ABSTRACT
In June 1883, Henry James wrote a letter from Boston to Lady Hannah de Rothschild Rosebery, a society hostess and wife of Archibald, a future British Prime Minister. Throughout his career, Henry James was preoccupied with issues of publicity, and with the intrusion of the public world into the private literary realm. That James Sr chose to frame his comments on Carlyle in the context of a discussion of Emerson is characteristic. James Sr's lecture on Emerson delivered in 1872 illustrates this tendency. James Sr's personal and intellectual relationship with Emerson had been on the wane for several years. James Sr redeems Emerson by comparing him to Carlyle, a convenient antagonist whom he employs to bring out Emerson's saintly qualities in stronger relief. James Sr might announce that 'Thomas Carlyle is incontestably dead at last, by the acknowledgement of all newspapers', but for both father and son, the 'old sausage' continued to fizz and sputter.
