wart me: all favorable, but all too
shallow for sending to you. I myself consider it a _truly
excellent_ utterance; one of the best words you have ever
spoken. Speak many more such. And whosoever will distort them
into any "vegetable" or other crotchet,--let it be at his own
peril; for the word itself is _true;_ and will have to make
itself a _fact_ therefore; though not a distracted _abortive_
fact, I hope! _Words_ of that kind are not born into Facts in
the _seventh month;_ well if they see the light full-grown (they
and their adjuncts) in the _second century;_ for old Time is a
most deliberate breeder!--But to speak without figure, I have
been very much delighted with the clearness, simplicity, quiet
energy and veracity of this discourse; and also with the fact of
its spontaneous appearance here among us. The prime mover of the
Printing, I find, is one Thomas Ballantyne, editor of a
Manchester Newspaper, a very good, cheery little fellow, once
a Paisley weaver as he informs me,--a great admirer of all
worthy things.
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* "A Lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library
Association, Boston, January 25, 1841."
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My paper is so fast failing, let me tell you of the writer on
Loyola. He is a James Stephen, Head Under-Secretary of the
Colonial Office,--that is to say, I believe, real governor of the
British Colonies, so far as they have any governing. He is of
Wilberforce's creed, of Wilberforce's kin; a man past middle
age, yet still in full vigor; reckoned an enormous fellow for
"despatch of business," &c., especially by Taylor (_van
Artevelde_) and others who are with him or under him in Downing
Street.... I regard the man as standing on the confines of Genius
and Dilettantism,--a man of many really good qualities, and
excellent at the despatch of business. There we will leave
him. --A Mrs. Lee of Brookline near you has made a pleasant
Book about Jean Paul, chiefly by excerpting.* I am sorry to
find Gunderode & Co. a decided weariness!** Cromwell--Cromwell?
Do not mention such a word, if you love me! And yet--Farewell,
my Friend, tonight!
Yours ever,
T. Carlyle
I will apprise Sterling before long: he is at Falmouth, and
well; urging me much to start a Periodical here!
Gambardella promises to become a real Painter; there is a glow
of real fire in the wild southern man: next to no _articulate_
intellect or the like, but of inarticulate much, or I
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