to swim painfully for our life. The utmost a man can do is
to swim there like a man, and hold his peace. For this seems to me
a great truth, in any exile or chaos whatsoever, that sorrow was not
given us for sorrow's sake, but always and infallibly as a lesson to
us from which we are to learn somewhat: and which, the somewhat
once _learned_, ceases to be sorrow. I do believe this; and study
in general to 'consume my own smoke,' not indeed without very ugly
out-puffs at times! Allan Cunningham is the best, he tells me that
always as one grows older, one grows happier: a thing also which I
really can believe. But as for you, my dear sir, you have other work
to do in the East than grieve. Are there not beautiful things there,
glorious things; wanting only an eye to note them, a hand to record
them? If I had the command over you, I would say, read _Paul et
Virginie_, then read the _Chaumiere Indienne_; gird yourself together
for a right effort, and go and do likewise or better! I mean what I
say. The East has its own phases, there are things there which the
West yet knows not of; and one heaven covers both. He that has an eye
let him look!

[Footnote A: There seems to be some omission or slip of the pen here.]

"I hope you forgive me this style I have got into. It seems to me on
reading your book as if we had been long acquainted in some measure;
as if one might speak to you right from the heart. I hope we shall
meet some day or other. I send you my constant respect and good
wishes; and am and remain,

"Yours very truly always,

"T. CARLYLE."

Carlyle first appeared as a lecturer in 1837. His first course was on
'German Literature,' at Willis's Rooms; a series of six lectures, of
which the first was thus noticed in the _Spectator_ of Saturday, May
6, 1837.[A]

[Footnote A: Facsimiled in "The Autographic Mirror," July, 1865.]

"_Mr. Thomas Carlyle's Lectures_.

"Mr. Carlyle delivered the first of a course of lectures on German
Literature, at Willis's Rooms, on Tuesday, to a very crowded and yet
a select audience of both sexes. Mr. Carlyle may be deficient in the
mere mechanism of oratory; but this minor defect is far more than
counterbalanced by his perfect mastery of his subject, the originality
of his manner, the perspicuity of his language, his simple but genuine
eloquence, and his vigorous grasp of a large and difficult question.
No person of taste or judgment could hear him without feeling that the
lectu