the Present Age: such an image
of calm _power_ (to say nothing of its other properties) I find I
had never seen before. The old Cities too are a little beautiful
to me, in spite of my state of nerves; honest, kindly people
too, but sadly short of our and your _despatch-of-business_
talents,--a really painful defect in the long run. I was on two
of Fritz's Battle-fields, moreover: Lobositz in Bohemia, and
Kunersdorf by Frankfurt on the Oder; but did not, especially in
the latter case, make much of that. Schiller's death-chamber,
Goethe's sad Court-environment; above all, Luther's little room
in the _Wartburg_ (I believe I actually had tears in my eyes
there, and kissed the old oak-table, being in a very flurried
state of nerves), my belief was that under the Canopy there was
not at present so _holy_ a spot as that same. Of human souls I
found none specially beautiful to me at all, at all,--such my sad
fate! Of learned professors, I saw little, and that little was
more than enough. Tieck at Berlin, an old man, lame on a Sofa, I
did love, and do; he is an exception, could I have seen much of
him. But on the whole _Universal Puseyism_ seemed to me the
humor of German, especially of Berlin thinkers;--and I had some
quite portentous specimens of that kind,--unconscious specimens
of four hundred quack power! Truly and really the Prussian
Soldiers, with their intelligent _silence,_ with the touches of
effective Spartanism I saw or fancied in them, were the class of
people that pleased me best. But see, my sheet is out! I am
still reading, reading, most nightmare Books about Fritz; but as
to writing,--_Ach Gott!_ Never, never.--Clough is coming home, I
hope.--Write soon, if you be not enchanted!

Yours ever,
T. Carlyle

CLIIa. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 10 August, 1853

My Dear Carlyle,--Your kindest letter, whose date I dare not
count back to,--perhaps it was May,--I have just read again, to
be deeply touched by its noble tragic tone of goodness to me, not
without new wonder at my perversity, and terror at what both may
be a-forging to strike me. My slowness to write is a distemper
that reaches all my correspondence, and not that with you only,
though the circumstance is not worth stating, because, if I
ceased to write to all the rest, there would yet be good reason
for writing to you. I believe the reason of this recusancy is
the fear of disgusting my friends, as with a book open alwa