the end, and charitable
souls must further her so far.

---------
* Mr. O.M. Mitchell, the astronomer.
---------

Clough is settled in his Office; gets familiarized to it rapidly
(he says), and seems to be doing well. I see little of him
hitherto; I did not, and will not, try to influence him in his
choice of countries; but I think he is now likely to continue
here, and here too he may do us some good. Of America, at least
of New England, I can perceive he has brought away an altogether
kindly, almost filial impression,--especially of a certain man
who lives in that section of the Earth. More power to his
elbow!--Thackeray has very rarely come athwart me since his
return: he is a big fellow, soul and body; of many gifts and
qualities (particularly in the Hogarth line, with a dash of
Sterne superadded), of enormous _appetite_ withal, and very
uncertain and chaotic in all points except his _outer breeding,_
which is fixed enough, and _perfect_ according to the modern
English style. I rather dread explosions in his history. A
_big,_ fierce, weeping, hungry man; not a strong one. _Ay de
mi!_ But I must end, I must end. Your Letter awakened in me,
while reading it, one mad notion. I said to myself: Well, if I
live to finish this Frederic impossibility, or even to fling it
fairly into the fire, why should not I go, in my old days, and
see Concord, Yankeeland, and that man again, after all!--Adieu,
dear friend; all good be with you and yours always.

--T. Carlyle

CLIV. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 11 March, 1854

My Dear Carlyle,--The sight of Mr. Samuel Laurence, the day
before yesterday, in New York, and of your head among his
sketches, set me on thinking which had some pain where should be
only cheer. For Mr. Laurence I hailed his arrival, on every
account. I wish to see a good man whom you prize; and I like to
have good Englishmen come to America, which, of all countries,
after their own, has the best claim to them. He promises to come
and see me, and has begun most propitiously in New York. For
you,--I have too much constitutional regard and ---, not to feel
remorse for my short-comings and slow-comings, and I remember the
maxim which the French stole from our Indians,--and it was worth
stealing,--"Let not the grass grow on the path of friendship."
Ah! my brave giant, you can never understand the silence and
forbearances of such as are not giants. To