My Dear Carlyle,--I wrote you a letter from my brother's office
in New York nearly a month ago to tell you how hardly it had
fared with me here at home, that the eye of my home was plucked
out when that little innocent boy departed in his beauty and
perfection from my sight. Well, I have come back hither to my
work and my play, but he comes not back, and I must simply suffer
it. Doubtless the day will come which will resolve this, as
everything gets resolved, into light, but not yet.
I write now to tell you of a piece of life. I wish you to know
that there is shortly coming to you a man by the name of Bronson
Alcott. If you have heard his name before, forget what you have
heard. Especially if you have ever read anything to which this
name was attached, be sure to forget that; and, inasmuch as in
you lies, permit this stranger when he arrives at your gate to
make a new and primary impression. I do not wish to bespeak any
courtesies or good or bad opinion concerning him. You may love
him, or hate him, or apathetically pass by him, as your genius
shall dictate; only I entreat this, that you do not let him go
quite out of your reach until you are sure you have seen him
and know for certain the nature of the man. And so I leave
contentedly my pilgrim to his fate.
I should tell you that my friend Margaret Fuller, who has edited
our little _Dial_ with such dubious approbation on the part of
you and other men, has suddenly decided a few days ago that she
will edit it no more. The second volume was just closing; shall
it live for a third year? You should know that, if its interior
and spiritual life has been ill fed, its outward and bibliopolic
existence has been worse managed. Its publishers failed, its
short list of subscribers became shorter, and it has never paid
its laborious editor, who has been very generous of her time and
labor, the smallest remuneration. Unhappily, to me alone could
the question be put whether the little aspiring starveling should
be reprieved for another year. I had not the cruelty to kill it,
and so must answer with my own proper care and nursing for its
new life. Perhaps it is a great folly in me who have little
adroitness in turning off work to assume this sure vexation, but
the _Dial_ has certain charms to me as an opportunity, which I
grudge to destroy. Lately at New York I found it to be to a
certain class of men and women, though few, an object of
tenderness and religion. You cannot believe it?
Mr. Lee,* who brings you this letter, is the son of one of the
best men in Massachusetts, a man whose name is a proverb among
merchants for his probity, for his sense and his information.
The son, who bears his father's name, is a favorite among all the
young people for his sense and spirit, and has lived always with
good people.
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* Mr. Henry Lee.
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I have read at New York six out of eight lectures on the Times
which I read this winter in Boston. I found a very intelligent
and friendly audience. The penny papers reported my lectures,
somewhat to my chagrin when I tried to read them; many persons
came and talked with me, and I felt when I came away that New
York is open to me henceforward whenever my Boston parish is not
large enough. This summer, I must try to set in order a few more
chapters from these rambling lectures, one on "The Poet" and one
on "Character" at least. And now will you not tell me what you
read and write? Is it Cromwell still? For I supposed from the
_Westminster_ piece that the laborer must be in that quarter.
I send herewith a new _Dial,_ No. 8, and the last of this
dispensation. I hope you have received every number. They have
been sent in order. I have written no line in this Number. I
send a letter for Sterling, as I do not know whether his address
is still at Falmouth. Is he now a preacher? By the "Acadia" you
should have received a letter of exchange on the Barings, and
another on James Fraser's estate.
With constant good hope for yourself and for your wife, I am
your friend,
--R.W. Emerson
End of Vol. I.