My Dear Friend,--I am not now in any Condition to write a letter,
having neither the facts from the booksellers which you would
know touching our future plans, nor yet a satisfactory account
balanced and settled of our past dealings; and lastly, no time
to write what I would say,--as my poor lectures are in full
course, and absorb all my wits; but as the "Royal William" will
not wait, and as I have a hundred pounds to send on account of
the sales of the _French Revolution,_ I must steal a few minutes
to send my salutation. I have received all your four good
letters: and you are a good and generous man to write so many.
Two came on the 2d and 3d of January, and the last on the 9th.
If the bookselling Munroe had answered me yesterday, as he ought,
I should be able to satisfy you as to the time when to expect our
cargo of _Miscellanies._ The third and fourth volumes are now
printing: 't is a fortnight since we began. You shall have two
hundred and fifty copies,--I am not quite sure you can have
more,--bound, and _entitled,_ and directed as you desire, at
least according to the best ability of our printer as far as the
typography is concerned, and we will speed the work as fast as we
can; but as we have but a single copy of _Fraser's Magazine_--we
do not get on rapidly. The _French Revolution_ was all sold more
than a month since. We should be glad of more copies, but the
bookseller thinks not of enough copies to justify a new edition
yet. I should not be surprised, however, to see that some bold
brother of the trade had undertaken it. Now, what does your
question point at in reference to your new edition, asking "if we
want more"? Could you send us out a part of your edition at
American prices, and at the same time to your advantage? I wish
I knew the precise answer to this question, then perhaps I could
keep all pirates out of our bay.
I shall convey in two days your message to Stearns Wheeler, who
is now busy in correcting the new volumes. He is now Greek Tutor
in Harvard College.*--Kindest thanks to Jane Carlyle for her
generous remembrances, which I will study to deserve. Has the
heterodoxy arrived in Chelsea, and quite destroyed us even in the
charity of our friend? I am sorry to have worried you so often
about the summer letter. Now am I your debtor four times. The
parish commotion, too, has long ago subsided here, and my course
of Lectures on "Human Life" finds a full attendance. I wait for
the coming of the _Westminster,_ which has not quite yet
arrived here, though I have seen the London advertisement. It
sounds prosperously in my ear what you say of Dr. Carlyle's
appointments. I was once very near the man in Rome, but did not
see him. I will atone as soon as I can for this truncated
epistle. You must answer it immediately, so far as to
acknowledge the receipt of the enclosed bill of exchange, and
soon I will send you the long promised _account_ of the _French
Revolution,_ and also such moral account of the same as is
over due.
Yours affectionately,
R.W. Emerson
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* This promising young scholar edited with English notes the
first American edition of Herodotus. He went to Europe to pursue
his studies, and died, greatly regretted, at Rome, of a fever,
in 1848.
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