I wrote you the other day the little I had to say on affairs.  Clark, the financial Conscience, has never yet made any report, though often he promised.  Half the year he lives out of Boston, and unless I go to his Bank I never see his face.  I think he will not die till he have disburdened himself of this piece of arithmetic.  I pray you to send me my copy of this book at the earliest hour, and to offer my glad congratulations to Jane Carlyle, on an occasion, I am sure, of great peace and relief to her spirit.  And so farewell.

—­R.W.  Emerson

CIV.  Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 11 November, 1846

My Dear Emerson,—­I have had two Letters from you since I wrote any; the latest of them was lying here for me when I returned, about three weeks ago; the other I had received in Scotland:  it was only the last that demanded a special answer;—­which, alas, I meant faithfully to give it, but did not succeed!  With meet despatch I made the Bookseller get ready for you a Copy of the unpublished Cromwell Book; hardly complete as yet, it was nevertheless put together, and even some kind of odious rudiments of a Portrait were bound up with it; and the Packet inscribed with your address was put into Wiley and Putnam’s hands in time for the Mail Steamer;—­and I hope has duly arrived?  If it have not, pray set the Booksellers a-hunting.  Wiley and Putnam was the Carrier’s name; this is all the indication I can give, but this, I hope, if indeed any prove needful, will be enough.  One may hope you have the Book already in your hands, a fortnight before this reaches you, a month before any other Copy can reach America.  In which case the Parcel, without any Letter, must have seemed a little enigmatic to you!  The reason was this:  I miscounted the day of the month, unlucky that I was.  Sitting down one morning with full purpose to write at large, and all my tools round me, I discover that it is no longer the third of November; that it is already the fourth, and the American Mail-Packet has already lifted anchor!  Irrevocable, irremediable!  Nothing remained but to wait for the 18th;—­and now, as you see, to take Time by the forelock,—­ queue, as we all know, he has none.

My visit to Scotland was wholesome for me, tho’ full of sadness, as the like always is.  Thirty years mow away a Generation of Men.  The old Hills, the old Brooks and Houses, are still there; but the Population has marched away, almost all; it is not there any more.  I cannot enter into light talk with the survivors and successors; I withdraw into silence, and converse with the old dumb crags rather, in a melancholy and abstruse manner.—­Thank God, my good old Mother is still there; old and frail, but still young of heart; as young and strong there, I think, as ever.  It is beautiful to see affection survive where all else is submitting to decay; the