The Carlyle Letters Online

January-October 1859

The Collected Letters, Volume 35

TC TO W. M. THACKERAY ; 20 October 1859; DOI: 10.1215/lt-18591020-TC-WMT-01; CL 35: 237-236

TC TO W. M. THACKERAY

October 20, 1859.

DEAR THACKERAY,—Right gladly I would if only I could, but I can yet bethink me of nothing in the least likely.1 Indeed I am so crushed to death amid Prussian rubbish these long years past, I have nearly lost the power of thinking in any form, and am possessed by one sad futile ghost of a thought. How am I to get out of this cursed thing alive? If ever I do live to get out of it and find the Thackeray magazine and editor still lively, then!2

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W. M. Thackeray to Thomas Carlyle, 16 October [1859]

Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland

Meanwhile I do not quite give the matter up—your matter I mean—as desperate. And if any possibility do offer, be sure I will lay hold of it. With prayers for the new periodical and you, yours ever, T. CARLYLE.

Sourcenote

TC-WMT, 20 Oct. Pbd: Anne Ritchie, “Introduction to Philip, 1860–1862,” in W. M. Thackeray, The Adventures of Philip, Works (1899) 11:xx—xxi; Wilson, Carlyle 5:363–64; Ray 4:157–58. Thackeray's da., Anne Ritchie, wrote biographical intros. to Thackeray's Works (1898–1901). Text: Ritchie.

Footnotes

1. Thackeray wrote, 16 Oct.: “Is there any hope? Can you help an old friend? Have you never an unedited chapterkin, or a subject on wh you wish to speak to the public? And if you have will you think of my magazine and / WMT”; see above.

2. Thackeray had been appointed editor of the new Cornhill Magazine by late Aug.; he remained editor until May 1862 and d. Dec. 1863; TC did not finish Frederick until 1865.

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