CLXV.  Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 16 April, 1860

My Dear Carlyle,—­Can booksellers break the seal which the gods do not, and put me in communication again with the loyalest of men?  On the ground of Mr. Wight’s honest proposal to give you a benefit from his edition,* I, though unwilling, allowed him to copy the Daguerre of your head.  The publishers ask also some expression of your good will to their work....

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* Mr. O.W.  Wight of New York, an upright “able editor,” who, had
just made arrangements for the publication of a very satisfactory
edition of Carlyle’s Miscellaneous Essays.
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I commend you to the gods who love and uphold you, and who do not like to make their great gifts vain, but teach us that the best life-insurance is a great task.  I hold you to be one of those to whom all is permitted, and who carry the laws in their hand.  Continue to be good to your old friends.  ’T is no matter whether they write to you or not.  If not, they save your time.  When Friedrich is once despatched to gods and men, there was once some talk that you should come to America!  You shall have an ovation such, and on such sincerity, as none have had.

Ever affectionately yours,
                              R.W.  Emerson

I do not know Mr. Wight, but he sends his open letter, which I fear is already old, for me to write in:  and I will not keep it, lest it lose another steamer.

CLXVI.  Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 30 April, 1860

Dear Emerson,—­It is a special favor of Heaven to me that I hear of you again by this accident; and am made to answer a word de Profundis. It is constantly among the fairest of the few hopes that remain for me on the other side of this Stygian Abyss of a Friedrich (should I ever get through it alive) that I shall then begin writing to you again, who knows if not see you in the body before quite taking wing!  For I feel always, what I have some times written, that there is (in a sense) but one completely human voice to me in the world; and that you are it, and have been,—­thanks to you, whether you speak or not!  Let me say also, while I am at it, that the few words you sent me about those first Two volumes are present with me in the far more frightful darknesses of these last Two; and indeed are often almost my one encouragement.  That is a fact, and not exaggerated, though you think it is.  I read some criticisms of my wretched Book, and hundreds of others I in the gross refused to read; they were in praise, they were in blame; but not one of them looked into the eyes of the object, and in genuine human fashion responded to its human strivings, and recognized it,—­completely right, though with generous exaggeration!  That was well done, I can tell you:  a human voice, far out in the waste deeps, among the inarticulate sea-krakens and obscene monsters, loud-roaring, inexpressibly ugly, dooming you as if to eternal solitude by way of wages,—­ “hath exceeding much refreshment in it,” as my friend Oliver used to say.