THOMAS CARLYLE’S LETTERS
Carlyle wrote 175 letters about 51 percent have not been published before. Of the rest, 42 have appeared only in an incomplete form, many of which were in works or periodicals that are not easily accessible. Those letters allows us a better understanding of Carlyle and his times. I include here some of them:
THOMAS CARLYLE TO JEAN CARLYLE AITKEN
Dear Jean,
Thanks for your Note with
Thanks for your punctuality
about Mary. Here is an order for your money, with a small overplus
of copper for James the Second, and that small woman, Annie I think, whose anxious innocent little face is very vividly present
to me just now. Mary we may hope will
improve as the weather gets warm; she has a sore toiling life of it, poor bodie. I have tried the wristikins,
and find them quite the thing; thanks. They will be useful if this new frost
hold out upon us; they are now the best pair I have, and the old wristikins of Hoddam Hill are probably the next-best!
My Book is in a very
distracted state still, after all my long dreary labours on it. But I still
labour; it is getting clearer before me: in a while now (alas, a long
while still, too likely!) I must and will be out of it; there is no living with
such a melancholy burden on one's back. I wish often I were in the silent
Country, a hundred or a thousand miles from all these confusions. But that
cannot be at present: “There where thou art, there where thou remainest, be busy!” My
health is not bad considering every thing. I never in all my life was engaged
with such a job! Heaven send me out of it; that were now the first of
all blessings for me.
Today I have been disturbed
in my operations, and quite lamed for the time, by a visit from whom think you? Wull
Bogs once of Ecclefechan!
He got in by calling himself an old
Yesternight there came a short Note from Jenny, to the effect that they were well. “My Mother
could not write, her hand had grown so shaky”: which
was a feature of the case I did not like! Good old Mother. But I should be
thankful too.
Jack's people are leaving
their house; but the new people are to keep the furniture, and after
investigation Jack decides that he also will stay. The others are upholsterer
people, young, and going off to
Jane has improved, but is
not yet strong. She began a few days ago to get down to
breakfast; she has also been out of doors once or twice, but is still
mostly a prisoner. Our weather here too has been very fluctuating; mostly damp,
dark and muddy. We calculate with confidence the Sun will return.
Farewell dear Jean. Do not
neglect to send me a little news from time to time. Be always good, hearty and
busy; and may a blessing be always with you and yours. I saw young Clyde lately; going for the
T. Carlyle
THOMAS CARLYLE TO KARL AUGUST
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE
My dear Sir,
I am delighted to hear from
you again, to taste of your old friendliness and forgivenness
again. I have behaved very ill, or rather seemed to behave, for
the blame is not wholly mine, as the penalty wholly is. These many months I
have not, except upon the sherest compulsion, written
to any person. Not that I have been so busy as never to have a vacant hour,
alas, very far from that, often enough; but I have been, and am still, and
still am like to be, sunk deep down in Chaos and the Deathkingdoms;
sick of body, sick of heart; saddled with an enterprise which is too heavy for
me. It is many long years now since I began the study of Oliver Cromwell, a
problem for all ingenuous Englishmen; it is four or five long years since I as
it were committed myself to the task of doing something with it: and now, on
fair trial, it proves the likest to any impossible
task of all I ever undertook. The books upon it would load some waggons, dull as torpor itself, every book of them; the
pedantries, dilettantisms, cants, misconceptions, platitudes and unimaginable
confusions that prevail upon it, drive one to despair! I have read, and written
and burnt; I have sat often contemplative, looking out upon the mere Infinite
of desolation. What to do I yet know not. I have
Goethe's superstition about “not turning back”; having put one's hand to the
plough, it is not good to shrink away till one has driven the furrow thro' in
some way or other! Alas, the noble Seventeenth Century, with a God shining
thro' all fibres of it, by what art can it be presented to this poor Nineteenth
which has no God, which has not even quitted the bewildering pretention to have a God? These things hold me
silent, for of them it is better not to speak; and my poor life is buried under
them at present.
