My Dear Carlyle,--I have not grown so callous by my sulky habit,
but that I know where my friends are, and who can help me, in
time of need. And I have to crave your good offices today, and
in a matter relating once more to Margaret Fuller.... You were
so kind as to interest yourself, many months ago, to set Mazzini
and Browning on writing their Reminiscences for us. But we never
heard from either of them. Lately I have learned, by way of Sam
Longfellow, in Paris, brother of our poet Longfellow, that
Browning assured him that he did write and send a memoir to this
country,--to whom, I know not. It never arrived at the hands of
the Fullers, nor of Story, Channing, or me;--though the book was
delayed in the hope of such help. I hate that his paper should
be lost.
The little French _Voyage,_ &c. of Bossu, I got safely, and
compared its pictures with my own, at the Mississippi, the
Illinois, and Chicago. It is curious and true enough, no doubt,
though its Indians are rather dim and vague, and "Messieurs
Sauvages" Good Indians we have in Alexander Henry's _Travels in
Canada,_ and in our modern Catlin, and the best Western America,
perhaps, in F.A. Michaux, _Voyage a l'ouest des monts
Alleghanis,_ and in Fremont. But it was California I believe you
asked about, and, after looking at Taylor, Parkman, and the rest,
I saw that the only course is to read them all, and every private
letter that gets into the newspapers. So there was nothing
to say.
I rejoiced with the rest of mankind in the _Life of Sterling,_
and now peace will be to his Manes, down in this lower sphere.
Yet I see well that I should have held to his opinion, in all
those conferences where you have so quietly assumed the palms.
It is said: here, that you work upon Frederick the Great??
However that be, health, strength, love, joy, and victory to you.
--R.W. Emerson