My Dear Friend,--I grieve to think of my slackness in writing,
which suffers steamer after steamer to go without a letter. But
I have still hoped, before each of the late packets sailed, that
I should have a message to send that would enforce a letter. I
wrote you some time ago of Mr. Carey's liberal proposition in
relation to your _Miscellanies._ I wrote, of course, to Furness,
through whom it was made to me, accepting the proposition; and I
forwarded to Mr. Carey a letter from me to be printed at the
beginning of the book, signifying your good-will to the edition,
and acknowledging the justice and liberality of the publishers.
I have heard no more from them, and now, a fortnight since, the
newspaper announces the death of Mr. Carey. He died very
suddenly, though always an invalid and extremely crippled. His
death is very much regretted in the Philadelphia papers, where he
bore the reputation of a most liberal patron of good and fine
arts. I have not heard from Mr. Furness, and have thought I
should still expect a letter from him. I hope our correspondence
will stand as a contract which Mr. Carey's representatives will
feel bound to execute. They had sent me a little earlier a copy
of Mr. Sartain's engraving from their water-color copy of
Laurence's head of you. They were eager to have the engraving
pronounced a good likeness. I showed it to Sumner, and Russell,
and Theodore Parker, who have seen you long since I had, and they
shook their heads unanimously and declared that D'Orsay's profile
was much more like.
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** From the rough draft.
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I creep along the roads and fields of this town as I have done
from year to year. When my garden is shamefully overgrown with
weeds, I pull up some of them. I prune my apples and pears. I
have a few friends who gild many hours of the year. I sometimes
write verses. I tell you with some unwillingness, as knowing
your distaste for such things, that I have received so many
applications from readers and printers for a volume of poems that
I have seriously taken in hand the collection, transcription, or
scription of such a volume, and may do the enormity before New
Year's day. Fear not, dear friend, you shall not have to read
one line. Perhaps I shall send you an official copy, but I shall
appeal to the tenderness of Jane Carlyle, and excuse your
formidable self, for the benefit of us both. Where all writing
is such a caricature of the subject, what signifies whether the
form is a little more or less ornate and luxurious? Meantime, I
think to set a few heads before me, as good texts for winter
evening entertainments. I wrote a deal about Napoleon a few
months ago, after reading a library of memoirs. Now I have
Plato, Montaigne, and Swedenborg, and more in the clouds behind.
What news of Naseby and Worcester?