I hear tonight, O excellent man! that, unless I send a letter to
Boston tomorrow with the peep of day, it will miss the Liverpool
steamer, which sails earlier than I dreamed of. O foolish
Steamer! I am not ready to write. The facts are not yet ripe,
though on the turn of the blush. Couldst not wait a little?
Hurry is for slaves;--and Aristotle, if I rightly remember only
that little from my college lesson, affirmed that the high-minded
man never walked fast. O foolish Steamer! wait but a week, and
we will style thee Megalopsyche, and hang thee by the Argo in the
stars. Meantime I will not deny the dear and admirable man the
fragments of intelligence I have. Be it known unto you then,
Thomas Carlyle, that I received yesterday morning your letter by
the "Liverpool" with great contentment of heart and mind, in all
respects, saving that the American Hegira, so often predicted on
your side and prayed on ours, is treated with a most unbecoming
levity and oblivion; and, moreover, that you do not seem to have
received all the letters I seem to have sent. With the letter
came the proof-sheet safe, and shall be presently exhibited to
Little and Brown. You must have already the result of our first
colloquy on that matter. I can now bring the thing nearer to
certainty. But you must print their names as before advised on
the title-page.
Nearly four weeks ago Ellis sent me the noble Italian print for
my wife.* She is in Boston at this time, and I believe will be
glad that I have written without her aid or word this time, for
she was so deeply pleased with the gift that she said she never
could write to you. It came timely to me at least. It is a
right morning thought, full of health and flowing genius, and I
rejoice in it. It is fitly framed and tomorrow is to be hung in
the parlor.
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* Morghen's engraving of Guido's Aurora.
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Our Munroe's press, you must believe, was of Aristotle's category
of the high-minded and slow. Chiding would do no good. They
still said, "We have but one copy, and so but one hand at work"!
At last, on the 1st of July, the book appeared in the market, but
does not come from the binder fast enough to supply the instant
demand; and therefore your two hundred and sixty copies cannot
part from New York until the 20th of July. They will be on board
the London packet which sails on that day. The publisher has his
instructions to bind the volumes to match the old ones. Our year
since the publication of the Vols. I. and II. is just complete,
and I have set the man on the account, but doubt if I get it
before twelve or fourteen days. All the edition is gone except
forty copies, he told me; and asked me if I would not begin to
print a small edition of this First Series, five hundred, as we
have five hundred of the new Series too many, with that view.
But I am now so old a fox that I suspend majestically my answer
until I have his account. For on the 21st of July I am to pay
$462 for the paper of this new book: and by and by the printer's
bill,--whose amount I do not yet know; and it is better to be
"slow and high-minded" a little more, since we have been so much,
and not go deeper into these men's debt until we have tasted
somewhat of their credit. We are to get, as you know, by
contract, near a thousand dollars from these first two volumes;
yet a month ago I was forced to borrow two hundred dollars for
you on interest, such advances had the account required. But the
coming account will enlighten us all.
I am very happy in the "success" of the London lectures. I have
no word to add tonight, only that Sterling is not timber-toned,
that I love his poetry, that I admire his prose with reservations
here and there. What he knows he writes manly and well. Now and
then he puts in a pasteboard man; but all our readers here take
_Blackwood_ for his sake, and lately seek him in vain. I am
getting on with some studies of mine prosperously for me, have
got three essays nearly done, and who knows but in the autumn I
shall have a book? Meantime my little boy and maid, my mother
and wife, are well, and the two ladies send to you and yours
affectionate regards,--they would fain say urgent invitations.
My mother sends tonight, my wife always.
I shall send you presently a copy of a translation published here
of Eckermann, by Margaret Fuller, a friend of mine and of yours,
for the sake of its preface mainly. She is a most accomplished
lady, and her culture belongs rather to Europe than to America.
Good bye.
--R.W. Emerson