—­R.W.  Emerson

CLXXII.  Carlyle to Emerson

Cummertrees, Annan, Scotland, 14 June, 1865

Dear Emerson,—­Though my hand is shaking (as you sadly notice) I determine to write you a little Note today.  What a severance there has been these many sad years past!—­In the first days of February I ended my weary Book; a totally worn-out man, got to shore again after far the ugliest sea he had ever swam in.  In April or the end of March, when the book was published, I duly handed out a Copy for Concord and you; it was to be sent by mail; but, as my Publisher (a new Chapman, very unlike the old) discloses to me lately an incredible negligence on such points, it is quite possible the dog may not, for a long while, have put it in the Post-Office (though he faithfully charged me the postage of it, and was paid), and that the poor waif may never yet have reached you!  Patience:  it will come soon enough,—­there are two thick volumes, and they will stand you a great deal of reading; stiff rather than “light.”

Since February last, I have been sauntering about in Devonshire, in Chelsea, hither, thither; idle as a dry bone, in fact, a creature sinking into deeper and deeper collapse, after twelve years of such mulish pulling and pushing; creature now good for nothing seemingly, and much indifferent to being so in permanence, if that be the arrangement come upon by the Powers that made us.  Some three or four weeks ago, I came rolling down hither, into this old nook of my Birthland, to see poor old Annandale again with eyes, and the poor remnants of kindred and loved ones still left me there; I was not at first very lucky (lost sleep, &c.); but am now doing better, pretty much got adjusted to my new element, new to me since about six years past,—­the longest absence I ever had from it before.  My Work was getting desperate at that time; and I silently said to myself, “We won’t return till it is done, or you are done, my man!”

This is my eldest living sister’s house; one of the most rustic Farmhouses in the world, but abounding in all that is needful to me, especially in the truest, silently-active affection, the humble generosity of which is itself medicine and balm.  The place is airy, on dry waving knolls cheerfully (with such water as I never drank elsewhere, except at Malvern) all round me are the Mountains, Cheviot and Galloway (three to fifteen miles off), Cumberland and Yorkshire (say forty and fifty, with the Solway brine and sands intervening).  I live in total solitude, sauntering moodily in thin checkered woods, galloping about, once daily, by old lanes and roads, oftenest latterly on the wide expanses of Solway shore (when the tide is out!) where I see bright busy Cottages far off, houses over even in Cumberland, and the beautifulest amphitheatre of eternal Hills,—­but