However, I suppose, we shall
get into daylight again, sooner or later! After a good deal of consideration, I
decided on gathering together all that I could yet find of Oliver's own writing
or uttering; his Letters and Speeches I now have in a mass, rendered for
the first time legible to modern men: this, tho' it
must be a very dull kind of reading to most or all, I have serious thoughts of
handing out, since men now can read it; I would say, or in some politer
way intimate, “There, you unfortunate canaille [rabble]; read these!
Judge whether that man was a ‘hypocrite,’ a ‘charlatan’ and ‘liar’ whether he
was not a Hero and god-inspired Man, and you a set of sniggering ‘Apes by the
Your beautiful little Books
came safe to hand above a week ago. The reading of them is like
landing on a sunny green island, out of waste endless
I have sent you here a few
Autographs; they are worth almost nothing; they came without
trouble, and will testify at least of my goodwill. If I had any service useful
for you, very gladly would I do it.
You ask what Books &c
you can again procure for me? At present no Books; but
there is another thing perhaps, tho' I know not
certainly. The case is this. Booksellers are about republishing a miserable
little Life of Schiller by me; and want a Medal of Schiller which
they could engrave from. A good likeness; an autograph in addition is hardly to
be looked for. I have here a small cameo copied from Danecker's
Bust, by much the finest Schiller's-face I have seen. But perhaps
there is no such medal? Do not mind it much, I pray you! And so farewell and
wish me well!
T. Carlyle
THOMAS CARLYLE TO JOHN HARLAND
Dear Sir,
Many thanks for your
Cromwell Letter, copied out of the Dublin Book. It has just come in time, and
will get fairly into print. I think you have given me the exact Title of the
Volume in the Trinity-College Catalogue, whereby it may be with all clearness
indicated to any one that wants to verify it? There is no doubt
about the Signature. I shall make out the rest, and elucidate it from sources
here. Give yourself at present no trouble about the other matters on my
account. This Letter is valuable; and so might certain of the others be: but
they belong to a class which, in its actual state (wagonloads of unsorted
confusion), belongs rather to the category of Lumber,
and requires resolutely to be shovelled into the corner if one would make any
way.
Bradshaw's Life, if it be a
Life at all, especially if there be any likelihood that it is Bradshaw's
own writing, might well deserve the attention of your Cheetham
Society.
Martindale's Life, if you
have no other use for it, will be in good time for me three months hence.
With kind regards to Mr Ballantyne, and many thanks to yourself,
Yours very truly
T. Carlyle
THOMAS CARLYLE TO MARGARET A.
CARLYLE
My dear Mother, I am well;
but busier than ever, with the Printers jingling away at my heels, and a whirl
of paper-clippings and confusions of every sort about my ears! I will have a
few minutes, however, for writing to my good Mother before long. Jane is pretty
well too; getting better as the season gets on. We are still very windy, cold,
and clashy [stormy]. I have some thoughts of
getting a Horse, as Alick recommends: if
Jamie were near me, I think I should commission him to buy me one; but we
cannot pack a Dumfries Horse into a bandbox, and send it by Pickford!
I leave this with the Dr,
whom I saw last night. Perhaps he will add a few words more before
sending it off. My blessings with you all. Keep out of these wild winds and rains, dear
Mother!
Your affectionate
T. C.
THOMAS CARLYLE TO EDWARD
CHAPMAN
Dear Sir,
I am happy to apprise you
the Schiller Portrait has arrived at last: an excellent Copy in Pencil
from the best (and as appears the only good) Portrait there is of him in
If you can come to me tomorrow
(Saturday) Evg, it will be better, for
I am kept as busy as a turnspit all day. But morning or evening pray let me see
you without delay.
Yours always truly
T. Carlyle
THOMAS CARLYLE TO AN
UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT
Dear Sir,
I am very glad to have you
for a reader: a sincere and earnest man in all places and conditions is very
precious to me.
Your scheme of cheap Books
has been suggested to me from various quarters, and very clearly corresponds to
my own wishes in the matter; but unfortunately the decision of it does not rest
with me. The Booksellers declare against it; I know nothing about trade; and
hesitate to attempt working out a mere conviction of my own in that matter,
having besides work enough in provinces that do belong to me.
The price of Books at
present, so far as Books have any real worth for the culture of men, is
certainly a great evil. Rather more than a half of the whole selling-price of a
Book falls into the hands of the man and men who do the mere act of selling it.
