about Goethe since I saw you, for nothing reigns here but twilight delusion (falser for the time than midnight darkness) on that subject, and I feel that the most suffer nothing thereby, having properly nothing or little to do with such a matter but with you, who are not “seeking recipes for happiness,” but something far higher, it is not so, and therefore I have spoken and appealed; and hope the new curiosity, if I have awakened any, will do you no mischief.

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* Obviously Carlyle’s Specimens of German Romance, of which the
fourth volume was devoted to Goethe.
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But now as to myself; for you will grumble at a sheet of speculation sent so far:  I am here still, as Rob Roy was on Glasgow Bridge, biding tryste; busy extremely, with work that will not profit me at all in some senses; suffering rather in health and nerves; and still with nothing like dawn on any quarter of my horizon. The Diamond Necklace has not been printed, but will be, were this French Revolution out; which latter, however, drags itself along in a way that would fill your benevolent heart with pity.  I am for three small volumes now, and have one done.  It is the dreadfulest labor (with these nerves, this liver) I ever undertook; all is so inaccurate, superficial, vague, in the numberless books I consult; and without accuracy at least, what other good is possible?  Add to this that I have no hope about the thing, except only that I shall be done with it: I can reasonably expect nothing from any considerable class here, but at best to be scolded and reproached; perhaps to be left standing “on my own basis,” without note or comment of any kind, save from the Bookseller, who will lose his printing.  The hope I have however is sure:  if life is lent me, I shall be done with the business; I will write this “History of Sansculottism,” the notablest phenomenon I meet with since the time of the Crusades or earlier; after which my part is played.  As for the future, I heed it little when so busy; but it often seems to me as if one thing were becoming indisputable:  that I must seek another craft than literature for these years that may remain to me.  Surely, I often say, if ever man had a finger-of-Providence shown him, thou hast it; literature will neither yield thee bread, nor a stomach to digest bread with:  quit it in God’s name, shouldst thou take spade and mattock instead.  The truth is, I believe literature to be as good as dead and gone in all parts of Europe at this moment, and nothing but hungry Revolt and Radicalism appointed us for perhaps three generations; I do not see how a man can honestly live by writing in another dialect than that, in England at least; so that if you determine on not living dishonestly, it will behove you to look several things full in the face, and ascertain what is what with some distinctness.  I suffer also terribly from the solitary existence I have all along