Dear Emerson,--A month ago or more I wrote, by the same post, to
you and to Norton about those Books for Harvard College; and in
late days have been expecting your joint answer. From Norton
yesternight I receive what is here copied for your perusal; it
has come round by Florence as you see, and given me real pleasure
and instruction. From you, who are possibly also away from home,
I have yet nothing; but expect now soon to have a few words.
There did arrive, one evening lately, your two pretty _volumes_
of _Collected Works,_ a pleasant salutation from you--which set
me upon reading again what I thought I knew well before:--but the
Letter is still to come.
Norton's hints are such a complete instruction to me that I see
my way straight through the business, and might, by Note of
"Bequest" and memorandum for the Barings, finish it in half an
hour: nevertheless I will wait for your Letter, and punctually
do nothing till your directions too are before me. Pray write,
therefore; all is lying ready here. Since you heard last, I
have got two Catalogues made out, approximately correct; one is
to lie here till the Bequest be executed; the other I thought of
sending to you against the day? This is my own invention in
regard to the affair since I wrote last. Approve of it, and you
shall have your copy by Book-post at once. "_Approximately_
correct"; absolutely I cannot get it to be. But I need not
doubt the Pious Purpose will be piously and even sacredly
fulfilled;--and your Catalogue will be a kind of evidence that it
is. Adieu, dear Emerson, till your Letter come.
Yours ever,
Thomas Carlyle