life-insurance is a great task. I hold you to be one of those to
whom all is permitted, and who carry the laws in their hand.
Continue to be good to your old friends. 'T is no matter whether
they write to you or not. If not, they save your time. When
_Friedrich_ is once despatched to gods and men, there was once
some talk that you should come to America! You shall have an
ovation such, and on such sincerity, as none have had.

Ever affectionately yours,
R.W. Emerson

I do not know Mr. Wight, but he sends his open letter, which I
fear is already old, for me to write in: and I will not keep it,
lest it lose another steamer.




CLXVI. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 30 April, 1860

Dear Emerson,--It is a special favor of Heaven to me that I hear
of you again by this accident; and am made to answer a word _de
Profundis._ It is constantly among the fairest of the few hopes
that remain for me on the other side of this Stygian Abyss of a
_Friedrich_ (should I ever get through it alive) that I _shall
then_ begin writing to you again, who knows if not see you in the
body before quite taking wing! For I feel always, what I have
some times written, that there is (in a sense) but one completely