* The Reverend William Henry Channing.
--------

The Cromwell business, though I punch daily at it with all manner
of levers, remains immovable as Ailsa Crag. Heaven alone knows
what I shall do with it. I see and say to myself, It is
heroical; Troy Town was probably not a more heroic business;
and this belongs to thee, to thy own people,--must it be dead
forever?--Perhaps yes,--and kill me too into the bargain. Really
I think it very shocking that we run to Greece, to Italy, to &c.,
&c., and leave all at home lying buried as a nonentity. Were I
absolute Sovereign and Chief Pontiff here, there should be a
study of the Old _English_ ages first of all. I will pit Odin
against any Jupiter of them; find Sea-kings that would have
given Jason a Roland for his Oliver! We are, as you sometimes
say, a book-ridden people,--a phantom-ridden people.--All this
small household is well; salutes you and yours with love old and
new. Accept this hasty messenger; accept my friendliest
farewell, dear Emerson.

Yours ever,
T. Carlyle

LXXXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 31 December, 1843

My Dear Friend,--I have had two good letters from you, and it is
fully my turn to write, so you shall have a token on this latest
day of the year. I rejoice in this good will you bear to so many
friends of mine,--if they will go to you, you must thank
yourself. Best when you are mutually contented. I wished lately
I might serve Mr. Macready, who sent me your letter.--I called on
him and introduced him to Sam G. Ward, my friend and the best man
in the city, and, besides all his personal merits, a master of
all the offices of hospitality. Ward was to keep himself
informed of Macready's times, and bring me to him when there was
opportunity. But he stayed but a few days in Boston, and, Ward
said, was in very good hands, and promised to see us when he
returns by and by. I saw him in Hamlet, but should much prefer
to see him as Macready.

I must try to entice Mr. Macready out here into my pines and
alder bushes. Just now the moon is shining on snow-drifts, four,
five, and six feet high, but, before his return, they will melt;
and already this my not native but ancestral village, which I
came to live in nearly ten years ago because it was the quietest
of farming towns, and off the road, is found to lie on the
directest line of road from Boston to Montreal, a railroad is
a-building through our secretest woodlands, and,