if so good a
book can have a tolerable sale, (almost contrary to the nature of
a good book, I know,) I shall sustain with great glee the new
relation of being your banker and attorney. They have had the
wit in the London _Examiner,_ I find, to praise at last; and I
mean that our public shall have the entire benefit of that page.
The _Westminster_ they can read themselves. The printers think
they can get the book out by Christmas. So it must be long
before I can tell you what cheer. Meantime do you tell me, I
entreat you, what speed it has had at home. The best, I hope,
with the wise and good withal.

I have nothing to tell you and no thoughts. I have promised a
course of Lectures for December, and am far from knowing what I
am to say; but the way to make sure of fighting into the new
continent is to burn your ships. The "tender ears," as George
Fox said, of young men are always an effectual call to me
ignorant to speak. I find myself so much more and freer on the
platform of the lecture-room than in the pulpit, that I shall not
much more use the last; and do now only in a little country
chapel at the request of simple men to whom I sustain no other
relation than that of preacher. But I preach in the Lecture-Room
and then it tells, for there is no prescription. You may laugh,
weep, reason, sing, sneer, or pray, according to your genius. It
is the new pulpit, and very much in vogue with my northern
countrymen. This winter, in Boston, we shall have more than
ever: two or three every night of the week. When will you come
and redeem your pledge? The day before yesterday my little boy
was a year old,--no, the day before that,--and I cannot tell you
what delight and what study I find in this little bud of God,
which I heartily desire you also should see. Good, wise, kind
friend, I shall see you one day. Let me hear, when you can
write, that Mrs. Carlyle is well again.

--R. Waldo Emerson

XIX. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 8 December, 1837

My Dear Emerson,--How long it is since you last heard of me I do
not very accurately know; but it is too long. A very long,
ugly, inert, and unproductive chapter of my own history seems to
have passed since then. Whenever I delay writing, be sure
matters go not well with me; and do you in that case write to
me, were it again and over again,--unweariable in pity.

I did go to Scotland, for almost three months; l