29 January–4 February 1838

Five days ago came Carlyle's letter, and has kept me warm ever since with its affection and praise. It seems his friend John Sterling loves Waldo Emerson also, by reason of reading the book Nature. I am quite bewitched, maugre all my unamiableness, with so dainty a relation as a friendship for a scholar and poet I have never seen, and he Carlyle's friend. I read his papers immediately in Blackwood, and see a thinker, if not a poet. Thought he has, and right in every line, but music he cares not for. I had certainly supposed that a lover of Carlyle and of me must needs love rhythm and music of style. So pleasant a piece of sentiment as this new relation, it does not seem very probable that any harsh experience will be allowed to disturb. It is not very probable that we shall meet bodily, to put the ethereal web we weave to the test of any rending or straining. And yet, God knows, I dare and I will boldly impawn his temper, that he dares meet and cooperate until we are assayed and proven. I am not a sickly sentimentalist, though the name of a friend warms my heart and makes me feel as a girl, but must and will have in my companion sense and virtue.'