CASTLETON, Tuesday, August 29, 1843.
DEAR MOTHER,--Mr. Emerson has just given me warning that he is about
to send to Concord, which I will endeavor to improve. I am a great
deal more wakeful than I was, and growing stout in other
respects,--so that I may yet accomplish something in the literary
way; indeed, I should have done so before now but for the slowness and
poverty of the "Reviews" themselves. I have tried sundry methods of
earning money in the city, of late, but without success: have rambled
into every bookseller's or publisher's house, and discussed their
affairs with them. Some propose to me to do what an honest man cannot.
Among others, I conversed with the Harpers--to see if they might not
find me useful to them; but they say that they are making $50,000
annually, and their motto is to let well alone. I find that I talk
with these poor men as if I were over head and ears in business, and a
few thousands were no consideration with me. I almost reproach myself
for bothering them so to no purpose; but it is a very valuable
experience, and the best introduction I could have.
We have had a tremendous rain here last Monday night and Tuesday
morning. I was in the city at Giles Waldo's, and the streets at
daybreak were absolutely impassable for the water. Yet the accounts of
the storm that you may have seen are exaggerated, as indeed are all
such things, to my imagination. On Sunday I heard Mr. Bellows preach
here on the island; but the fine prospect over the Bay and Narrows,
from where I sat, preached louder than he,--though he did far better
than the average, if I remember aright. I should have liked to see
Daniel Webster walking about Concord; I suppose the town shook, every
step he took. But I trust there were some sturdy Concordians who were
not tumbled down by the jar, but represented still the upright town.
Where was George Minott? he would not have gone far to see him. Uncle
Charles should have been there,--he might as well have been catching
cat naps in Concord as anywhere.
And then, what a whetter-up of his memory this event would have been!
You'd have had all the classmates again in alphabetical order
reversed,--"and Seth Hunt and Bob Smith--and he was a student of my
father's,--and where's Put now? and I wonder--you--if Henry's been to
see George Jones yet! A little account with Stow,--Balcom,--Bigelow,
poor miserable t-o-a-d,--(sound asleep.) I vow, you,--what noise was
that?--saving grace--and few there be--That's clear as preaching,--Easter
Brooks,--morally deprived,--How charming is divine philosophy,--some
wise and some otherwise,--Heighho! (sound asleep again) Webster's a
smart fellow--bears his age well,--how old should you think he was?
you--does he look as if he were ten years younger than I?"
I met, or rather, was overtaken by Fuller, who tended for Mr. How, the
other day, in Broadway. He dislikes New York very much. The Mercantile
Library,--that is, its Librarian, presented me with a stranger's
ticket, for a month, and I was glad to read the Reviews there, and
Carlyle's last article. I have bought some pantaloons; stockings show
no holes yet. These pantaloons cost $2.25 ready made.
In haste.