My Dear Carlyle,--I have lately received from our slow friends,
James Munroe & Co., $246 on account of their sales of the
_Miscellanies,_--and I enclose a bill of Exchange for L51, which
cost $246.50. It is a long time since I sent you any sketch of
the account itself, and indeed a long time since it was posted,
as the booksellers say; but I will find a time and a clerk also
for this.
I have had no word from you for a long space. You wrote me a
letter from Scotland after the death of your wife's mother, and
full of pity for me also; and since, I have heard nothing. I
confide that all has gone well and prosperously with you; that
the iron Puritan is emerging from the Past, in shape and stature
as he lived; and you are recruited by sympathy and content with
your picture; and that the sure repairs of time and love and
active duty have brought peace to the orphan daughter's heart.
My friend Alcott must also have visited you before this, and you
have seen whether any relation could subsist betwixt men so
differently excellent. His wife here has heard of his arrival on
your coast,--no more.
I submitted to what seemed a necessity of petty literary
patriotism,--I know not what else to call it,--and took charge of
our thankless little _Dial,_ here, without subscribers enough to
pay even a publisher, much less any laborer; it has no penny for
editor or contributor, nothing but abuse in the newspapers, or,
at best, silence; but it serves as a sort of portfolio, to carry
about a few poems or sentences which would otherwise be
transcribed and circulated; and always we are waiting when
somebody shall come and make it good. But I took it, as I said,
and it took me, and a great deal of good time, to a small
purpose. I am ashamed to compute how many hours and days these
chores consume for me. I had it fully in my heart to write at
large leisure in noble mornings opened by prayer or by readings
of Plato or whomsoever else is dearest to the Morning Muse, a
chapter on Poetry, for which all readings, all studies, are but
preparation; but now it is July, and my chapter is rudest
beginnings. Yet when I go out of doors in the summer night, and
see how high the stars are, I am persuaded that there is time
enough, here or somewhere, for all that I must do; and the good
world manifests very little impatience.
Stearns Wheeler, the Cambridge tutor, a good Grecian, and the
editor, you will remember, of your American Editions, is going to
London in August probably, and on to Heidelberg, &c. He means, I
believe, to spend two years in Germany, and will come to see you
on his way; a man whose too facile and good-natured manners do
some injustice to his virtues, to his great industry and real
knowledge. He has been corresponding with your Tennyson, and
editing his Poems here. My mother, my wife, my two little girls,
are well; the youngest, Edith, is the comfort of my days. Peace
and love be with you, with you both, and all that is yours.
--R. W. Emerson
In our present ignorance of Mr. Alcott's address I advised his
wife to write to your care, as he was also charged to keep you
informed of his place. You may therefore receive letters for him
with this.