CASTLETON, STATEN ISLAND, May 23.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I was just going to write to you when I received your
letter. I was waiting till I had got away from Concord. I should have
sent you something for the _Dial_ before, but I have been sick ever
since I came here, rather unaccountably,--what with a cold,
bronchitis, acclimation, etc., still unaccountably. I send you some
verses from my Journal which will help make a packet. I have not time
to correct them, if this goes by Rockwood Hoar. If I can finish an
account of a winter's walk in Concord, in the midst of a Staten Island
summer,--not so wise as true, I trust,--I will send it to you soon.
I have had no later experiences yet. You must not count much upon what
I can do or learn in New York. I feel a good way off here; and it is
not to be visited, but seen and dwelt in. I have been there but once,
and have been confined to the house since. Everything there
disappoints me but the crowd; rather, I was disappointed with the rest
before I came. I have no eyes for their churches, and what else they
find to brag of. Though I know but little about Boston, yet what
attracts me, in a quiet way, seems much meaner and more pretending
than there,--libraries, pictures, and faces in the street. You don't
know where any respectability inhabits. It is in the crowd in Chatham
Street. The crowd is something new, and to be attended to. It is worth
a thousand Trinity Churches and Exchanges while it is looking at them,
and will run over them and trample them under foot one day. There are
two things I hear and am aware I live in the neighborhood of,--the
roar of the sea and the hum of the city. I have just come from the
beach (to find your letter), and I like it much. Everything there is
on a grand and generous scale,--seaweed, water, and sand; and even the
dead fishes, horses, and hogs have a rank, luxuriant odor; great
shad-nets spread to dry; crabs and horseshoes crawling over the sand;
clumsy boats, only for service, dancing like sea-fowl over the surf,
and ships afar off going about their business.
Waldo and Tappan carried me to their English alehouse the first
Saturday, and Waldo spent two hours here the next day. But Tappan I
have only seen. I like his looks and the sound of his silence. They
are confined every day but Sunday, and then Tappan is obliged to
observe the demeanor of a church-goer to prevent open war with his
father.
I am glad that Channing has got settled, and that, too, before the
inroad of the Irish. I have read his poems two or three times over,
and partially through and under, with new and increased interest and
appreciation. Tell him I saw a man buy a copy at Little & Brown's. He
may have been a virtuoso, but we will give him the credit. What with
Alcott and Lane and Hawthorne, too, you look strong enough to take New
York by storm. Will you tell L., if he asks, that I have been able to
do nothing about the books yet?
Believe that I have something better to write you than this. It would
be unkind to thank you for particular deeds.