f Books; Eichhorn,
Grimm, &c.; very considerable rubbish; one grain in the cart
load worth pocketing. It is pity I have no appetite for
lecturing! Many applications have been made to me here;--none
more touching to me than one, the day before yesterday, by a
fine, innocent-looking Scotch lad, in the name of himself and
certain other Booksellers' shopmen eastward in the City! I
cannot get them out of my head. Poor fellows! they have nobody
to say an honest word to them, in this articulate-speaking world,
and they apply to _me._--For you, good friend, I account you
luckier; I do verily: lecture there what innumerable things you
have got to say on "The Present Age";--yet withal do not forget
to _write_ either, for that is the lasting plan after all. I
have a curious Note, sent me for inspection the other day; it is
addressed to a Scotch Mr. Erskine (famed among the saints here)
by a Madame Necker, Madame de Stael's kinswoman, to whom he, the
said Mr. Erskine, had lent your first Pamphlet at Geneva. She
regards you with a certain love, yet a _shuddering_ love. She
says, "Cela sent l'Americain qui apres avoir abattu les forets a
coup de hache, croit qu'on doit de meme conquerir le monde
intellectuel"! What R.M. Milnes will say of you we hope also to
see.--I know both Heraud and Landor; but alas, what room is
here! Another sheet with less of "Arithmetic" in it will soon be
allowed me. Adieu, dear friend.

Yours, ever and ever,
T. Carlyle

LI. Emerson to Carlyle*

New York, 18 March, 1840

My Dear Friend,--I have just seen the steamer "British Queen"
enter the harbor from sea, and here lies the "Great Western," to
sail tomorrow. I will not resist hints so broad upon my long
procrastinations. You shall have at least a tardy acknowledgment
that I received in January your letter of December, which I
should have answered at once had it not found me absorbed in
writing foolish lectures which were then in high tide. I had
written you, a little earlier, tidings of the receipt of your
_French Revolution._ Your letter was very welcome, as all
your letters are. I have since seen tidings of the _Essay on
Chartism_ in an English periodical, but have not yet got my
proof-sheets. They are probably still rolling somewhere outside
of this port, for all our packetships have had the longest
passages: only one has come in for many a week. We will be as
patient as we can.

--------
* This