has been the occasion of an outcry in all our leading local newspapers against my “infidelity,” “pantheism,” and “atheism.”  The writers warn all and sundry against me, and against whatever is supposed to be related to my connection of opinion, &c.; against Transcendentalism, Goethe, and Carlyle. I am heartily sorry to see this last aspect of the storm in our washbowl.  For, as Carlyle is nowise guilty, and has unpopularities of his own, I do not wish to embroil him in my parish differences.  You were getting to be a great favorite with us all here, and are daily a greater with the American public, but just now, in Boston, where I am known as your editor, I fear you lose by the association.  Now it is indispensable to your right influence here, that you should never come before our people as one of a clique, but as a detached, that is, universally associated man; so I am happy, as I could not have thought, that you have not yielded yourself to my entreaties.  Let us wait a little until this foolish clamor be overblown.  My position is fortunately such as to put me quite out of the reach of any real inconvenience from the panic-strikers or the panic-struck; and, indeed, so far as this uneasiness is a necessary result of mere inaction of mind, it seems very clear to me that, if I live, my neighbors must look for a great many more shocks, and perhaps harder to bear.

The article on German Religious Writers in the last Foreign Quarterly Review suits our meridian as well as yours; as is plainly signified by the circumstance that our newspapers copy into their columns the opening tirade and no more. Who wrote that paper?  And who wrote the paper on Montaigne in the Westminster? I read with great satisfaction the Poems and Thoughts of Archaeus in Blackwood. “The Sexton’s Daughter” is a beautiful poem:  and I recognize in them all the Soul, with joy and love.  Tell me of the author’s health and welfare; or, will not he love me so much as to write me a letter with his own hand?  And tell me of yourself, what task of love and wisdom the Muses impose; and what happiness the good God sends to you and yours.  I hope your wife has not forgotten me.

Yours affectionately,
                 R.W.  Emerson

The Miscellanies, Vols.  I. and II., are a popular book.  About five hundred copies have been sold.  The second article on Jean Paul works with might on the inner man of young men.  I hate to write you letters on business and facts like this.  There are so few Friends that I think some time I shall meet you nearer, for I love you more than is fit to say.  W.H.  Channing has written a critique on you, which I suppose he has sent you, in the Boston Review.

XXIX.  Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London 7 November, 1838