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

And I declare, the Heavens will
reward you; and as to me, I will be thankful for what I get, and
submissive to delays and to all things: all things are good
compared with flat want in that respect. It remains true, and
will remain, what I have often told you, that properly there is
no voice in this world which is completely human to me, which
fully understands all I say and with clear sympathy and sense
answers to me, but your voice only. That is a curious fact, and
not quite a joyful one to me. The solitude, the silence of my
poor soul, in the centre of this roaring whirlpool called
Universe, is great, always, and sometimes strange and almost
awful. I have two million talking bipeds without feathers, close
at my elbow, too; and of these it is often hard for me to say
whether the so-called "wise" or the almost professedly foolish
are the more inexpressibly unproductive to me. "Silence,
Silence!" I often say to myself: "Be silent, thou poor fool;
and prepare for that Divine Silence which is now not far!"--On
the whole, write to me whenever you can; and be not weary of
well-doing.


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