CONCORD, February 15, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I got your letters, one yesterday and the other
to-day, and they have made me quite happy. As a packet is to go in the
morning, I will give you a hasty account of the _Dial_. I called on
Mr. Lane this afternoon, and brought away, together with an abundance
of good-will, first, a bulky catalogue of books without
commentary,--some eight hundred, I think he told me, with an
introduction filling one sheet,--ten or a dozen pages, say, though I
have only glanced at them; second, a review--twenty-five or thirty
printed pages--of Conversations on the Gospels, Record of a School,
and Spiritual Culture, with rather copious extracts. However, it is a
good subject, and Lane says it gives him satisfaction. I will give it
a faithful reading directly. [These were Alcott's publications,
reviewed by Lane.] And now I come to the little end of the horn; for
myself, I have brought along the Minor Greek Poets, and will mine
there for a scrap or two, at least. As for Etzler, I don't remember
any "rude and snappish speech" that you made, and if you did it must
have been longer than anything I had written; however, here is the
book still, and I will try. Perhaps I have some few scraps in my
Journal which you may choose to print. The translation of the Æschylus
I should like very well to continue anon, if it should be worth the
while. As for poetry, I have not remembered to write any for some
time; it has quite slipped my mind; but sometimes I think I hear the
mutterings of the thunder. Don't you remember that last summer we
heard a low, tremulous sound in the woods and over the hills, and
thought it was partridges or rocks, and it proved to be thunder gone
down the river? But sometimes it was over Wayland way, and at last
burst over our heads. So we'll not despair by reason of the drought.
You see it takes a good many words to supply the place of one deed; a
hundred lines to a cobweb, and but one cable to a man-of-war. The
_Dial_ case needs to be reformed in many particulars. There is no news
from Wheeler, none from Bartlett.
They all look well and happy in this house, where it gives me much
pleasure to dwell.
Yours in haste, HENRY.