what straits would we not carry this little burden of a magnanimous trust! Yet no harm could possibly come, but simply faithlessness. Not a feather, not a straw, is entrusted; that packet is empty. It is only committed to us, and, as it were, all things are committed to us.

The kindness I have longest remembered has been of this sort, — the sort unsaid; so far behind the speaker's lips that almost it already lay in my heart. It did not have far to go to be communicated. The gods cannot misunderstand, man cannot explain. We communicate like the burrows of foxes, in silence and darkness, under ground. We are undermined by faith and love. How much more full is Nature where we think the empty space is than where we place the solids! — full of fluid influences. Should we ever communicate but by these? The spirit abhors a vacuum more than Nature. There is a tide which pierces the pores of the air. These aerial rivers, let us not pollute their currents. What meadows do they course through? How many fine mails there are which traverse their routes! He is privileged who gets his letter franked by them. I believe these things.

begins to hear the reverberation of his single voice from most of the States of the Union. He thinks himself sure of W. H. Channing1 as a good Fourierist. I laugh incredulous while he recites (for it seems always as if he was repeating paragraphs out of his master's book) descriptions of the self-augmenting potency of the solar system, which is destined to contain one hundred and thirty-two bodies, I believe, and his urgent inculcation of our stellar duties. But it has its kernel of sound truth; and its insanity is so wide of New York insanities that it is virtue and honor.

February 10.

I beg you, my dear friend, to say to those faithful lovers of me who have just sent me letters which any man should be happy and proud to receive - I mean my mother and my wife — that I am grieved they should have found my silence so vexatious. I think that some letter must have failed, for I cannot have let ten days go by without writing home. I have kept no account, but am confident that that cannot be. Mr. Mackay has just brought me his good package, and I will not at this hour commence a new letter, but you shall tell Mrs. Emerson that my first steps in New York on this visit seem not to have been prudent, and so I lose several precious days.

February 11.

A society invited me to read my course before them in the Bowery, on certain terms, one of which was that they guaranteed me a thousand auditors. I referred them to my brother William, who covenanted with them. It turned out that their church was in a dark, inaccessible place, a terror to the honest and fair citizens of New York; and our first lecture had a handful of persons, and they all personal friends of mine, from a distant part of the city. But

1 Nephew and biographer of Dr. Channing, and cousin of Ellery Channing, the poet, soon to be named.

the Bereans felt so sadly about the disappointment that it seemed at last, on much colloquy, not quite good-natured and affectionate to abandon them at once, but to read also a second lecture, and then part. The second was read with faint success, and then we parted. I begin this evening anew in the Society Library, where I was last year. This takes more time than I could wish, a great deal, and I grieve that I cannot come home. I see W. H. Channing and Mr. [Henry] James at leisure, and have had what the Quakers call "a solid season" once or twice; with Tappan a very happy pair of hours, and him I must see again.

I am enriched greatly by your letter, and now by the dear letters which Mr. Mackay has brought me from Lidian Emerson and Elizabeth Hoar; and for speed in part, and partly because I like to write so, I make you the organ of communication to the whole household, and must still owe you a special letter. I dare not say when I will come home, as the time so fast approaches when I should speak to the Mercantile Library. Yesterday eve I was at Staten Island, where William had promised me as a lecturer. and made a speech at Tompkinsville. Dear love to my mother. shall try within twenty-four hours to write to my wife. Thanks, thanks for your love to Edie! Farewell.

R. WALDO E.

I

The "special letter," if written, has failed to appear, and instead of it I find one devoted chiefly to the next number of the Dial, of which Emerson was then the editor, with Thoreau's aid. For the January number of 1843 Thoreau had given his unmetrical translation of the

1 This was the review of Etzler's book which Mr. O'Sullivan, mentioned in Thoreau's first letter, soon printed in his Democratic Review, for which Hawthorne was a frequent writer. The Dial was a quarterly magazine, published for four years from July, 1840.

Prometheus Bound of Æschylus; for the April number he gave translations from the pseudo-Anacreon, and those beautiful Grecian poems of his own on Smoke and Haze.

IV.

EMERSON TO THOREAU.

