Last words of Thomas Carlyle - Warburg Institute

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE IN THE YEARS 1837-57 269least !The very Margraves of Baireuth and Anspachare and continue mere echoes to me.—The Duchessof Saxe-Gotha too (F'^'s and Voltaire's), I haveasked on all sides who or what she is and nobody canso much as show me the colour of a ribbon of her !Voltau^e's 5,000 letters (100 times too many) I j&nd asimperfectly edited as any ; indeed they are three-partsutterly illegible already, for want of editing,—and mustend by being flung out, as portions of Chaos or theutterly Dark, for most part before very long, I apprehend.It was W alone that first sent me into thatblack element, or beyond the very shores of it ; and 1confess I had no idea how dark and vacant it hadgrown.—If you can think of any guide or guides forme, in this important particular at once so essentialand so completely unprovided for, surely it will be agreat favour. Of course there are guides better orworse, to an inquiring stranger ; and the worst ofthem, if only authentic and intelligible, would be akind of heaven to me in this enterprise.Did you see the Selection from Sir AndrewMitchell's Correspondence, two thick volumes whichappeared here some years ago ? Doubtless they arein some of your Berlin libraries. The Editor, oneBirret, is a man of some energy and talent ; but saidto be very vain and ill-natured ; and is, beyond doubt,profoundly ill-informed on the matter he has hereundertaken. There is a letter, from a poor Englishsoldier, 'acting as servant to Marshal Keith, which