This is a fact which I learned with amazement some years ago, and have not
ceased to reflect upon occasionally since. The charge of 55 per cent for
selling any article, by any mode of sale, is certainly enormous. Nay what is
worst of all, the greater part of it is expended in puffing into sale Books
that are worthless, or making up for loss on Books that no puffing can sell:
the poor individual Bookseller makes nothing of it; he very generally becomes
bankrupt in the business, poor man. It is in fact a mad affair. But what shall
we say? The origin of it is even this, The faith men have in puffing, the
cowardly haste all men are in to get their goods sold, their worth
acknowledged, and their work paid for, in a day,—as if there were but one Day;
as if there were no continuance of Time, and of Eternity behind Time! The
origin of the thing lies deep, and is the fatal origin of many things
among us; and will not be capable of cure, I doubt, for a while.
As for you, if you are
short of Books you would like to read, believe me on my word and experience, It is not such an evil as your fancy represents
it. One little page read well is worth many volumes carelessly run over. My
reverence for Books does not increase with my years. My reverance
for earnest reflexion and meditation, above all things for honest manful
conduct (which is the great source of clearness of vision too for us all) does
go on increasing.
May good be with you in
your Business and in your Life outward and inward.
I remain / Yours with real wishes
T. Carlyle
THOMAS CARLYLE TO JANET CARLYLE
HANNING
Dear
Jenny,
Your good news from
The Doctor went away from
us on Tuesday last. I think he was a little desirous to quit London; being somewhat
out of health lately: and at the right time there came for him a sudden call to
go North into Durham and visit medically the Mr Raine
he was with about the Christmas time. So he set off very swiftly
(it was on Wednesday morning), and I, happening to be out when he called
here, did not so much as see him. I had a short Note yesterday, that he had got
safe; found Mr Raine not quite so
ill as he expected, and was in the mind seemingly to stay there for a while. It
is much better quarters than here at this season. He has “a little carriage” to
himself: the Country is green and bright and silent; not the horrible noisy
whirlpool of hot dust that
We are into the Second
Volume, my Printers and I; but have still a good ugly lump of work to do. I
doubt it will be above two months yet. I am getting very sick of it; but must
hold on. The weather too is now against me: frightfully hot! However, I have
actually got myself a swift black horse; and I take a long excursion into the
cool fields every evening. That in general is all the exercise I get thro' the
day: all company I as much as possible avoid. Better or worse, the Book shall
and must be done!
Jane flourishes in the hot
weather; she is now very well. I hope our Mother too is doing well; I should
like much to hear of Mary and her again. We have an Edinburgh Cousin of Jane's
here, a son of her Uncle Robert's; a very great Grampus indeed: it is hoped he
will take himself away in the course of another week!
Be careful of Jean till she
is well again. Tell her then to write. My kind love to one and all. I have
heard nothing from Scotsbrig this long while. Good
night, dear Jenny. Yours always
T. Carlyle
THOMAS CARLYLE TO ALEXANDER
CARLYLE
My dear Brother,
John, who is gone Northward as his own Letter will explain, has appointed me
to add a few words for you by this Mail: I take a little minute before going to
bed tonight, as tomorrow there will be no leisure at all, and send you my
brotherly salutation accordingly. My time at present, as it has been for these
many months, is hardly any minute of it my own: I never in my life was held
busier; and now the hot weather too has come to lame me still farther.
We were all much gratified
with your last Letter; a clear healthy tone breathes thro' it, and we see you busy,
and what we can well call prosperous in your new enterprise, for a man that
embarks himself on any enterprise in that spirit, and perseveres so, may be
said to be prospering in it. Go on, my dear Brother; and every year will add
its little stock of fruit to your store of good manful possessions, and you
will gradually grow rich in true wealth. I have had one little Note out
of
I have got a horse
according to your advice! Often I thought of you, when this business was on
hand: I had no Alick to buy a horse for me now! A
benevolent friend of these parts undertook it for me: a very smart
horse, a gelding of six years, black, long-tailed, high and thin, swift as a
roe; reminds me of poor Larry in some of his ways, tho'
better bred than Larry. The price of him was £35; would be very
dear in
But alas we are still a
good way from that. The first volume is fairly done and printed: but we have
hardly the fifth part of the Second ended yet. I think it may be three months
almost before I am fairly off. However, the Book does prove a little better
than I expected; and will perhaps be of some use by and by; which is a kind of
consolation. Did you get a fraction of a leaf of it, with some little Note of
mine? I think I sent you such a thing: I did not see in your last Letter any
notice that it had arrived.
