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

ss., 20 Nov

me visible as well as spiritual tokens of a fraternal friendliness which, by its own law, transcends the tedious barriers of custom and nation; and opens its way to the heart. This is a true consolation, and I thanked my jealous [Greek] for the godsend so significantly timed. It,

82. It, as well as three others which appeared in the same journal, i

brother, "brother of the brief but blazing

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ay. The rigid laws of matter prohibit that the soul imprisoned within the strait edges of these types should add one syllable thereto, or we had adjured t

pamphlet," with a title-page bearing the words: "Sartor Resartus: in Three

ger, but is compensated by living till it has all souls for its kingdom. Far, far better seems to me the unpopularity of this Philosophical Poem (shall I call it?) than the adulation that followed your eminent friend Goethe. With him I am becoming better acquainted, but mine must be a qualified admiration. It is a singular piece of good-nature in you to apotheosize him. I cannot but regard it as his misfortune, with conspicuous bad influence on his genius, that velvet life he led. What incongruity for genius, whose fit ornaments and reliefs are poverty and hatred, to repose fifty years on chairs of state and what pity that his Duke did not cut off his head to save him from the mean end (forgive) of retiring from the municipal incense "to arrange tastefully his gifts and medals"! Then the Puritan in me accepts no apology for bad morals in such as he. We can tolerate vice in a splendid nature whilst that nature is battling with the brute majority

rmly spells this name

ent corrupt condition of human nature (which condition this harlot muse helps to perpetuate) is a temporary or superficial state. The good word lasts forever: the i

gh the whole generation of Adam should be healed as a sore off the face of the creation. So, my friend, live Socrates and Milton, those starch Puritans, for evermore! Strange is it to me that you should not sympathize (yet so yo

rictly the symbol or exponent of the Spiritual, and part for part; the animals to be the incarnations of certain affections; and scarce a popular expression esteemed figurative, but they affirm to be the simplest statement of fact. Then is their whole theory of social relations-both in and out of the body-most philosophical, and, though at variance with the popular theology, self-evident. It is only

ty, I am determined to keep it, at the risk of uselessness (which risk God can very well abide), until such duties offer themselves as I can with integrity discharge. One thing I believe,-that Utterance is place enough: and should I attain through any inward revelation to a more clear perception of my assigned task, I shall embrace it with joy and praise. I shall not esteem it a low pl

e find competition. Indeed, indeed, you shall have the continent to yourself were it only as Crusoe was king. If you cared to read literary lectures, our people have vast curiosity, and the apparatus is very easy to set agoing. Such 'pulpit' as you pleased to erect would at least find no hindrance in the building. A friend of m

upon chapters of the Sartor. I must keep that, and the thoughts I had upon 'poet

ogy. And as you like Sampson Reed, here are one or two more of his papers. Do read them. And since you study French history do not fail to look at our Yankee portrait of Lafayette. Present my best remembrances to Mrs. Carlyle, whom that stern and blessed solitude has armed and sublimed

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