I finished reading The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 1 on my Kindle yesterday and immediately downloaded volume 2 so I could continue the pleasure today. What is so wonderful about the letters is the intimacy. Reading letters and diaries is such a voyeuristic undertaking especially when reading those of famous people. What do we hope to find there that we don’t know about them from their public work? Do we hope for some revelation, some scandal? Or do we just wish to know the public person as a private person too so that we may round them off and call them friend even though our lives never once overlapped?
I’m not sure I can answers those questions. But I do know that what reading these letters has done for me after I spent so much time reading all of Emerson’s published work and building a personal shrine to his genius is turn him into a human being. I have no desire to knock Emerson down into the mud and find out if he had any dirty secrets. It is a pleasure, however to find from his letters that as a person he really strove to live his philosophy. He proves over and over to be a good, kind man and generous to a fault. When I read the letter Emerson wrote when his five-year-old son died and then Carlyle’s beautiful response, my heart nearly broke. When I read letter after letter in which Emerson, trying to account to Carlyle for the books published and sold in America on his behalf, admits himself baffled by the booksellers’ numbers I laughed.
If letters can be said to have themes, one of the predominating ones that emerged particularly from Carlyle’s letters was the idea of silence. In a letter dated December 8, 1839, Carlyle writes
He knows what silence mean; let him know speech also, in its season the two are like canvas and pigment, like darkness and light-image painted thereon; the one is essential to the other, not possible without the other.
Carlyle is always encouraging Emerson to speak out his truth but not until the ideas and words are ready to be born. Carlyle thinks silence is better in all cases then cant, insincerity, stupidity. Emerson doesn’t talk about silence in quite the same way, but he does know that the books and ideas will come when they are ready. And bless him, he appears to get a bit frustrated when they don’t come as quickly as he’d like.
The idea of silence being a necessary counterpart to speech is an idea that few seem to pay much attention to these days. There is so much noise coming from every direction that it is a wonder we don’t all go crazy from it. In the mad rush to say something first, few stop to think about whether what they want to say is worth saying so we all start to sound like a bunch of gobbling turkeys. I wonder how much richer our words and deeper our thoughts would be if only we could manage to temper them with a little more silence?
Now please excuse me while I go silently contemplate the deliciousness of one of my Bookman’s chocolate chip cookies.
Your closing line made me laugh! If anything is worth silently contemplating, surely it’s chocolate chip cookies? Your thoughts about silence make me think about yoga and meditation — they are ways I try to bring some silence into my life these days. I really need silence and quietness in order to recover from all the craziness the rushing-around part of life brings. Being in the middle of a busy semester makes the silence seem even more necessary.
Carlyle’s “Worship of Silence” is a mystery to me, so your thoughts are quite helpful.
The idea of voluble, cantankerous Carlyle as “silent” strikes me as hilarious. I need to suppress that response if I want to understand him.
Oh great minds do think alike!
I’m currently reading Sara Maitland’s Book of Silence and enjoying it very much indeed. These sound like most satisfying letters – human and humane. Bet the choc chip cookie was good, too.
Stefanie, silence is why I only have one, very small television (no one wants to watch TV at my house because the screen is too small) why I don’t have the internet at the house, and why I held out against getting a cell phone until 10 months ago. It saddens me that writing letters with ink and paper has virtually disappeared. This series sounds lovely.
I need to learn more about silence – I’m a bit of a chatterbox
I love epistolary novels yet when it comes to reading actual letters & diaries I’ve never been that drawn to them. However, after I read the Letters of Vincent Van Gogh earlier this year, I’m definitely more interested in finding more letters to read. So who knows, maybe one day I’ll have to give this book a whirl!
And, now I have to go search our cabinets to see if I can find some cookies! haha.
Your description has now made me want to go out and read these Correspondences.
I’ve been doing a great deal of research into the nature of humanity and it seems that people enjoy being voyeurs as a way to validate their own existences. People love to read stories about flawed individuals as it makes them feel like their flaws are not nearly as bad (or to identify that others also have the same issue). On the flip side, people enjoy reading about good individuals as it gives them an ideal to work towards and provides someone with a goal that they can work towards – as goals are the best way of ensuring that we achieve something.
Thanks for the great post!
I’ve also wondered why we haven’t gone mad from all the information and messages being thrown at us all the time. I guess that is a testament to the power of our brains to take in information. But I suppose every living creature survives by constantly monitoring their ever-changing environment—quite a task considering how complex nature is—so perhaps it would be strange if we didn’t seek out new information all the time.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
That cookie sounds good. If I shut up now can I have one?
“I wonder how much richer our words and deeper our thoughts would be if only we could manage to temper them with a little more silence?”
I’ve been wondering that a lot myself lately and trying very (VERY, because, damn!, is it difficult!) to become a better listener, to try not to race to what I have to say next, trampling all over the person with whom I’m supposed to be having a dialog, and to try to temper my thoughts with a little more silence. Letters are actually a great way to do that, aren’t they? They’re fading out of existence, so maybe what we’re doing will become fascinating relics, and someone will, one day, be reading “The Collected Letters Between Stefanie and Emily.” Hmmm…maybe I ought to be writing that next letter to you instead of hanging out online tonight…
Emily and all -
when was the last time you actually wrote a letter. I know I send ou cards from time to time but as I have most of my connections in the digital space I find that an email address is a much more easy thing to find than an actual address. That being said, you could probably treat an email like a letter by turning off all other distractions while writing it
and for now I will practice more silence
-Nick
“In the mad rush to say something first, few stop to think about whether what they want to say is worth saying so we all start to sound like a bunch of gobbling turkeys.” I love this sentence of yours! Great points!
Yum. Enjoy that chocolate chip cookie (as I’m sure you already have…).
Dorothy, oh and they were tasty that brought me a fraction closer to grasping the essential nature of cookies. Yoga and meditation are good ways to practice silence. I agree, with all the rushing we do, making time for silence is even more important.
Amateur Reader, Carlyle isn’t really the silent type, is he? I was laughing heartily at first whenever he’d mention silence because he is anything but. Gradually though it starts to become clearer as to what he means. I still don’t entirely understand, but I’m not laughing at him anymore so I guess that’s progress!
Litlove, I don’t know anything about the book you mention so please be sure to write about it on your blog. I am intrigued! As for the cookie, it was yummy
Grad, oh you are doing so well! We don’t have a TV at all but we have the internet and sometimes I think it is worse. I love writing letters so if you ever want a pen pal, just let me know!
Iliana, I very much like reading diaries but sometime find letters hard to read. They have to be by people I am interested in or I can’t do it. Thanks for reminding me about the Van Gogh letters! I forgot to put it on my TBR list!
Nick, I recommend the letters if you like Emerson or Carlyle. Beware though, they are not all works of genius! As for writing letters, I still write them regularly and I know a couple of the commenters here do too, so the art is not dead!
Sylvia, I think sometimes we do go a little crazy from so much information but I also think that are brains are very good at blocking things out when they start to be overwhelmed. And you are always welcome to a cookie
Emily, I agree, letters are a great way practice silence and be a better listener. It is a sad thing that letters are fading out so I am glad to have such a marvelous pen pal. That letter is coming soon, right?
Rebecca, thanks! Oh yes, the cookie was delicious.