Unofficially there were much,--much that is mournful, but perhaps
also something that is good and blessed, and though the saddest,
also the highest, the lovingest and best; as beseems Time's
sunset, now coming nigh. At present I will say only that, in
bodily health, I am not to be called Ill, for a man who will be
seventy-four next month; nor, on the spiritual side, has
anything been laid upon me that is quite beyond my strength.
More miserable I have often been; though as solitary, soft of
heart, and sad, of course never.

Publisher Chapman, when I question him whether you for certain
_get_ your Monthly Volume of what they call "The Library
Edition," assures me that "it is beyond doubt":--I confess I
should still like to be _better_ assured. If all is _right,_ you
should, by the time this Letter arrives, be receiving or have
received your thirteenth Volume, last of the _Miscellanies._
Adieu, my Friend.

Ever truly yours,
T. Carlyle



CLXXVII. Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, 4 January, 1870

Dear Emerson,--A month ago or more I wrote, by the same post, to
you and to Norton about those Books for Harvard College; and in