The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II | Page 7

to a Planet, and
the indigo firmament sowing itself with daylight stars; easy for _you,_
for me: but whither does it lead? I dread always, To inanity and mere
injuring of the lungs!--"Stamp, Stamp, Stamp!"-- Well, I do believe, for
one thing, a man has no right to say to his own generation, turning quite
away from it, "Be damned!" It is the whole Past and the whole Future,
this same cotton-spinning, dollar-hunting, canting and shrieking, very
wretched generation of ours. Come back into it, I tell you;--and so for
the present will "stamp" no more....
Adieu, my friend; I must not add a word more. My Wife is out on a

visit; it is to bring her back that I am now setting forth for Suffolk. I
hope to see Ely too, and St. Ives, and Huntingdon, and various
_Cromwelliana._ My blessings on the Concord Household now and
always. Commend me expressly to your Wife and your Mother.
Farewell, dear friend.
--T. Carlyle

LXXIX. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 15 October, 1842
My Dear Carlyle,--I am in your debt for at least two letters since I sent
you any word. I should be well content to receive one of these stringent
epistles of bark and steel and mellow wine with every day's post, but as
there is no hope that more will be sent without my writing to signify
that these have come, I hereby certify that I love you well and prize all
your messages. I read with special interest what you say of these
English studies, and I doubt not the Book is in steady progress again.
We shall see what change the changed position of the author will make
in the book. The first History expected its public; the second is written
to an expecting people. The tone of the first was proud,--to defiance;
we will see if applauses have mitigated the master's temper. This time
he has a hero, and we shall have a sort of standard to try, by the hero
who fights, the hero who writes. Well; may grand and friendly spirits
assist the work in all hours; may impulses and presences from that
profound world which makes and embraces the whole of humanity,
keep your feet on the Mount of Vision which commands the Centuries,
and the book shall be an indispensable Benefit to men, which is the
surest fame. Let me know all that can be told of your progress in it.
You shall see in the last Dial a certain shadow or mask of yours,
"another Richmond," who has read your lectures and profited thereby.*
Alcott sent me the paper from London, but I do not know the name of
the writer.
As for Alcott, you have discharged your conscience of him manfully
and knightly; I absolve you well... He is a great man and was made for
what is greatest, but I now fear that he has already touched what best he
can, and through his more than a prophet's egotism, and the absence of
all useful reconciling talents, will bring nothing to pass, and be but a
voice in the wilderness. As you do not seem to have seen in him his

pure and noble intellect, I fear that it lies under some new and denser
clouds.
-------- * An article on Cromwell, in the Dial for October, 1842. --------
For the Dial and its sins, I have no defence to set up. We write as we
can, and we know very little about it. If the direction of these
speculations is to be deplored, it is yet a fact for literary history, that all
the bright boys and girls in New England, quite ignorant of each other,
take the world so, and come and make confession to fathers and
mothers,--the boys that they do not wish to go into trade, the girls that
they do not like morning calls and evening parties. They are all
religious, but hate the churches; they reject all the ways of living of
other men, but have none to offer in their stead. Perhaps, one of these
days, a great Yankee shall come, who will easily do the unknown deed.
The booksellers have sent me accounts lately, but--I know not why--no
money. Little and Brown from January to July had sold very few books.
I inquired of them concerning the bill of exchange on Fraser's Estate,
which you mention, and they said it had not been returned to them, but
only some information, as I think, demanded by Fraser's administrator,
which they had sent, and, as they heard nothing again, they suppose
that it is allowed and paid to you. Inform me on this matter.
Munroe & Co. allow some credits, but charge more debits for binding,
&c., and also allege few sales in