NEW YORK, 12 February, 1843. MY DEAR HENRY, I am sorry I have no paper but this unsightly sheet, this Sunday eve, to write you a message which I see must not wait. The Dial for April, what elements shall compose it? What have you for me? What has Mr. Lane? Have you any Greek translations in your mind? Have you given shape to the comment on Etzler?1 (It was about some sentences on this matter that I made, some day, a most rude and snappish speech. I remember, but you will not, and must give the sentences as you first wrote them.) You must go to Mr. [Charles] Lane, with my affectionate respects, and tell him that I depend on his important aid for the new number, and wish him to give us the most recent and stirring matter that he has. If (as he is a ready man) he offers us anything at once, I beg you to read it; and if you see and say decidedly that it is good for us, you need not send it to me; but if it is of such quality that you can less surely pronounce, you must send it to me by Harnden. Have we no more news from Wheeler? Has Bartlett none? 2

I find Edward Palmer here, studying medicine and attending medical lectures. He is acquainted with Mr. Porter, whom Lane and Wright know, and values him highly. I am to see Porter. Perhaps I shall have no more time to fill this sheet; if so, farewell. Yours,

R. WALDO E.

2 Charles Stearns Wheeler, a college classmate of Thoreau, was then in Germany (where he died the next summer), and was contributing to the Dial. Robert Bartlett, of Plymouth, was Wheeler's most intimate friend.

This Edward Palmer appears again in a letter of Thoreau's, and I think he afterwards made one of Alcott's little community at Fruitlands, in Harvard, where Charles Lane owned the property, and resided for a time, with his son William and his friend Wright. To To this editorial letter of Emerson, Thoreau, who was punctuality itself, replied

at once.

V. THOREAU TO EMERSON.

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 Eschylus 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.

Wheeler has

more about and proper

Wednesday Evening, February 16. DEAR FRIEND, - I have time to write a few words about the Dial. I have just received the three first signatures, which do not yet complete Lane's piece. He will place five hundred copies for sale at Munroe's bookstore. sent you two full sheets the German Universities names, which will have to be printed in alphabetical order for convenience; what this one has done, that one is doing, and the other intends to do. Hammer-Purgstall (Von Hammer) may be one, for aught I know. However, there are two or three things in it, as well as names. One of the books of Herodotus is discovered to be out of place. He says something about having sent to Lowell, by the last steamer, a budget of literary news, which he will have communicated to you ere this. Mr. Alcott has a letter from Heraud, and a book written by him, - the Life of Savonarola, which he wishes to have republished here. Mr. Lane will write a no(The latter says that what

tice of it.

is in the New York post office may be directed to Mr. Alcott.) Miss [Elizabeth] Peabody has sent a "Notice to the readers of the Dial," which is not good.

Mr. Chapin lectured this evening, and so rhetorically that I forgot my duty and heard very little. I find myself better than I have been, and am meditating some other method of paying debts than by lectures and writing, which will only do to talk about. If anything of that "other" sort should come to your ears in New York, will you remember it for me?

-

MY DEAR FRIEND, I have read Mr. Lane's review, and can say, speaking for this world and for fallen man, that "it is good for us." As they say in geology, time never fails, there is always enough of it, so I may say, criticism never fails; but if I go and read else where, I say it is good, far better than any notice Mr. Alcott has received, or is likely to receive from another quarter. It is at any rate "the other side," which Boston needs to hear. I do not send it to you, because time is precious, and because I think you would accept it, after all. After speaking briefly of the fate of Goethe and Carlyle in their own countries, he says, "To Emerson in his own circle is but slowly accorded a worthy response; and Alcott, almost utterly

neglected," etc. I will strike out what relates to yourself, and, correcting some verbal faults, send the rest to the printer with Lane's initials.

The catalogue needs amendment, I think. It wants completeness now. It should consist of such books only as they would tell Mr. [F. H.] Hedge and [Theodore] Parker they had got; omitting the Bible, the classics, and much besides, for there the incompleteness begins. But you will be here in season for this.

