I spent three posts on some words of Ralph Waldo Emerson; it’s only fair I spend some time on those of his receiving correspondant, Thomas Carlyle.

Emerson to Carlyle, 15 Aug 1842 – letter missing

Carlyle to Emerson, 29 Aug 1842

“Thanks for asking me to write you a word in the Dial. Had such a purpose struck me long ago, there have been many things passing through my head,–march-marching as they ever do, in long-drawn, scandalous Falstaff-regiments (a man ashamed to be seen passing through Coventry with such a set!)–some one of which, snatched out of the ragged rank, and dressed and drilled a little, might perhaps fitly have been saved from Chaos, and sent to the Dial. In the future we shall be on the lookout.”

Unfortunately Carlyle lost this letter of Emerson, but we get the picture. Emerson had taken over editorship of the Dial (which was the reason for his having difficulty getting to writing his chapter on poetry), and requested that Carlyle contribute something–for no compensation due to the magazine’s finances. You see Carlyle’s answer. He did eventually send something to Emerson to include.

I like what Carlyle says about the difficulty of capturing ideas and turning them into marketable copy. I don’t even pretend to understand the Falstaff reference, so let me simplify what Carlyle said: “…there have been many things passing through my head, march-marching as they ever do, in long-drawn…regiments…some one of which, snatched out of the ragged rank, and dressed and drilled a little, might perhaps fitly have been saved from Chaos….” This describes me to a tee. Now, don’t take me wrong, I am not comparing my feeble skills or finished product with the great Carlyle, but the ideas of something to write about go through my head faster that cars on the Interstate. Oh for a traffic jam that would slow them down! allowing me to look at and listen to one for a while, kick the tires and peer in the windows, and see if it might be a vehicle for publishing.

I love Carlyle’s metaphor: ideas marching like new military recruits–ragged, stretched out, undisciplined, headed to chaos. He recognizes that, given a purpose, he could have captured some of them and made them fit for publishing, but he didn’t. Was it the lack of a purpose? Maybe, but Carlyle was seldom without a writing project. As he wrote this letter, he was researching for a history of Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth era. He never quite wrote the history, though he did publish Cromwell’s letters and speeches, with elucidations. Also at this time he was working on his classic Past And Present, a treatise on what he saw as the sad state of affairs in the British Isles brought on by the Industrial Revolution. I started this book some years ago, but put it aside as being more difficult to grasp than I wanted at that time. So, maybe Carlyle did pull out of the ranks the ideas that seemed to be marching straightest, tallest, that showed the most promise for dressing and drilling.

Was it lack of desire that caused Carlyle not to do something with those many ideas, at least capture them in a notebook for possible training at a later date? Or was it because he saw, at the age of 47, that he had enough ideas already captured to take him the full distance to the end of his writing life? Sometimes I feel like that. If I found time to write every novel, every non-fiction book, every short story, every political essay, every historical-political newspaper column currently whirling through my head, and mix in a poem from time to time, and if I had no day job, no family responsibilities, no church responsibilities, no Savior to worship, I would have to live to 100, never slacking the pace or research, writing, revision, selling, and marketing to complete them all. Again, I’m no Carlyle, but I get his drift.

Oh to pluck a few more ideas from the ranks and begin to dress them and drill them and save them from Chaos.

I want to make one more post on the words Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote to Thomas Carlyle in 1842. For convenience, here’s the quote.

“I had it fully in my heart to write at large leisure in noble mornings opened by prayer or readings from Plato or whomsoever else is dearest to the Morning Muse, a new chapter on Poetry, for which all readings, all studies, are but preparation; but now it is July, and my chapter is in rudest beginnings. Yet when I go out of doors in the summer night, and see how high the stars are, I am persuaded that there is time enough for all that I must do; and the good world manifests very little impatience.”

I find in these words much to apply to my own life. I’m not comparing my writings to his, nor my brain power to his, but I find much in his words to inform and inspire me. Consider these nuggets.

1. I had it in my heart to write pretty much sums up how I feel. This desire hit me relatively late in life compared to Emerson, who seems to have written essays from the moment his motor skills were sufficient to use a pen. But I have it in my heart now, and early enough in life that there is time enough for all that I must do. These umpteen ideas running through my head will hopefully each find their quiet time in turn, and turn into words on paper.

2. to write at leisure in mornings tells me that Emerson planned his day, and had a specific writing time. His output was perhaps not the most prolific among writers of his stature, but it is certainly some of the best. I could stand to emulate his habits: to write at a specific time, possibly in the morning when the mind is freshest; to write at leisure, by which I think he means at an unhurried pace, allowing the mind adequate to think before the hand moves the pen. Yet Emerson’s obligations, especially his recent assumption of the editorship of The Dial magazine, caused him to not have his leisurely writing time in noble mornings, and not prayers, nor Plato, nor anything else was helping him get his chapter written on poetry. How well I can relate to that! Though my interruptions are much more mundane, such as a day job, family responsibilities, and a thousand trappings of community. Oh that it would be an editorship that stunts my writing!

3. my chapter is in rudest beginnings tells me that Emerson had a realistic understanding of his skills and where his writing stood at any given time relative to what he knew the finished product should look like. By rudest beginning, I don’t know if he means barely started, or written but still subject to significant editing, or maybe just in outline form. No matter; I need to keep repeating Scavella’s Mantra: I’m not as good as I think I am.

