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"The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II."


Since I last wrote to you, I found it needful, if only for the
household's sake, to set some new lectures in order, and go to
new congregations of men. I live so much alone, shrinking almost
cowardly from the contact of worldly and public men, that I need
more than others to quit home sometimes, and roll with the river
of travelers, and live in hotels. I went to Baltimore, where I
had an invitation, and read two lectures on New England. On my
return, I stopped at Philadelphia, and, my Course being now grown
to four lectures, read them there. At New York, my snowball was
larger, and I read five lectures on New England. 1. Religion;
2. Trade; 3. Genius, Manners and Customs; 4. Recent literary
and spiritual influences from abroad; 5. Domestic spiritual
history.--Perhaps I have not quite done with them yet, but may
make them the block of a new and somewhat larger structure for
Boston, next winter. The newspaper reports of them in New York
were such offensive misstatements, that I could not send you, as
I wished, a sketch. Between my two speeches at Baltimore, I went
to Washington, thirty-seven miles, and spent four days.


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