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


About that same time my health and humors being evidently so, the
Dowager Lady Ashburton (not the high Lady you saw, but a
Successor of Mackenzie-Highland type), who wanders mostly about
the Continent since her widowhood, for the sake of a child's
health, began pressing and inviting me to spend the blade months
of Winter here in her Villa with her;--all friends warmly
seconding and urging; by one of whom I was at last snatched off,
as if by the hair of the head, (in spite of my violent No, no!)
on the eve of Christmas last, and have been here ever since,--
really with improved omens. The place is beautiful as a very
picture, the climate superlative (today a sun and sky like very
June); the _hospitality_ of usage beyond example. It is likely
I shall be here another six weeks, or longer. If you please to
write me, the address is on the margin; and I will answer. Adieu.
--T. Carlyle


CLXXVI. Carlyle to Emerson
5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 18 November, 1869
Dear Emerson,--It is near three years since I last wrote to you;
from Mentone, under the Ligurian Olive and Orange trees, and
their sombre foreign shadows, and still more sombre suggestings
and promptings; the saddest, probably, of all living men.


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