ow
Time might have brought in his hands a most modest reward.

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unpublished _Cromwell_ Book; hardly complete as yet, it was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 Hill