It is frequently easy to make Mr. Lane more universal and attractive; to write, for instance, "universal ends" instead of "the universal end," just as we pull open the petals of a flower with our fingers where they are confined by its own sweets. Also he had better not say "books designed for the nucleus of a Home University," until he makes that word "home" ring solid and universal This is that abominable dialect. He has just given me a notice of George Bradford's Fénelon for the Record of the Months, and speaks of extras of the Review and Catalogue, if they are printed, -even a hundred, or thereabouts. How shall this be arranged? Also he wishes to use some manuscripts of his which are in your possession, if you do not. Can I get them?

too.

I think of no news to tell you. It is a serene summer day here, all above the snow. The hens steal their nests, and I steal their eggs still, as formerly. This is what I do with the hands. Ah, labor,

it is a divine institution, and conversation with many men and hens.

Do not think that my letters require as many special answers. I get one as often as you write to Concord. Concord inquires for you daily, as do all the members of this house. You must make haste home before we have settled all the great questions, for they are fast being disposed of. But I must leave room for Mrs. Emerson.

P. S. BY MRS. EMERSON.

My DEAR HUSBAND, Thinking that Henry had decided to send Mr. Lane's manuscript to you by Harnden to-morrow, I wrote you a sheet of gossip which you will not ultimately escape. Now I will use up Henry's vacant spaces with a story or two. G. P. Bradford has sent you a copy of his Fénelon, with a freezing note to me, which made me declare I would never speak to him again; but Mother says, " Never till next time!" William B. Greene has sent me a volume of tales translated by his father. Ought there to be any note of acknowledgment? I wish you may find time to fill all your paper when you write; you must have millions of things to say that we would all be glad to read.

Last evening we had the "Conversation," though, owing to the bad weather, but few attended. The subjects were: What is Prophecy? Who is a Prophet? and The Love of Nature. Mr. Lane decided, as for all time and the race, that this same love of nature of which Henry [Thoreau] was the champion, and Elizabeth Hoar and Lidian (though L. disclaimed possessing it herself) his faithful squiresses that this love was the most subtle and dangerous of sins; a refined idolatry, much more to be dreaded than gross wickednesses, because the gross sinner would be alarmed by the depth of his degradation, and come up from it in terror, but the unhappy idolaters of Nature were deceived by the refined quality of their sin, and would be the last to enter the kingdom. Henry frankly affirmed to both the wise men that they were wholly deficient in the faculty in question, and therefore could not judge of it. And Mr. Alcott as frankly answered that it was because they went beyond the mere material objects, and were filled with spiritual love and perception (as Mr. T. was not),

1 There was yet no railroad from Boston to Concord, but the Fitchburg road was building, as will be seen in another of these letters. The

that they seemed to Mr. Thoreau not to appreciate outward nature. I am very heavy, and have spoiled a most excellent story. I have given you no idea of the scene, which was ineffably comic, though it made no laugh at the time; I scarcely laughed at it myself, — too deeply amused to give the usual sign. Henry was brave and noble; well as I have always liked him, he still grows upon me. Elizabeth sends her love, and says she shall not go to Boston till your return, and you must make the 8th of March come quickly.

And now the localities of the two friends are reversed in the letters which follow.

Mr. Emerson had returned to Concord in March, and in May Mr. Thoreau had gone to Staten Island, into the family of Emerson's elder brother, William, where he was teaching the eldest son, William, and studying New York, at long range or at close quarters. The first letter in the series comes from Em

erson.

VII. EMERSON TO THOREAU.

CONCORD, Sunday Eve, 21 May, 1843. MY DEAR FRIEND, - Our Dial is already printing, and you must, if you can, send me something good by the 10th of June, certainly, if not before. If William E. can send by a private opportunity, you shall address it to "Care of Miss Peabody, 13 West Street," or, to be left at Concord Stage Office.1 Otherwise send by Harnden, W. E. paying to Boston and charging to me. Let the pacquet bring letters also from you, and from [Giles] Waldo and Tappan, I en

treat.

You will not doubt that you are well remembered here, by young, older, and old people; and your letter to your mother was borrowed and read with great interest, pending the arrival of direct stagecoach ran once a day, seldom carrying a dozen passengers. Now fifty or a hundred make the journey daily.