The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I · Thomas Carlyle
LXIX. Emerson to Carlyle
Concord, 30 October, 1841 My Dear Carlyle,--I was in Boston yesterday, and found at Munroe's your promised packet of the two London Books. They are very handsome,--that for my wife is beautiful,--and I am not so old or so cold but that I can feel the hope and the pleasure that lie in this gift. It seems I am to speak in England--great England--fortified by the good word of one whose word is fame. Well, it is a lasting joy to be indebted to the wise and generous; and I am well contented that my little boat should swim, whilst it can, beside your great galleys, nor will I allow my discontent with the great faults of the book, which the rich English dress cannot hide, to spoil my joy in this fine little romance of friendship and hope. I am determined--so help me all Muses--to send you something better another day. But no more printing for me at present. I have just decided to go to Boston once more, with a course of lectures, which I will perhaps baptize "On the Times," by way of making once again the experiment whether I cannot, not only speak the truth, but speak it truly, or in proportion. I fancy I need more than another to speak, with such a formidable tendency to the lapidary style. I build my house of boulders; somebody asked me "if I built of medals." Besides, I am always haunted with brave dreams of what might be accomplished in the lecture-room,--so free and so unpretending a platform,--a Delos not yet made fast. I imagine an eloquence of infinite variety,--rich as conversation can be, with anecdote, joke, tragedy, epics and pindarics, argument and confession. I should love myself wonderfully better if I could arm myself to go, as you go, with the word in the heart and not in a paper.
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