to hear your praises; not
unmerited, for he is a man among millions that John of mine,
though his perpetual mobility wears me out at times. Did he ever
write to you? His latest speculation was that he should and
would; but I fancy it is among the clouds again. I hear from
him the other day, out of Welsh villages where he passed his
boyhood, &c., all in a flow of "lyrical recognition," hope,
faith, and sanguine unrest; I have even some thoughts of
returning by Bristol (in a week or so, that must be), and seeing
him. The dog has been reviewing me, he says, and it is coming
out in the next _Westminster!_ He hates terribly my doctrine of
_"Silence."_ As to America and lecturing, I cannot in this
torpid condition venture to say one word. Really it is not
impossible; and yet lecturing is a thing I shall never grow to
like; still less lionizing, Martineau-ing: _Ach Gott!_ My Wife
sends a thousand regards; _she_ will never get across the ocean,
you must come to her; she was almost _dead_ crossing from
Liverpool hither, and declares she will never go to sea for any
purpose whatsoever again. Never till next time! My good old
Mother is here, my Brother John (home with his Duke from Italy);
all send blessings and affection to you and yours. Adieu till I
get to London.

Yours ever,
T. Carlyle

XLVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 8 December, 1839

My Dear Emerson,--What a time since we have written to one
another! was it you that defalcated? Alas, I fear it was myself;
I have had a feeling these nine or ten weeks that you were
expecting to hear from me; that I absolutely could not write.
Your kind gift of Fuller's _Eckermann_* was handed in to our
Hackney coach, in Regent Street, as we wended homewards from the
railway and Scotland, on perhaps the 8th of September last; a
welcome memorial of distant friends and doings: nay, perhaps
there was a Letter two weeks prior to that:--I am a great sinner!
But the truth is, I could not write; and now I can and do it!

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* "Conversations with Goethe. Translated from the German of
Eckermann. By S.M. Fuller." Boston, 1839. This was the fourth
volume in the series of "Specimens of Foreign Standard
Literature," edited by George Ripley. The book has a
characteristic Preface by Miss Fuller, in which she speaks of
Carlyle as "the only competent English critic" of Goethe.
----------

Our sojourn in Scotland was stagnant, sad; but t