Such a
dream flatters my incapacities for conversation, for we can all
play at monosyllables, who cannot attempt the gay pictorial
panoramic styles.
So, if ever I hear that you have betrayed the first symptom of
age, that your back is bent a twentieth of an inch from the
perpendicular, I shall hasten to believe you are shearing your
prodigal overgrowths, and are calling in your troops to the
citadel, and I may come in the first steamer to drop in of
evenings and hear the central monosyllables.
Be good now again, and send me quickly--though it be the shortest
autograph certificate of....*
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* The end of this letter is lost.
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CLXIII. Carlyle to Emerson
Chelsea, 2 June, 1858
Dear Emerson,--Glad indeed I am to hear of you on any terms, on
any subject. For the last eighteen months I have pretty much
ceased all human correspondence,--writing no Note that was not in
a sense wrung from me; my one society the _Nightmares_ (Prussian
and other) all that while:--but often and often the image of you,
and the thoughts of old days between us, has risen sad upon me;
and I have waited to get loose from the Nightmares to appeal to
you again,--to edacious Time and you.
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