My Dear Friend,--In my letter written to you on the 1st of May
(enclosing a bill of exchange of L100 sterling, which, I hope,
arrived safely) I believe I promised to send you by the next
steamer an account for April. But the false tardy Munroe & Co.
did not send it to me until one day too late. Here it is, as
they render it, compiled from Little and Brown's statement and
their own. I have never yet heard whether you have received
their _Analysis_ or explanation of the last abstract they drew up
of the mutual claims between the great houses of T.C. and R.W.E.,
and I am impatient to know whether you have caused it to be
examined, and whether it was satisfactory. This new one is based
on that, and if that was incorrect, this must be also. I am
daily looking for some letter from you, which is perhaps near at
hand. If you have not written, write me exactly and immediately
on this subject, I entreat you. You will see that in this sheet
I am charged with a debt to you of $184.29. I shall tomorrow
morning pay to Mr. James Brown (of Little and Brown), who should
be the bearer of this letter, $185.00, which sum he will pay
you in its equivalent of English coin. I give Mr. Brown an
introductory letter to you, and you must not let slip the
opportunity to make the man explain his own accounts, if any
darkness hang on them. In due time, perhaps, we can send you
Munroe, and Nichols also, and so all your factors shall render
direct account of themselves to you. I believe I shall also make
Brown the bearer of a little book written some time since by a
young friend of mine in a very peculiar frame of mind,--thought
by most persons to be mad,--and of the publication of which I
took the charge.* Mr. Very requested me to send you a copy.--I
had a letter from Sterling, lately, which rejoiced me in all but
the dark picture it gave of his health. I earnestly wish good
news of him. When you see him, show him these poems, and ask him
if they have not a grandeur.
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* _Essays and Poems,_ by Jones Very,--a little volume, the work
of an exquisite spirit. Some of the poems it contains are as if
written by a George Herbert who had studied Shakespeare, read
Wordsworth, and lived in America.
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When I wrote last, I believe all the sheets of the Six Lectures
had not come to me. They all arrived safely, although the last
package not until our American pirated copy was just out of press
in New York. My private reading was not less happy for this
robbery whereby the eager public were supplied. Odin was all new
to me; and Mahomet, for the most part; and it was all good to
read, abounding in truth and nobleness. Yet, as I read these
pages, I dream that your audience in London are less prepared to
hear, than is our New England one. I judge only from the tone.
I think I know many persons here who accept thoughts of this vein
so readily now, that, if you were speaking on this shore, you
would not feel that emphasis you use to be necessary. I have
been feeble and almost sick during all the spring, and have been
in Boston but once or twice, and know nothing of the reception
the book meets from the Catholic Carlylian Church. One reader
and friend of yours dwells now in my house, and, as I hope, for a
twelvemonth to come,--Henry Thoreau,--a poet whom you may one
day be proud of;--a noble, manly youth, full of melodies and
inventions. We work together day by day in my garden, and I grow
well and strong. My mother, my wife, my boy and girl, are all in
usual health, and according to their several ability salute you
and yours. Do not cease to tell me of the health of your wife
and of the learned and friendly physician.
Yours,
R.W. Emerson