CORRESPONDENCE.

EMERSON TO CARLYLE ON "THE LIFE OF FRIEDRICH' AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.

"Concord, 1st May, 1859.

"The book [the first volume of 'The Life of Friedrich'] came, with its irresistible inscription, so that I am all tenderness and all but tears. The book, too, is sovereignly written. I think you the true inventor of the stereoscope, as having exhibited that art in style long before we had yet heard of it in drawing. The letter came also. Every child of mine knows from far that handwriting, and brings it home with speed. .. You hug yourself on missing the illusion of children, and must be pitied as having one glittering toy the less. I am a victim all my days to certain graces of form and behaviour, and can never come into equilibrium. Now I am fooled by my own young people, and grow old contented. The heedless children suddenly take the keenest hold on life, and foolish papas cling to the world on their account, as never on their own. Out of sympathy, we make believe to value the prizes of their ambition and hope. My two girls, pupils once or now of Agassiz, are good, healthy, apprehensive, decided young people, who love life. My boy divides his time between Cicero and cricket, knows his boat, the birds, and Walter Scott, verse and prose, through and through,—and will go to college next year. Sam Ward and I tickled each other the other day, in looking over a very good company of young people, by finding in the new comers a marked improvement on their

parents. There, I flatter myself, I see some emerging of our people from the prison of their politics.

I am so glad to find myself speaking once more to you, that I mean to persist in the practice. Be as glad as you have been. You and I shall not know each other, on this platform, as long as we have known. A correspondent even of twenty-five years should not be disused unless through some fatal event. Life is too short, and with all our poetry and morals too indigent, to allow such sacrifices. Eyes so old and weary, and which have learned to look on so much, are gathering an hourly harvest; and I cannot spare what on noble terms is offered

me. •

"

"Concord, 1861.

"Here has come into the country, three or four months ago, another volume of your 'History of Friedrich,' infinitely the wittiest book that ever was written ;-a book that one would think the English people would rise up in mass and thank the author for by cordial acclamation, and signify, by crowning him with oak leaves, their joy that such a head existed among them, and sympathising and much-reading America would make a new treaty, or send a Minister Extraordinary to offer congratulation of honouring delight to England in acknowledgment of this donation ;—a book holding so many memorable and heroic facts, working directly on practice, with new heroes, things unnoticed before-the German Plutarch (now that we have exhausted the Greek and Roman and the British Plutarchs), with a range, too, of thought and wisdom, so large and so elastic, not so much applying as inculcating to every need and sensibility of man,-that we do not read a stereotype page,—rather we see the eyes of the writer looking into ours; mark his behaviour, humming, chuckling,-with under tones and trumpet tones, and long commanding glances, stereoscoping every figure that passes, and every hill, river, road, hammock, and pebble in the long perspective-with its wonderful system of mnemonics, whereby great and insig

nificant men are marked and modelled in memory by what they were, had, and did. . . . And, withal, a book that is a Judgment Day for its moral verdict on the men and nations and manners of modern times. And this book makes no noise. I have hardly seen a notice of it in any newspaper or journal, and you would think there was no such book. I am not aware that Mr. Buchanan has sent a special messenger to Cheyne Row, Chelsea, or that Mr. Dallas had been instructed to assure Mr. Carlyle of his distinguished consideration. But the secret wits and hearts of men take note of it, not the less surely. They have said nothing lately in praise of the air, or of fire, or of the blooming of love; and yet, I suppose, they are sensible of these, and not less of this book, which is like these."

"Concord, 8th December, 1862.

'Long ago, as soon as swift steamers could bring the new book across the sea, I received the third volume of 'Friedrich' with your autograph inscription, and read it with joy. Not a word went to the beloved author, for I do not write or think. I would wait perhaps for happier days, as our President Lincoln will not even emancipate slaves until on the heels of a victory, or the semblance of such. But he waited in vain for his triumph, nor dare I in my heavy months expect bright days.

"The book was heartily grateful, and square to the author's imperial scale. You have lighted the glooms, and engineered away the pits, whereof you poetically pleased yourself with complaining, in your sometime letter to me, clean out of it, and have let sunshine and pure air enfold the scene. First, I read it honestly through for the history; then I pause and speculate on the muse that inspires, and the friend that reports it. 'Tis sovereignly written, above all literature. I find, as ever in your books, that one man has deserved well of mankind for restoring the scholar's profession to its highest use and dignity. I find also that you are very wilful, and have made a covenant with your eyes that

. .

One lesson they all
But the issue docs.

they shall not see anything you do not wish they should. But I was heartily glad to read somewhere that your book was nearly finished in the manuscript, for I would wish you to sit and taste your fame, if that were not contrary to the law of Olympus. My joints ache to think of your rugged labour. Now that you have conquered to yourself such a huge kingdom among men, can you not give yourself breath, and chat a little-an Emeritus in the Eternal University-and write a gossiping letter to an old American friend or so? Alas, I own that I have no right to say this last, I who write never. Here we read no books. The war is our sole and doleful instructor. All our bright young men go into it, to be misused and sacrificed by incapable leaders. learn; to hate slavery, deterrima causa! not yet appear. We must get ourselves morally right. Nobody can help us. 'Tis of no account what England or France may do. Unless backed by our profligate parties, their action would be nugatory, and, if so backed, the worst. But even the war is better than the degrading and descending politics that preceded it for decades of years; and our legislation has made great strides, and if we can stave off that fury of trade which rushes to peace, at the cost of replacing the South in the status ante bellum, we can, with something more of courage, leave the problem to another score of years-free labour to fight with the beast, and see if bales, barrels, and baskets cannot find out that thus they pass more commodiously and surely to their ports, through free hands than through barbàrians.”

"Concord, 26th Sept., 1864.

"I had received in July the fourth volume of 'Friedrich,' and it was my best reading in the summer, and for weeks my only reading. One fact was paramount in all the good I drew from it, that whomsoever many year had used and worn, they had not yet broken any fibre of your force; a pure joy to me who abhor the inroads