the Dead Sea?* And I am very sickly too, and my Wife is ill all this cold weather,—­and I am sunk in the bowels of Chaos, and scarce once in the three months or so see so much as a possibility of ever getting out!  Cromwell’s own Letters and Speeches I have gathered together, and washed clean from a thousand ordures:  these I do sometimes think of bringing out in a legible shape;—­ perhaps soon.  Adieu, dear friend, with blessings always.

—­T.  Carlyle

Poor Sydney Smith is understood to be dying; water on the chest; past hope of Doctors.  Alas!

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* The dwellers by the Dead Sea who were changed to apes are
referred to in various places by Carlyle.   He tells the story of
the metamorphosis, which he got from the introduction to Sale’s
Koran, in Past and Present, Book III.  Ch. 3.
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C. Emerson to Carlyle*

Concord, June 29, 1845

My Dear Friend,—­I grieve to think of my slackness in writing, which suffers steamer after steamer to go without a letter.  But I have still hoped, before each of the late packets sailed, that I should have a message to send that would enforce a letter.  I wrote you some time ago of Mr. Carey’s liberal proposition in relation to your Miscellanies. I wrote, of course, to Furness, through whom it was made to me, accepting the proposition; and I forwarded to Mr. Carey a letter from me to be printed at the beginning of the book, signifying your good-will to the edition, and acknowledging the justice and liberality of the publishers.  I have heard no more from them, and now, a fortnight since, the newspaper announces the death of Mr. Carey.  He died very suddenly, though always an invalid and extremely crippled.  His death is very much regretted in the Philadelphia papers, where he bore the reputation of a most liberal patron of good and fine arts.  I have not heard from Mr. Furness, and have thought I should still expect a letter from him.  I hope our correspondence will stand as a contract which Mr. Carey’s representatives will feel bound to execute.  They had sent me a little earlier a copy of Mr. Sartain’s engraving from their water-color copy of Laurence’s head of you.  They were eager to have the engraving pronounced a good likeness.  I showed it to Sumner, and Russell, and Theodore Parker, who have seen you long since I had, and they shook their heads unanimously and declared that D’Orsay’s profile was much more like.

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** From the rough draft.
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I creep along the roads and fields of this town as I have done from year to year.  When my garden is shamefully overgrown with weeds, I pull up some of them.  I prune my apples and pears.  I have a few friends who gild many hours of the year.  I sometimes write verses.  I tell you with some unwillingness, as knowing your distaste for such things, that I have received so many applications from readers