My Dear Emerson,--Has anything gone wrong with you? How is it
that you do not write to me? These three or four weeks, I know
not whether _duly_ or not so long, I have been in daily hope of
some sign from you; but none comes; not even a Newspaper,--open
at the ends. The German Translator, Mr. Dwight, mentioned, at
the end of a Letter I had not long ago, that you had given a
brilliant course of Lectures at Boston, but had been obliged to
_intermit it on account of illness._ Bad news indeed, that
latter clause; at the same time, it was thrown in so cursorily I
would not let myself be much alarmed; and since that, various
New England friends have assured me here that there was nothing
of great moment in it, that the business was all well over now,
and you safe at Concord again. Yet how is it that I do not
hear? I will tell you my guess is that those Boston Carlylean
_Miscellanies_ are to blame. The Printer is slack and lazy as
Printers are; and you do not wish to write till you can send
some news of him? I will hope and believe that only this is it,
till I hear worse.
I sent you a Dumfries Newspaper the other week, for a sign of my
existence and anxiety. A certain Mr. Ellis of Boston is this day
packing up a very small memorial of me to your Wife; a poor
Print rolled about a bit of wood: let her receive it graciously
in defect of better. It comes under your address. Nay, properly
it is my Wife's memorial to your Wife. It is to be hung up in
the Concord drawing-room. The two Households, divided by wide
seas, are to understand always that they are united nevertheless.
My special cause for writing this day rather than another is the
old story, book business. You have brought that upon yourself,
my friend; and must do the best you can with it. After all, why
should not Letters be on business too? Many a kind thought,
uniting man with man, in gratitude and helpfulness, is founded on
business. The speaker at Dartmouth College seems to think it
ought to be so. Nor do I dissent.--But the case is this, Fraser
and I are just about bargaining for a second edition of the
_Revolution._ He will print fifteen hundred for the English
market, in a somewhat closer style, and sell them here at twenty-
four shillings a copy. His first edition is all gone but some
handful; and the man is in haste, and has taken into a mood of
hope,--for he is weak and aguish, alternating from hot to cold;
otherwise, I find, a very accurate creature, and deals in his
unjust trade as justly as any other will. He has settled with
me; his half-profits amount to some L130, which by charging me
for every presentation copy he cuts down to somewhere about L110;
_not_ the lion's share in the gross produce, yet a great share
compared with an expectancy no higher than _zero!_ We continue
on the same system for this second adventure; I cannot go
hawking about in search of new terms; I might go farther and
fare worse. And now comes your part of the affair; in which I
would fain have had your counsel; but must ask your help,
proceeding with my own light alone. After Fraser's fifteen
hundred are printed off, the types remain standing, and I for my
own behoof throw off five hundred more, designed for your market.
Whether five hundred are too many or too few, I can only guess;
if too many, we can retain them here and turn them to account;
if too few, there is no remedy. At all events, costing me only
the paper and press-work, there is surely no Pirate in the Union
that can _undersell_ us! Nay, it seems they have a drawback on
our taxed paper, sufficient or nearly so to land the cargo at
Boston without more charge. You see, therefore, how it is. Can
you find me a Bookseller, as for yourself; he and you can fix
what price the ware will carry when you see it. Meanwhile I must
have his Title-page; I must have his directions (if any be
needed); nay, for that matter, you might write a Preface if you
liked,--though I see not what you have to say, and recommend
silence rather! The book is to be in three volumes duodecimo,
and we will take care it be fit to show its face in your market.
A few errors of the press; and one correction (about the sinking
of the _Vengeur,_ which I find lately to be an indisputable
falsehood); these are all the changes. We are to have done
printing, Fraser predicts, "in two months";--say two and a half!
I suppose you decipher the matter out of this plastering and
smearing; and will do what is needful in it. "Great inquiry" is
made for the _Miscellanies,_ Fraser says; though he suspects it
may perhaps be but one or two men inquiring _often,_--the dog!
I am again upon the threshold of extempore lecturing: on "the
Revolutions of Modern Europe"; Protestantism, 2 lectures;
Puritanism, 2; French Revolution, 2. I almost regret that I had
undertaken the thing this year at all, for I am no longer driven
by Poverty as heretofore. Nay, I am richer than I have been for
ten years; and have a kind of prospect, for the first time this
great while, of being allowed to subsist in this world for the
future: a great blessing, perhaps the greatest, when it comes as
a novelty! However, I thought it right to keep this Lecture
business open, come what might. I care less about it than I did;
it is not agony and wretched trembling to the marrow of the bone,
as it was the last two times. I believe, in spite of all my
perpetual indigestions and nervous woes, I am actually getting
into better health; the weary heart of me is quieter; I wait in
silence for the new chapter,--feeling truly that we are at the
end of one period here. I count it _two_ in my autobiography:
we shall see what the _third_ is; [if] third there be. But I am
in small haste for a third. How true is that of the old
Prophets, "The _word of the Lord_ came unto" such and such a one!
When it does not come, both Prophet and Prosaist ought to be
thankful (after a sort), and rigorously hold their tongue.--Lord
Durham's people have come over with golden reports of the
Americans, and their brotherly feelings. One Arthur Buller
preaches to me, with emphasis, on a quite personal topic till one
explodes in laughter to hear him, the good soul: That I, namely,
am the most esteemed, &c., and ought to go over and Lecture in
all great towns of the Union, and make, &c., &c.! I really do
begin to think of it in this interregnum that I am in. But then
my Lectures must be written; but then I must become a _hawker,
--ach Gott!_
The people are beginning to quote you here: _tant pis pour eux!_
I have found you in two Cambridge books. A certain Mr. Richard
M. Milnes, M.P., a beautiful little Tory dilettante poet and
politician whom I love much, applied to me for _Nature_ (the
others he has) that he might write upon it. Somebody has
stolen _Nature_ from me, or many have thumbed it to pieces; I
could not find a copy. Send me one, the first chance you have.
And see Miss Martineau in the last _Westminster Review:_--these
things you are old enough to stand? They are even of benefit?
Emerson is not without a select public, the root of a select
public on this side of the water too.--Popular Sumner is off to
Italy, the most popular of men,--inoffensive, like a worn
sixpence that has no physiognomy left. We preferred Coolidge to
him in this circle; a square-cut iron man, yet with clear
symptoms of a heart in him. Your people will come more and more
to their maternal Babylon, will they not, by the steamers?--
Adieu, my dear friend. My Wife joins me in all good prayers for
you and yours.
--Thomas Carlyle