My Dear Friend,--I am quite uneasy that I do not hear from you.
On the 21st of July I wrote to you and enclosed a remittance of
L50 by a Bill of Exchange on Baring Brothers, drawn by Chandler,
Howard, & Co., which was sent in the steamer "Royal William." On
the 2d of August I received your letter of inquiry respecting our
edition of the _Miscellanies,_ and wrote a few days later in
reply, that we could send you out two or three hundred copies of
our first two volumes, in sheets, at eighty-nine cents per copy
of two volumes, and the small additional price of the new title-
page. I said also that I would wait until I heard from you
before commencing the printing of the last two volumes of the
_Miscellanies,_ and, if you desired it, would print any number of
copies with a title-page for London. This letter went in a
steamer--he "Great Western" probably--about the 10th or 12th of
August. (Perhaps I misremember the names [of the steamers], and
the first should be last.) I have heard nothing from you since.
I trust my letters have not miscarried. (A third was sent also
by another channel inclosing a duplicate of the Bill of
Exchange.) With more fervency, I trust that all goes well in the
house of my friend,--and I suppose that you are absent on some
salutary errand of repairs and recreation. _Use, I pray you,
your earliest_ hour in certifying me of the facts.
One word more in regard to business. I believe I expressed some
surprise, in the July letter, that the booksellers should have no
greater balance for us at this settlement. I have since studied
the account better, and see that we shall not be disappointed in
the year of obtaining at least the sum first promised,--seven
hundred and sixty dollars; but the whole expense of the edition
is paid out of the copies first sold, and our profits depend on
the last sales. The edition is almost gone, and you shall have
an account at the end of the year.
In a letter within a twelvemonth I have urged you to pay us a
visit in America, and in Concord. I have believed that you would
come one day, and do believe it. But if, on your part, you have
been generous and affectionate enough to your friends here--or
curious enough concerning our society--to wish to come, I think
you must postpone, for the present, the satisfaction of your
friendship and your curiosity. At this moment I would not have
you here, on any account. The publication of my _Address to the
Divinity College_ (copies of which I sent you) has been the
occasion of an outcry in all our leading local newspapers against
my "infidelity," "pantheism," and "atheism." The writers warn
all and sundry against me, and against whatever is supposed
to be related to my connection of opinion, &c.; against
Transcendentalism, Goethe, and _Carlyle._ I am heartily sorry to
see this last aspect of the storm in our washbowl. For, as
Carlyle is nowise guilty, and has unpopularities of his own, I do
not wish to embroil him in my parish differences. You were
getting to be a great favorite with us all here, and are daily a
greater with the American public, but just now, _in Boston,_
where I am known as your editor, I fear you lose by the
association. Now it is indispensable to your right influence
here, that you should never come before our people as one of a
clique, but as a detached, that is, universally associated
man; so I am happy, as I could not have thought, that you
have not yielded yourself to my entreaties. Let us wait a
little until this foolish clamor be overblown. My position
is fortunately such as to put me quite out of the reach of any
real inconvenience from the panic-strikers or the panic-struck;
and, indeed, so far as this uneasiness is a necessary result of
mere inaction of mind, it seems very clear to me that, if I live,
my neighbors must look for a great many more shocks, and perhaps
harder to bear.
The article on German Religious Writers in the last _Foreign
Quarterly Review_ suits our meridian as well as yours; as is
plainly signified by the circumstance that our newspapers copy
into their columns the opening tirade and _no more._ Who wrote
that paper? And who wrote the paper on Montaigne in the
_Westminster?_ I read with great satisfaction the Poems and
Thoughts of Archaeus in _Blackwood._ "The Sexton's Daughter" is
a beautiful poem: and I recognize in them all _the_ Soul, with
joy and love. Tell me of the author's health and welfare; or,
will not he love me so much as to write me a letter with his own
hand? And tell me of yourself, what task of love and wisdom the
Muses impose; and what happiness the good God sends to you and
yours. I hope your wife has not forgotten me.
Yours affectionately,
R.W. Emerson
The _Miscellanies,_ Vols. I. and II., are a popular book. About
five hundred copies have been sold. The second article on Jean
Paul works with might on the inner man of young men. I hate to
write you letters on business and facts like this. There are so
few Friends that I think some time I shall meet you nearer, for
I love you more than is fit to say. W.H. Channing has written
a critique on you, which I suppose he has sent you, in the
_Boston Review._