quite softly, as if it were a common thing, "Yes, I _am_ here
too." Miss Martineau tells me, "Some say it is inspired, some
say it is mad." Exactly so; no say could be suitabler. But for
you, my dear friend, I say and pray heartily: May God grant you
strength; for you have a _fearful_ work to do! Fearful I call
it; and yet it is great, and the greatest. O for God's sake
_keep yourself still quiet!_ Do not hasten to write; you cannot
be too slow about it. Give no ear to any man's praise or
censure; know that that is _not_ it: on the one side is as
Heaven if you have strength to keep silent, and climb unseen;
yet on the other side, yawning always at one's right-hand and
one's left, is the frightfulest Abyss and Pandemonium! See
Fenimore Cooper;--poor Cooper, he is _down in it;_ and had a
climbing faculty too. Be steady, be quiet, be in no haste; and
God speed you well! My space is done.

And so adieu, for this time. You must write soon again. My copy
of the _Oration_ has never come: how is this? I could dispose
of a dozen well.--They say I am to lecture again in Spring, _Ay
de mi!_ The "Book" is babbled about sufficiently in several
dialects: Fraser wants to print my scattered Reviews and Articles;
a pregnant sign. Teufelsdrockh to precede. The man "screamed" once
at the name of it in a very musical manner. He shall not print a
line; unless he give me money for it, more or less. I have had
enough of printing for one while,--thrown into "magnetic sleep"
by it! Farewell my brother.

--T. Carlyle

O. Rich, it seems, is in Spain. His representative assured me,
some weeks since, that the Account was now sent. There is an
Article on Sir W. Scott: shocking; invitissima Minerva!*

----------
*Carlyle's article on Scott published in the _London and
Westminster Review,_ No. 12. Reprinted in his _Critical and
Miscellaneous Essays._
----------

Miss Martineau charges me to send kind remembrances to you and
your Lady: her words were kinder than I have room for here.--Can
you not, in defect or delay of Letter, send me a Massachusetts
Newspaper? I think it costs little or almost nothing now; and I
shall know your hand.

XX. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 9 February, 1838

My Dear Friend,--It is ten days now--ten cold days--that your
last letter has kept my heart warm, and I have not been able to
write before. I have just finished--Wednesday evening--a co