--T. Carlyle

CLXXVI. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 18 November, 1869

Dear Emerson,--It is near three years since I last wrote to you;
from Mentone, under the Ligurian Olive and Orange trees, and
their sombre foreign shadows, and still more sombre suggestings
and promptings; the saddest, probably, of all living men. That
you made no answer I know right well means only, "Alas, what can
I say to him of consolatory that he does not himself know!" Far
from a fault, or perhaps even a mistake on your part;--nor have I
felt it otherwise. Sure enough, among the lights that have gone
out for me, and are still going, one after one, under the
inexorable Decree, in this now dusky and lonely world, I count
with frequent regret that our Correspondence (not by absolute
hest of Fate) should have fallen extinct, or into such abeyance:
but I interpret it as you see; and my love and brotherhood to
you remain alive, and will while I myself do. Enough of this.
By lucky chance, as you perceive, you are again to get one
written Letter from me, and I a reply from you, before the final
Silence come. The case is this.

For many years back, a thought, which I used to check again as
fond and silly, has been occasionally present to me,--Of
testifying my gratitude to New England (New England, acting
mainly through one of her Sons called Waldo Emerson), _by
bequeathing to it my poor Falstaf Regiment, latterly two Falstaf
Regiments of Books,_ those I purchased and used in writing
_Cromwell,_ and ditto those on _Friedrich the Great._ "This
could be done," I often said to myself; "this _could_ perhaps;
and this would be a real satisfaction to me. But who then
would march through Coventry with such a set!" The extreme
insignificance of the Gift, this and nothing else, always gave
me pause.

Last Summer, I was lucky enough to meet with your friend C.E.
Norton, and renew many old Massachusetts recollections, in free
talk with [him]....; to him I spoke of the affair; candidly
describing it, especially the above questionable feature of it,
so far as I could; and his answer, then, and more deliberately
afterwards, was so hopeful, hearty, and decisive, that--in effect
it has decided me; and I am this day writing to him that such is
the poor fact, and that I need farther instructions on it so soon
as you two have taken counsel together.

To say more about the infinitesimally small value