4. the good world tells me something of Emerson’s overall outlook of life. The world was good, good enough to say so to his friend, good enough to write about. Emerson was optimistic about life, and I believe his writings reflect that. In comparison, his friend Carlyle was down right dour and pessimistic. He felt like the world was going downhill fast, and English civilization well past its zenith. Unfortunately, my outlook on this world is closer to Carlyle than to Emerson, and I’m sure my writing reflects that. I need to be able to say “the good world” and mean it. There is good in the world, but unfortunately the bad overwhelms it sometimes. Help me, Lord, to look for the good around me and let my outlook be atuned to that.

Soon I will give a quote from one of Carlyle’s letters, in which I find some inspiration and comfort.

I have a new writing project, which I’m not going to write about here until I’m further along in it. This project has both stretched me thin and caused me to temporarily lay aside some other things I was working on or working up to.

I found a passage in Emerson’s writing applicable to this. I must first digress to tell about yesterday’s mundane activities. Part of this was foraging in used bookstores–just two, actually: the Friendly Bookstore in Rogers, run by the Friends of the Rogers Library, and the Salvation Army thrift store in Rogers. We also spent a pleasant hour at the Bentonville library, a new facility that has a coffee bar (I bought a large house blend) and plenty of space to simply browse and read at leisure. But I prate. At the Friendly Bookstore, I found three volumes I wanted. Two are somewhat inconsequential, but the third is a find: The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 2, printed in 1888. I have read both volumes 1 and 2 of this work, which is available in the public domain, specifically at Project Gutenberg, but there is something about having the words in your hand, rather than on the screen. The feel of the book, the care to protect its fragile condition, the sight of the browning pages, are all wonders when compared to pixels and plastic, electricity and fans, which are lost when the power ceases.

So of course I opened this book and began reading. Since this is volume 2 only, I had a distinct feeling of coming in on the middle of something. But Emerson, in his wisdom, rewarded me for being an interloper. After covering life’s business, he turned to his own writing and had this to say: “I had it fully in my heart to write at large leisure in noble mornings opened by prayer or readings from Plato or whomsoever else is dearest to the Morning Muse, a new chapter on Poetry, for which all readings, all studies, are but preparation; but now it is July, and my chapter is in rudest beginnings. Yet when I go out of doors in the summer night, and see how high the stars are, I am persuaded that there is time enough for all that I must do; and the good world manifests very little impatience.”

So much to consider in these words, not the words of a well-worked lecture or chapter in a non-fiction book, but a simple letter to a friend, possibly not even proof-read as they were jotted down, possibly with no draft and revision. “There is time enough for all that I must do.” That is something I really need to learn. With this new project started and uncomplete projects dropped or delayed, I need to say this over and over again, and take it to heart. Fifty-six years are gone; who knows how many are ahead. There is time enough, time enough.

By the way, this Blogger software is messing up the line spacing whenever I use the quote feature, so I’m not going to use the quote feature for a while, not until I can figure out how to do it right.

Spend any time in writer training, either in real life or on line, and you will hear some variation of this as the process for writing good material.

1. Write
2. Revise
3. Repeat step 2 until it is perfect.

Authors are encouraged to write as fast as they can. Get it down on paper (or on the screen). Don’t worry about the quality–that’s what revisions are for. When you finish the full piece, go back and revise, revise, revise and make it a quality product. Revise it some more to take out all your bad habits and enhance those good habits you don’t have yet. Revise some more. Perfect it. Edit it as many times as necessary to make it perfect. Almost everyone who teaches or coaches writers advocate this type of approach or something similar.

This is easy in the computer era. Successive revisions on a screen cost nothing but the electricity to run the machine, and it was probably running anyway. Occasional printouts have a cost of paper and toner, but printing fast-draft on re-used paper even reduces this cost. We have become a generation of writers who tend to write first and think later. Somehow out of this brain to fingers process we wind up with a finished product, hopefully a good piece–no, an excellent piece–no, a perfect piece.

My recent reading among writers of generations past has led me to think about how they approached writing. What about in the typewriter era, with all the cut and paste and re-typing? What about in the pre-typewriter era, when everything was written, and each revision meant a rewrite, at a time when ink and paper was more expensive than today? What about in ancient times, say at the time of Jesus Christ, when paper was papyrus, ink was soot mixed with water, and pens were quills or worse? Surely the ancients, and the moderately-distant past writers followed a different approach. They must have spent a lot more time forming the words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs in their heads–an inexpensive medium, those gray cells–before putting anything on paper.

When Emerson put these words on paper in 1834 with his own hand, how many drafts did he go through?

Believe then that the harp and ear are formed by one revolution of the wheel; that men are waiting to hear your epical song; and so be pleased to skip those excursive involved glees, and give us the simple air, without the volley of variations.

And, when Carlyle wrote this back the same year, did he think first and write later, or the other way around?

Poor Teufelsdrockh!–Creature of mischance, miscalculation, and thousand-fold obstruction! Here nevertheless he is, as you see; has struggled across the Stygian marshes, and now, as a stiched pamplet “for Friends” cannot be burnt or lost before his time.

These were just in letters between the two, and yet the writing is excellent, full of wit and wisdom, full of erudition. Such did not come from spilling their guts onto successive pieces of paper, but from churning words in the brain over a period of years. You might say these men are not typical of the writers of their day, but sit on the shoulders of all others. Perhaps so. But I wonder how much their process of writing (think, churn, write, revise, send) made them so.

My point? I don’t know that I have one; just pondering about how we have changed. I began a new writing project Sunday night (as if I’m not trying too many things now), and spent the time Sunday in reading for research and putting concepts on paper. I did a little of the same on Monday, then went to the computer and followed the write fast method, getting as much on disc as I could. When I read it tonight or tomorrow, will I see the makings of something good, or simple rot-gut?