The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I | Page 8

has been fast becoming a job, like great charities. A most unfit person in the
Presidency has been doing the worst things; and the worse he grew, the more popular.
Now things seem to mend. Webster, a good man and as strong as if he were a sinner,
begins to find himself the centre of a great and enlarging party and his eloquence
incarnated and enacted by them; yet men dare not hope that the majority shall be
suddenly unseated. I send herewith a volume of Webster's that you may see his speech on
Foot's Resolutions, a speech which the Americans have never done praising. I have great
doubts whether the book reaches you, as I know not my agents. I shall put with it the little
book of my Swedenborgian druggist,* of whom I told you. And if, which is hardly to be
hoped, any good book should be thrown out of our vortex of trade and politics, I shall not
fail to give it the same direction.
-------------- * _Observations on the Growth of the Mind,_ by Sampson Reed, first
published in 1825. A fifth edition of this thoughtful little treatise was published in 1865.
Mr. Reed was a graduate of Harvard College in 1818; he died in 1880, at the age of
eighty. ---------------
I need not tell you, my dear sir, what pleasure a letter from you would give me when you
have a few moments to spare to so remote a friend. If any word in my letter should
provoke you to a reply, I shall rejoice in my sauciness. I am spending the summer in the
country, but my address is Boston, care of Barnard, Adams, & Co. Care of O. Rich,
London. Please do make my affectionate respects to Mrs. Carlyle, whose kindness I shall
always gratefully remember. I depend upon her intercession to insure your writing to me.
May God grant you both his best blessing.
Your friend, R. Waldo Emerson

II. Carlyle to Emerson
5 Great Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London 12 August, 1834
My Dear Sir,--Some two weeks ago I received your kind gift from Fraser. To say that it
was welcome would be saying little: is it not as a voice of affectionate remembrance,
coming from beyond the Ocean waters, first decisively announcing for me that a whole
New Continent _exists,_--that I too have part and lot there! "Not till we can think that
here and there one is thinking of us, one is loving us, does this waste Earth become a
peopled Garden." Among the figures I can recollect as visiting our Nithsdale
hermitage,--all like Apparitions now, bringing with them airs from Heaven or else blasts
from the other region,--there is perhaps not one of a more undoubtedly supernal character
than yourself: so pure and still, with intents so charitable; and then vanishing too so soon
into the azure Inane, as an Apparition should! Never has your Address in my Notebook
met my eye but with a friendly influence. Judge if I am glad to know that there, in Infinite
Space, you still hold by me.
I have read in both your books at leisure times, and now nearly finished the smaller one.

He is a faithful thinker, that Swedenborgian Druggist of yours, with really deep ideas,
who makes me too pause and think, were it only to consider what manner of man he must
be, and what manner of thing, after all, Swedenborgianism must be. "Through the
smallest window look well, and you can look out into the Infinite." Webster also I can
recognize a sufficient, effectual man, whom one must wish well to, and prophesy well of.
The sound of him is nowise poetic-rhythmic; it is clear, one-toned, you might say
metallic, yet distinct, significant, not without melody. In his face, above all, I discern that
"indignation" which, if it do not make "verses," makes useful way in the world. The
higher such a man rises, the better pleased I shall be. And so here, looking over the water,
let me repeat once more what I believe is already dimly the sentiment of all Englishmen,
Cisoceanic and Transoceanic, that we and you are not two countries, and cannot for the
life of us be; but only two parishes of one country, with such wholesome parish
hospitalities, and dirty temporary parish feuds, as we see; both of which brave parishes
_Vivant! vivant!_ And among the glories of both be Yankee-doodle-doo, and the Felling
of the Western Forest, proudly remembered; and for the rest, by way of parish constable,
let each cheerfully take such George Washington or George Guelph as it can get, and
bless Heaven! I am weary of hearing it said, "We love the Americans," "We wish well,"
&c., &c. What in God's name should we do