Adieu, dear Emerson, forgive, and love me a little.

Yours ever,
      T. Carlyle

CXLIII.  Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 14 November, 1850

Dear Emerson,—­You are often enough present to my thoughts; but yesterday there came a little incident which has brought you rather vividly upon the scene for me.  A certain “Mr. —–­” from Boston sends us, yesterday morning by post, a Note of yours addressed to Mazzini, whom he cannot find; and indicates that he retains a similar one addressed to myself, and (in the most courteous, kindly, and dignified manner, if Mercy prevent not) is about carrying it off with him again to America!  To give Mercy a chance, I by the first opportunity get under way for Morley’s Hotel, the address of Mr. —–­; find there that Mr.—­, since morning, has been on the road towards Liverpool and America, and that the function of Mercy is quite extinct in this instance!  My reflections as I wandered home again were none of the pleasantest.  Of this Mr. —–­ I had heard some tradition, as of an intelligent, accomplished, and superior man; such a man’s acquaintance, of whatever complexion he be, is and was always a precious thing to me, well worth acquiring where possible; not to say that any friend of yours, whatever his qualities otherwise, carries with him an imperative key to all bolts and locks of mine, real or imaginary.  In fact I felt punished;—­and who knows, if the case were seen into, whether I deserve it?  What “business” it was that deprived me of a call from Mr. —–­, or of the possibility of calling on him, I know very well,—­and —–­, the little dog, and others know!  But the fact in that matter is very far different indeed from the superficial semblance; and I appeal to all the gentlemen that are in America for a candid interpretation of the same.  “Eighteen million bores,”—­good Heavens don’t I know how many of that species we also have; and how with us, as with you, the difference between them and the Eighteen thousand noble-men and non-bores is immeasurable and inconceivable; and how, with us as with you, the latter small company, sons of the Empyrean, will have to fling the former huge one, sons of Mammon and Mud, into some kind of chains again, reduce them to some kind of silence again,—­unless the old Mud-Demons are to rise and devour us all?  Truly it is so I construe it:  and if —–­ and the Eighteen millions are well justified in their anger at me, and the Eighteen thousand owe me thanks and new love.  That is my decided opinion, in spite of you all!  And so, along with —–­, probably in the same ship with him, there shall go my protest against the conduct of —–­; and the declaration that to the last I will protest!  Which will wind up the matter (without any word of yours on it) at this time.—­For the rest, though —–­ sent me his Pamphlet, it is a fact I have not read a word of it, nor shall ever read.  My Wife read it; but I was away, with far other things in my head; and it was “lent to various persons” till it died!—­Enough and ten times more than enough of all that.  Let me on this last slip of paper give you some response to the Letter* I got in Scotland, under the silence of the bright autumn sun, in my Mother’s house, and read there.