Heigho!
My time is all up and more; and Chaos come again is lying round
me, in the shape of "packing," in a thousand shapes!--Browning is
coming tonight to take leave. Do you know Browning at all? He
is abstruse, but worth knowing.--And what of the _Discourse on
England_ by a certain man? Shame! We always hear of it again as
"out"; and it continues obstinately _in._ Adieu, my friend.
Ever yours,
T. Carlyle
CLX. Carlyle to Emerson
The Gill, Cummertrees, Annan, N.B.
28 August, 1856
Dear Emerson,--Your Letter alighted here yesterday;* like a
winged Mercury, bringing "airs from Heaven" (in a sense) along
with his news. I understand very well your indisposition to
write; we must conform to it, as to the law of _Chronos_ (oldest
of the gods); but I will murmur always, "It is such a pity as of
almost no other man!"--You are citizen of a "Republic," and
perhaps fancy yourself republican in an eminent degree:
nevertheless I have remarked there is no man of whom I am so
certain always to get something _kingly:_--and whenever your huge
inarticulate America gets settled into _kingdoms,_ of the New
Model, fit for these Ages which are all upon the _Moult_ just
now, and dreadfully like going to the Devil in the interim,--then
will America, and all nations through her, owe the man Emerson a
_debt,_ far greater than either they or he are in the least aware
of at present! That I consider (for myself) to be an ascertained
fact.
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