gets settled