The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 306 pages of information about The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II..

The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 306 pages of information about The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II..

I was lately inquired of again by an agent of a huge Boston society of young men, whether Mr. Carlyle would not come to America and read Lectures, on some terms which they could propose.  I advised them to make him an offer, and a better one than they had in view.  Joy and Peace to you in your new freedom.

—­R.W.E.

CXIV.  Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 17 July, 1846

Dear Emerson,—­Since I wrote last to you, I think, with the Wiley-and-Putnam Covenant enclosed,—­the Photograph, after some days of loitering at the Liverpool Custom-house, came safe to hand.  Many thanks to you for this punctuality:  this poor Shadow, it is all you could do at present in that matter!  But it must not rest there, no.  This Image is altogether unsatisfactory, illusive, and even in some measure tragical to me!  First of all, it is a bad Photograph; no eyes discernible, at least one of the eyes not, except in rare favorable lights then, alas, Time itself and Oblivion must have been busy.  I could not at first, nor can I yet with perfect decisiveness, bring out any feature completely recalling to me the old Emerson, that lighted on us from the Blue, at Craigenputtock, long ago,—­eheu! Here is a genial, smiling, energetic face, full of sunny strength, intelligence, integrity, good humor; but it lies imprisoned in baleful shades, as of the valley of Death; seems smiling on me as if in mockery.  “Dost know me, friend?  I am dead, thou seest, and distant, and forever hidden from thee;—­I belong already to the Eternities, and thou recognizest me not!” On the whole, it is the strangest feeling I have:—­and practically the thing will be, that you get us by the earliest opportunity some living pictorial sketch, chalk-drawing or the like, from a trustworthy hand; and send it hither to represent you.  Out of the two I shall compile for myself a likeness by degrees:  but as for this present, we cannot put up with it at all; to my Wife and me, and to sundry other parties far and near that have interest in it, there is no satisfaction in this.  So there will be nothing for you but compliance, by the first fair chance you have:  furthermore, I bargain that the Lady Emerson have, within reasonable limits, a royal veto in the business (not absolute, if that threaten extinction to the enterprise, but absolute within the limits of possibility); and that she take our case in hand, and graciously consider what can and shall be done.  That will answer, I think.

Of late weeks I have been either idle, or sunk in the sorrowfulest cobbling of old shoes again; sorrowfully reading over old Books for the Putnams and Chapmans, namely.  It is really painful, looking in one’s own old face; said “old face” no longer a thing extant now!—­Happily I have at last finished it; the whole Lumber-troop with clothes duly brushed (French Revolution has even got

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The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.