My Dear Friend,--I enclose a bill of exchange for forty-eight
pounds sterling, payable by Baring Brothers & Co. after sixty
days from the 25th of February.
This Sum is part of a payment from Little and Brown on account of
sales of your London _French Revolution and of Chartism._ As
another part of their payment they asked me if they might not
draw on the estate of James Fraser for a balance due from his
house to them, and pay you so. I, perhaps unwisely, consented to
make the proffer to you, with the distinct stipulation, however,
that if it should not prove perfectly agreeable to you, and
exactly as available as another form of money, you should
instantly return it to me, and they shall pay me the amount,
$41.57, or L8 12s. 5d. in cash. My mercantile friend, Abel
Adams, did not admire my wisdom in accepting this bill of Little
and Brown; so I told them I should probably bring it back to
them, and if there is a shadow of inconvenience in it you will
send it back to me by the next steamer. For they have no claims
on us. I decide not to enclose the Little and Brown bill in this
sheet,--but to let it accompany this letter in the same packet.
I grieve to hear that you have bought any of our wretched
Southern Stocks. In New England all Southern and Southwestern
debt is usually regarded as hopeless, unless the debtor is
personally known. Massachusetts stock is in the best credit of
any public stock. Ward told me that it would be safest for you
to keep your Illinois stock, although he could say nothing very
good of it.
Our city banks in Boston are in better credit than the banks in
any other city here, yet one in which a large part of my own
property is invested has failed, for the two last half-years, to
pay any dividend, and I am a poor man until next April, when, I
hope, it will not fail me again. If you wish to invest money
here, my friend Abel Adams, who is the principal partner in one
of our best houses, Barnard, Adams, & Co., will know how to give
you the best assistance and action the case admits.
My dear friend, you should have had this letter and these
messages by the last steamer; but when it sailed, my son, a
perfect little boy of five years and three months, had ended his
earthly life.* You can never sympathize with me; you can never
know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few
weeks ago I accounted myself a very rich man, and now the poorest
of all. What would it avail to tell you anecdotes of a sweet and
wonderful boy, such as we solace and sadden ourselves with at
home every morning and evening? From a perfect health and as
happy a life and as happy influences as ever child enjoyed, he
was hurried out of my arms in three short days by Scarlatina.--We
have two babes yet,--one girl of three years, and one girl of
three months and a week, but a promise like that Boy's I shall
never see. How often I have pleased myself that one day I should
send to you this Morning Star of mine, and stay at home so gladly
behind such a representative. I dare not fathom the Invisible
and Untold to inquire what relations to my Departed ones I yet
sustain. Lidian, the poor Lidian, moans at home by day and by
night. You too will grieve for us, afar. I believe I have two
letters from you since I wrote last. I shall write again soon,
for Bronson Alcott will probably go to London in about a month,
and him I shall surely send to you, hoping to atone by his great
nature for many smaller one, that have craved to see you. Give
me early advice of receiving these Bills of Exchange.
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* The memory of this Boy, "born for the future, to the future
lost;" is enshrined in the heart of every lover of childhood and
of poetry by his father's impassioned _Threnody._
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Tell Jane Carlyle our sorrowing story with much love, and with
all good hope for her health and happiness. Tell us when you
write, with as much particularity as you can, how it stands with
you, and all your household; with the Doctor, and the friends;
what you do, and propose to do, and whether you will yet come to
America, one good day?
Yours with love,
R. Waldo Emerson