re less prepared to
hear, than is our New England one. I judge only from the tone.
I think I know many persons here who accept thoughts of this vein
so readily now, that, if you were speaking on this shore, you
would not feel that emphasis you use to be necessary. I have
been feeble and almost sick during all the spring, and have been
in Boston but once or twice, and know nothing of the reception
the book meets from the Catholic Carlylian Church. One reader
and friend of yours dwells now in my house, and, as I hope, for a
twelvemonth to come,--Henry Thoreau,--a poet whom you may one
day be proud of;--a noble, manly youth, full of melodies and
inventions. We work together day by day in my garden, and I grow
well and strong. My mother, my wife, my boy and girl, are all in
usual health, and according to their several ability salute you
and yours. Do not cease to tell me of the health of your wife
and of the learned and friendly physician.

Yours,
R.W. Emerson

LXVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 25 June, 1841

Dear Emerson,--Now that there begins again to be some program
possible of my future motions for some time, I hastily despatch
you some needful outline of the same.

After infinite confused uncertainty, I learn yesternight that
there has been a kind of country-house got for us, at a place
called Annan, on the north shore of the Solway Frith, in my
native County of Dumfries. You passed through the little Burgh,
I suppose, in your way homeward from Craigenputtock: it stands
about midway, on the great road, between Dumfries and Carlisle.
It is the place where I got my schooling;--consider what a
_preter_natural significance such a scene has now got for me! It
is within eight miles of my aged Mother's dwelling-place; within
riding distance, in fact, of almost all the Kindred I have in the
world.--The house, which is built since my time, and was never
yet seen by me, is said to be a reasonable kind of house. We get
it for a small sum in proportion to its value (thanks to kind
accident); the three hundred miles of travel, very hateful to
me, will at least entirely obliterate all traces of _this_ Dust-
Babel; the place too being naturally almost ugly, as far as a
green leafy place in sight of sea and mountains can be so
nicknamed, the whole gang of picturesque Tourists, Cockney
friends of Nature, &c., &c., who penetrate now by steam, in
shoals every autumn, into the very centre of the S