Fat--(if you know and his fat
commonplace at all) amused me much by a thing he had heard of
yours in some lecture a year or two ago. "The American Eagle is
a mighty bird; but what is he to the American Peacock." At
which all the audience had exploded into laughter. Very good.
Adieu, old Friend.
Yours ever,
T. Carlyle
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* Mr. Moncure D. Conway.
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CLXXIII. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 7 January, 1866
Dear Carlyle,--Is it too late to send a letter to your door to
claim an old right to enter, and to scatter all your convictions
that I had passed under the earth? You had not to learn what a
sluggish pen mine is. Of course, the sluggishness grows on me,
and even such a trumpet at my gate as a letter from you
heralding-in noble books, whilst it gives me joy, cannot heal the
paralysis. Yet your letter deeply interested me, with the
account of your rest so well earned. You had fought your great
battle, and might roll in the grass, or ride your pony, or shout
to the Cumberland or Scotland echoes, with largest leave of men
and gods.
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