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

So there will be nothing for you but
compliance, by the first fair chance you have: furthermore, I
bargain that the _Lady_ Emerson have, within reasonable limits, a
royal veto in the business (not absolute, if that threaten
extinction to the enterprise, but absolute within the limits of
possibility); and that she take our case in hand, and graciously
consider what can and shall be done. That will answer, I think.
Of late weeks I have been either idle, or sunk in the
sorrowfulest cobbling of old shoes again; sorrowfully reading
over old Books for the Putnams and Chapmans, namely. It is
really painful, looking in one's own old face; said "old face"
no longer a thing extant now!--Happily I have at last finished
it; the whole Lumber-troop with clothes duly brushed (_French
Revolution_ has even got an Index too) travels to New York in the
Steamer that brings you this. _Quod faustum sit:_--or indeed I
do not much care whether it be faustum or not; I grow to care
about an astonishingly small number of things as times turn with
me! Man, all men seem radically _dumb;_ jabbering mere jargons
and noises from the teeth outwards; the inner meaning of them,--
of them and of me, poor devils,--remaining shut, buried forever.


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