Jane has recovered greatly
since the weather grew fairly warm. We have it now hot enough, after long
months of barren cold. The people are all mowing, a heavy crop of fine natural
hay, as I ride abroad thro' the field lanes here: the smell of it is sweeter
than any perfume to me. I ride alone; strive to keep out of people's way as
much as possible.
Dear Brother, you too I
suppose are broiling away at field-labour in the Canadian heat. I am very glad
to learn that you are got more moderate; violent working was always one of your
faults. And the little Bairns are at their schooling;
and Jenny is busy within doors; and you, as head of the house, have many cares;
and God's fair sky bends over all. May His blessing be with you, dear Alick, you and all dear to you! And so
good Night.
Your affectionate Brother,
T. Carlyle
Jane sends her affectionate
regards to you and all of you. When little Jane takes the pen in hand, I
do not see why she should not write a line to her Namesake here.
THOMAS CARLYLE TO LADY HARRIET
BARING
I could not see you. They
tell me you are not well too. The Housemaid said you were better; but did not
seem to know much about it. Why will you dine at 7 o'clock, and waste yourself
with the frivolities of this generation? Are you of no value to any one, then!
I wish we were all safe at Alverstoke,
reading German, or sitting silent; far from all noise that had no meaning in
it. I wish you were well again, at least!
My wife returned in much
satisfaction with Addiscombe and her visit, tho' she had slept but three hours all the time, and could
not make much way into new acquaintanceship in that sad state of the nerves!
You will come and see us here when you come back, will you not?
I saw you on Wednesday for
half a moment, and did not know clearly till after you were past. On Constitution-Hill about four o'clock. I must
make that serve for a week. It is the brightest star in all the week's
firmament, perhaps the only star there; let me be thankful for it, poor little
star! I am really worn to death; and very sick of most things.
Good night. The old
Ewig [Eternally],
T.C.
THOMAS CARLYLE TO RALPH WALDO
EMERSON
Dear Emerson,
Your Letter,
which had been very long expected, has been in my hand above a month now; and still
no answer sent to it. I thought of answering straightway; but the day went by,
days went by; and at length I decided to wait till my insupportable Burden (the
“Stupidity of Two Centuries” as I call it, which is a heavy load for one man!)
were rolled off my shoulders, and I could resume the habit of writing
Letters, which has almost left me for many months. By the unspeakable blessing
of Heaven that consummation has now arrived, about four days ago I wrote my
last word on Cromwell's Letters and Speeches; and one of the earliest
uses I make of my recovered freedom is to salute you again. The Book is nearly
printed: two big volumes; about a half of it, I think, my own; the real
utterances of the man Oliver Cromwell once more legible to earnest men. Legible
really to an unexpected extent: for the Book took quite an unexpected figure in
my hands; and is now a kind of Life of Oliver, the best that circumstances
would permit me to do: whether either I or England shall be, in my time, fit
for a better, remains submitted to the Destinies at present. I have tied up the
whole Puritan Paper-Litter (considerable masses of it still unburnt)
with tight strings, and hidden it at the bottom of my deepest repositories:
there shall it, if Heaven please, lie dormant for a time and times.
Such an element as I have been in, no human tongue can give account of. The
disgust of my sould has been great; a really pious
labour: worth very little when I have done it; but the best I could do; and
that is quite enough. I feel the liveliest gratitude to the gods that I have
got out of it alive. The Book is very dull, but it is actually legible: all the
ingenious faculty I had, and ten times as much would have been useful there,
has been employed in elucidation; in saying, and chiefly in forbearing to say,
in annihilating continents of brutal wreck and dung: Ach Gott!
