Dear Emerson,--Till within five minutes of the limit of my time,
I had forgotten that this was the 3d of the Month; that I
had a Letter to write acknowledging even money! Take the
acknowledgment, given in all haste, not without a gratitude that
will last longer: the Thirty-six pounds and odd shillings came
safe in your Letter, a new unlooked-for Gift. America, I think,
is like an amiable family teapot; you think it is all out long
since, and lo, the valuable implement yields you another cup, and
another! Many thanks to you, who are the heart of America to me.
Republishing for one's friend's sake, I find on consulting my
Bookseller, is out here; we have Pirates waiting for every
American thing of mark, as you have for every British; to the
tender mercies of these, on both sides, I fancy the business must
be committed. They do good too; as all does, even carrion:
they send you _faster_ abroad, if the world have any use for
you;--oftenest it only thinks it has. Your _Essays,_ the Pirated
_Essays,_ make an ugly yellow tatter of a Pamphlet, price 1s.
6d.; but the edition is all sold, I understand: and even
Nickerson has not entirely ceased to sell. The same Pirate who
pounced upon you made an attempt the other day on my poor _Life
of Schiller,_ but I put the due spoke in his wheel. They have
sent me Lowell's _Poems;_ they are bringing out Jean Paul's
Life, &c., &c.; the hungry _Canaille._ It is strange that men
should feel themselves so entirely at liberty to steal, simply
because there is no gallows to hang them for doing it. Your new
Book will be eagerly waited for by that class of persons; and
also by another class which is daily increasing here.
The only other thing I am "not to forget" is that of the _Essay
on Consciousness_ in _Blackwood._ The writer of those Papers is
one Ferrier, a Nephew of the Edinburgh Miss Ferrier who wrote
_Marriage_ and some other Novels; Nephew also of Professor
Wilson (Christopher North), and married to one of his daughters.
A man of perhaps five-and-thirty; I remember him in boyhood,
while he was boarded with an Annandale Clergyman; I have seen
him since manhood, and liked him well: a solid, square-visaged,
dark kind of man, more like your Theodore Parker than any mutual
specimen I can recollect.
He got the usual education of an Edinburgh Advocate; but found
no practice at the Bar, nor sought any with due anxiety, I
believe; addicted himself to logical meditations;--became,
the other year, Professor of Universal History, or some
such thing, in the Edinburgh University, and lectures with
hardly any audience: a certain _young_ public wanted me
to be that Professor there, but I knew better,--Is this
enough about Ferrier?
I will not add another word; the time being _past,_
irretrievable except by half-running!