Very glad shall I be, my Friend, to have some new utterances from you either in verse or in prose! What you say about the vast imperfection of all modes of utterance is most true indeed. Let a man speak and sing, and do, and sputter and gesticulate as he may,—the meaning of him is most ineffectually shown forth, poor fellow; rather indicated as if by straggling symbols, than spoken or visually expressed! Poor fellow! So the great rule is, That he have a good manful meaning, and then that he take what “mode of utterance” is honestly the readiest for him.— I wish you would take an American Hero, one whom you really love; and give us a History of him,—make an artistic bronze statue (in good words) of his Life and him! I do indeed.—But speak of what you will, you are welcome to me. Once more I say, No other voice in this wide waste world seems to my sad ear to be speaking at all at present. The more is the pity for us.
I forbid you to plague yourself any farther with those Philadelphia or other Booksellers. If you could hinder them to promulgate any copy of that frightful picture by Lawrence, or indeed any picture at all, I had rather stand as a shadow than as a falsity in the minds of my American friends: but this too we are prepared to encounter. And as for the money of these men,— if they will pay it, good and welcome; if they will not pay it, let them keep it with what blessing there may be in it! I have your noble offices in that and in other such matters already unforgetably sure to me; and, in real fact, that is almost exactly the whole of valuable that could exist for me in the affair. Adieu, dear Friend. Write to me again; I will write again at more leisure.
Yours always,
T.
Carlyle
CII. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 15 September, 1845