roaring volcano of Fate, which threatens to
roast or smother the poor literary Plinys that come too near for
mere purpose of reporting.

I have even fancied you did me a harm by the valued gift of
Antony Wood;--which, and the like of which, I take a lotophagous
pleasure in eating. Yet this is measuring after appearance,
measuring on hours and days; the true measure is quite other,
for life takes its color and quality not from the days, but the
dawns. The lucid intervals are like drowning men's moments,
equivalent to the foregoing years. Besides, Nature uses us. We
live but little for ourselves, a good deal for our children, and
strangers. Each man is one more lump of clay to hold the world
together. It is in the power of the Spirit meantime to make him
rich reprisals,--which he confides will somewhere be done.--Ah,
my friend, you have better things to send me word of, than
these musings of indolence. Is Frederic recreated? Is Frederic
the Great?

Forget my short-comings and write to me. Miss Bacon sends me
word, again and again, of your goodness. Against hope and sight
she must be making a remarkable book. I have a letter from her,
a few days ago, written in perfect assurance of success! Kindest
remembrances to your wife and to your brother.

Yours faithfully,
R.W. Emerson

CLVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 18 May, 1855

Dear Emerson,--Last Sunday, Clough was here; and we were
speaking about you, (much to your discredit, you need not doubt,)
and how stingy in the way of Letters you were grown; when, next
morning, your Letter itself made its appearance. Thanks, thanks.
You know not in the least, I perceive, nor can be made to
understand at all, how indispensable your Letters are to me. How
you are, and have for a long time been, the one of all the sons
of Adam who, I felt, completely understood what I was saying;
and answered with a truly _human_ voice,--inexpressibly
consolatory to a poor man, in his lonesome pilgrimage, towards
the evening of the day! So many voices are not human; but more
or less bovine, porcine, canine; and one's soul dies away in
sorrow in the sound of them, and is reduced to a dialogue with
the "Silences," which is of a very abstruse nature!--Well,
whether you write to me or not, I reserve to myself the privilege
of writing to you, so long as we both continue in this world! As
the beneficent Presences vanish from me, one after the other,
those