But in fact you will see it by and by; and then form your own conclusions about
it. They are going to publish it in October, I find: I tried hard to get you a
complete copy of the Sheets by this Steamer; but it proves to be flatly
impossible; erhaps luckily; for I think you would
have been bothering yourself with some new Bookseller negociation
about it; and that, as Copyright and other matters now stand, is a thing I
cannot recommend. Enough of it now: only let all my silences and other
shortcomings be explained thereby. I am now off for
the
Very glad shall I be, my
Friend, to have some new utterances from you either in verse or in prose! What
you say about the vast imperfection of all modes of utterance is most
true indeed. Let a man speak and sing, and do, and sputter and
gesticulate as he may, the meaning of him is most ineffectually shewn forth, poor fellow; rather indicated as if by
straggling symbols, than spoken or visually expressed! Poor fellow! So
the great rule is, That he have a good manful
meaning, and then that he take what “mode of utterance” is honestly the
readiest for him. I wish you would take an American Hero, one whom you really
love; and give us of a History of him, make an artistic bronze statue (in good words)
of his Life and him! I do indeed. But speak of what you will, you are welcome
to me. Once more I say, No other voice in this wide
waste world seems to my sad ear to be speaking at all at present. The
more is the pity for us.
I forbid you to plague
yourself any farther with these
And as for the money of these men, if they will pay it, good and welcome; if they will not pay it, let them keep it with what blessing there may be in it! I have your noble Offices in that and in other such matters already unforgettably sure to me; and, in real fact, that is almost exactly the whole of valuable that could exist for me in the affair. Adieu, dear Friend. Write to me again; I will write again at more leisure.
Yours always.
T. Carlyle
THOMAS CARLYLE TO MARY RICH
Scotsbrig, Ecclefechan
n.B. 29 Septr 1845
Dear Mrs Rich,
That Note has followed me
hither. Will you be so kind as communicate it to Mademoiselle Daulion; and request her to send some message to
this Bookseller of the Rue de
The Book is now done; not
quite so monstrous a Book as I once feared; and certainly the ugliest job of labour
in the Book kind that ever fell to my lot. We will hope it was a pious labour
in some sort; and if so, likely to do some good somewhere, at some time, in
some manner, as it shall please Heaven.
I am here for a week or two
with my Mother. The weather very muddy; the people all lamenting the Potatoe-Epidemic, and other grievances they
labour under. Potatoes, it is prophesied by some, are about ceasing to grow at
all in these climates, the virtue of them worn out by length of years. That
will make a precious kettle of fish; that of itself! But we hope better things,
tho' we thus speak, as the Preachers say.
I am to be back in
Adieu, dear Mrs Rich.
Yours ever truly
T. Carlyle
THOMAS CARLYLE TO THOMAS COOPER
DEAR SIR,
I have received your poem;
and will thank you for that kind gift, and for all the friendly sentiments you entertain
towards me, which, as from an evidently sincere man, whatever we may think of
them otherwise, are surely valuable to a man.
I have looked into your
Poem, and find indisputable traces of genius in it, a dark Titanic energy
struggling there, for which we hope there will be clearer daylight by-and-by!
If I might presume to advise I think I would recommend you to try your next
work in Prose, and as a thing turning altogether on Facts, not
Fictions. Certainly the music that is very traceable here might serve to
irradiate into harmony far profitable things than what are commonly called
‘Poems,’ for which, at any rate, the taste in these days seems to be
irrevocably in abeyance. We have too horrible a Practical Chaos round us; out
of which every man is called by the birth of him to make a bit of Cosmos:
that seems to me the real Poem for a man, especially at present. I always
grudge to see any portion of a man's musical talent (which is the real
intellect, the real vitality, or life of him) expended on making mere words
rhyme. These things I say to all my Poetic friends, for I am in real earnest
about them: but get almost nobody to believe me hitherto. From you I shall get
an excuse at any rate; the purpose of my so speaking being a friendly one
towards you.
I will request you farther
to accept this book of mine, and to appropriate what you can of
it, ‘Life is a serious thing, ’as Schiller says, and as you
yourself practically know! These are the words of a serious man about it; they
will not altogether be without meaning for you.
Unfortunately, I am just in
these hours getting out of town; and, not without real regret, must deny myself
the satisfaction of seeing you at present.
Believe me to be, / With many good wishes, / Yours very truly,
T. CARLYLE.
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