The Book on Cromwell is not to come out till the 22d of this month. For many weeks it has been a real weariness to me; my hope, always disappointed, that now is the last time I shall have any trade with it. Even since I began writing, there has been an Engraver here, requiring new indoctrination,—poor fellow! Nay, in about ten days it must be over: let us not complain. I feel it well to be worth nothing, except for the little fractions or intermittent fits of pious industry there really were in it; and my one wish is that the human species would be pleased to take it off my hands, and honestly let me hear no more about it! If it please Heaven, I will rest awhile still, and then try something better.
In three days hence, my Wife and I are off to the Hampshire coast for a winter visit to kind friends there, if in such a place it will prosper long with us. The climate there is greatly better than ours; they are excellent people, well affected to us; and can be lived with, though of high temper and ways! They are the Lord Ashburtons, in fact; more properly the younger stratum of that house; partly a kind of American people,—who know Waldo Emerson, among other fine things, very well! I think we are to stay some three weeks: the bustle of moving is already begun.
You promise us a new Book soon? Let it be soon, then. There are many persons here that will welcome it now. To one man here it is ever as an articulate voice amid the infinite cackling and cawing. That remains my best definition of the effect it has on me. Adieu, my friend. Good be with you and your Household always. Vale.
—T.C.
CV. Carlyle to Emerson
Chelsea, 3 January, 1846