Nobody could predict
and none could better it. And you shall even go your own gait
henceforward with a blessing from us all, and a trust exceptional
and unique. I do not longer hesitate to talk to such good men as
I see of this gift, and it has in every ear a gladdening effect.
People like to see character in a gift, and from rare character
the gift is more precious. I wish it may be twice blest in
continuing to give you the comfort it will give us.

I think I must mend myself by reclaiming my old right to send you
letters. I doubt not I shall have much to tell you, could I
overcome the hesitation to attempt a reasonable letter when one
is driven to write so many sheets of mere routine as sixty-six
(nearly sixty-seven) years enforce. I shall have to prate of my
daughters;--Edith Forbes, with her two children at Milton; Ellen
Emerson at home, herself a godsend to this house day by day; and
my son Edward studying medicine in Boston,--whom I have ever
meant and still mean to send that he may see your face when that
professional curriculum winds up.

I manage to read a few books and look into more. Herman Grimm
sent me lately a good one, Goethe's _Unterhaltungen_ with
Muller,--which set me on Varnhagen and others. My wife sends old
regards, and her joy in this occasion.

Yours ever,
R.W. Emerson

P.S. Mr. Eliot took my rough counting of Volumes as correct.
When he sends me back the catalogue, I will make it exact.--I
sent you last week a little book by book-post.

CLXXXII. Carlyle to Emerson

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 24 March, 1870

My Dear Emerson,--The day before yesterday, I heard incidentally
of an unfortunate Mail Steamer, bound for America, which had lost
its screw or some essential part of it; and so had, instead of
carrying its Letters forward to America, been drifting about like
a helpless log on the shores of Ireland till some three days ago,
when its Letters and Passengers were taken out, and actually
forwarded, thither. By industrious calculation, it appears
probable to us here that my Letter to you may have been tumbling
about in that helpless Steamer, instead of getting to Concord;
where, if so, said Letter cannot now arrive till the lingering of
it have created some astonishment there.

I hastily write this, however, to say that a Letter was duly
forwarded a few days after yours [of January 23] arrived,--
enclosing the _Harvard Catalogue,_ with all necessary _et
ceteras;_