The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I · Thomas Carlyle
LXXII. Carlyle to Emerson
Chelsea, 6 December, 1841 Dear Emerson,--Though I wrote to you very lately, and am in great haste today, I must lose no time in announcing that the Letter with the L40 draught came to hand some mornings ago; and now, this same morning, a second Letter round by Dumfriesshire, which had been sent as a duplicate, or substitute in case of accident, for the former. It is all right, my friend ----'s paper has got itself changed into forty gold sovereigns, and lies here waiting use; thanks, many thanks! Sums of that kind come always upon me like manna out of the sky; surely they, more emphatically than any others, are the gift of Heaven. Let us receive, use, and be thankful. I am not so poor now at all; Heaven be praised: indeed, I do not know, now and then when I reflect on it, whether being rich were not a considerably harder problem.
With the wealth of Rothschild what farther good thing could one get,--if not perhaps some but to live in, under free skies, in the country, with a horse to ride and have a little less pain on? _Angulus ille ridet!_--I will add, for practical purposes in the future, that it is in general of little or no moment whether an American Bill be at sight or after a great many days; that the paper can wait as conveniently here as the cash can,--if your New England House and Baring of Old England will forbear bankruptcy in the mean while. By the bye, will you tell me some time or other in _what_ American funds it is that your funded money, you once gave me note of, now lies? I too am creditor to America,-- State of Illinois or some such State: one thousand dollars of mine, which some years ago I had no use for, now lies there, paying I suppose for canals, in a very obstructed condition! My Brother here is continually telling me that I shall lose it all, --which is not so bad; but lose it all by my own unreason,--which is very bad. It struck me I would ask where Emerson's money lies, and lay mine there too, let it live or perish as it likes!
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