nt? Can they not leave caviling at petty failures, and
bad manners, and at the dunce part (always the largest part in
human affairs), and leap to the suggestions and finger-pointings
of the gods, which, above the understanding, feed the hopes and
guide the wills of men? This war has been conducted over the
heads of all the actors in it; and the foolish terrors, "What
shall we do with the negro?" "The entire black population is
coming North to be fed," &c., have strangely ended in the fact
that the black refuses to leave his climate; gets his living and
the living of his employers there, as he has always done; is the
natural ally and soldier of the Republic, in that climate; now
takes the place of two hundred thousand white soldiers; and will
be, as the conquest of the country proceeds, its garrison, till
peace, without slavery, returns. Slaveholders in London have
filled English ears with their wishes and perhaps beliefs; and
our people, generals, and politicians have carried the like, at
first, to the war, until corrected by irresistible experience. I
shall always respect War hereafter. The cost of life, the dreary
havoc of comfort and time, are overpaid by the vistas it opens of
Eternal Life, Eternal Law, reconstructing and uplifting Society,
--breaks up the old horizon, and we see through the rifts a wider.
The dismal Malthus, the dismal DeBow, have had their night.

Our Census of 1860, and the War, are poems, which will, in the
next age, inspire a genius like your own. I hate to write you a
newspaper, but, in these times, 't is wonderful what sublime
lessons I have once and again read on the Bulletin-boards in the
streets. Everybody has been wrong in his guess, except good
women, who never despair of an Ideal right.

I thank you for sending to me so gracious a gentleman as Mr.
Stanley, who interested us in every manner, by his elegance, his
accurate information of that we wished to know, and his
surprising acquaintance with the camp and military politics on
our frontier. I regretted that I could see him so little. He
has used his time to the best purpose, and I should gladly have
learned all his adventures from so competent a witness. Forgive
this long writing, and keep the old kindness which I prize above
words. My kindest salutations to the dear invalid!

--R.W. Emerson

CLXXII. Carlyle to Emerson

Cummertrees, Annan, Scotland, 14 June, 1865

Dear E