Great Malvern, Worcestershire, 25 August, 1851
Dear Emerson, — Many thanks for your Letter, which found me here about a week ago, and gave a full solution to my bibliopolic difficulties. However sore your eyes, or however taciturn your mood, there is no delay of writing when any service is to be done by it! In fact you are very good to me, and always were, in all manner of ways; for which I do, as I ought, thank the Upper Powers and you. That truly has been and is one of the possessions of my life in this perverse epoch of the world….
I have sent off by John Chapman a Copy of the Life of Sterling, which is all printed and ready, but is not to appear till the first week of October…. Along with the Sheets was a poor little French Book for you, — Book of a poor Naval Mississippi Frenchman, one “Bossu,” I think; written only a Century ago, yet which already seemed old as the Pyramids in reference to those strange fast-growing countries. I read it as a kind of defaced romance; very thin and lean, but all true, and very marvelous as such.
It is above three weeks since my Wife and I left London, (the Printer having done,) and came hither with the purpose of a month of what is called “Water Cure”; for which this place, otherwise extremely pleasant and wholesome, has become celebrated of late years. Dr. Gully, the pontiff of the business in our Island, warmly encouraged my purpose so soon as he heard of it; nay, urgently offered at once that both of us should become his own guests till the experiment were tried: and here accordingly we are; I water-curing, assiduously walking on the sunny mountains, drinking of the clear wells, not to speak of wet wrappages, solitary sad steepages, and other singular procedures; my Wife not meddling for her own behoof, but only seeing me do it. These have been three of the idlest weeks I ever spent, and there is still one to come: after which we go northward to Lancashire, and across the Border where my good old Mother still expects me; and so, after some little visiting and dawdling, hope to find ourselves home again before September end, and the inexpressible Glass Palace with its noisy inanity have taken itself quite away again. It was no increase of ill-health that drove me hither, rather the reverse; but I have long been minded to try this thing: and now I think the result will be, — zero pretty nearly, and one imagination the less. My long walks, my strenuous idleness, have certainly done me good; nor has the “water” done me any ill, which perhaps is much to say of it. For the rest, it is a strange quasi-monastic — godless and yet devotional — way of life which human creatures have here, and useful to them beyond doubt. I foresee, this “Water Cure,” under better forms, will become the Ramadhan of the overworked unbelieving English in time coming; an institution they were dreadfully in want of, this long while! — We had Twisleton* here (often speaking of you), who is off to America again; will sail, I think, along with this Letter; a semi-articulate but solid-minded worthy man. We have other officials and other litterateurs (T.B. Macaulay in his hired villa for one): but the mind rather shuns than seeks them, one finds solitary quasi-devotion preferable, and [Greek], as Pindar had it!
— * The late Hon. Edward Twisleton, a man of high character and large attainments, and with a personal disposition that won the respect and affection of a wide circle of friends on both sides of the Atlantic. He was the author of a curious and learned treatise entitled “The Tongue not Essential to Speech,” and his remarkable volume on “The Handwriting of Junius” seems to have effectually closed a long controversy.
Richard Milnes is married, about two weeks ago, and gone to Vienna for a jaunt. His wife, a Miss Crewe (Lord Crewe’s sister), about forty, pleasant, intelligent, and rather rich: that is the end of Richard’s long first act. Alfred Tennyson, perhaps you heard, is gone to Italy with his wife: their baby died or was dead-born; they found England wearisome: Alfred has been taken up on the top of the wave, and a good deal jumbled about since you were here. Item Thackeray; who is coming over to lecture to you: a mad world, my Masters! Your Letter to Mazzini was duly despatched; and we hear from him that he will write to you, on the subject required, without delay. Browning and his wife, home from Florence, are both in London at present; mean to live in Paris henceforth for some time. They had seen something both of Margaret and her d’Ossoli, and appeared to have a true and lively interest in them; Browning spoke a long while to me, with emphasis, on the subject: I think it was I that had introduced poor Margaret to them. I said he ought to send these reminiscences to America, — that was the night before we left London, three weeks ago; his answer gave me the impression there had been some hindrance somewhere. Accordingly, when your Letter and Mazzini’s reached me here, I wrote to Browning urgently on the subject: but he informs me that they have sent all their reminiscences, at the request of Mr. Story; so that it is already all well. — Dear Emerson, you see I am at the bottom of my paper. I will write to you again before long; we cannot let you lie fallow in that manner altogether. Have you got proper spectacles for your eyes? I have adopted that beautiful symbol of old age, and feel myself very venerable: take care of your eyes!
Yours ever,
T. Carlyle