I intimated above that we aspire to have a work on the First Philosophy in Boston.  I hope, or wish rather.  Those that are forward in it debate upon the name.  I doubt not in the least its reception if the material that should fill it existed.  Through the thickest understanding will the reason throw itself instantly into relation with the truth that is its object, whenever that appears.  But how seldom is the pure loadstone produced!  Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best minds:  Men live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which yet they never enter, and with their hand on the door-latch they die outside.  Always excepting my wonderful Professor, who among the living has thrown any memorable truths into circulation?  So live and rejoice and work, my friend, and God you aid, for the profit of many more than your mortal eyes shall see.  Especially seek with recruited and never-tired vision to bring back yet higher and truer report from your Mount of Communion of the Spirit that dwells there and creates all.  Have you received a letter from me with a pamphlet sent in December?  Fail not, I beg of you, to remember me to Mrs. Carlyle.

Can you not have some Sartors sent?  Hilliard, Gray, & Co. are the best publishers in Boston.  Or Mr. Rich has connections with Burdett in Boston.

Yours with respect and affection,
                              R. Waldo Emerson

VI.  Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 30 April, 1835

My Dear Sir,—­I received your letter of the 3d of February on the 20th instant, and am sorry that hitherto we have not been able to command a more mercantile promptitude in the transmission of these light sheets.  If desire of a letter before it arrived, or gladness when it came, could speed its journey, I should have it the day it was written.  But, being come, it makes me sad and glad by turns.  I admire at the alleged state of your English reading public without comprehending it, and with a hoping scepticism touching the facts.  I hear my Prophet deplore, as his predecessors did, the deaf ear and the gross heart of his people, and threaten to shut his lips; but, happily, this he cannot do, any more than could they.  The word of the Lord will be spoken.  But I shall not much grieve that the English people and you are not of the same mind if that apathy or antipathy can by any means be the occasion of your visiting America.  The hope of this is so pleasant to me, that I have thought of little else for the week past, and having conferred with some friends on the matter, I shall try, in obedience to your request, to give you a statement of our capabilities, without indulging my penchant for the favorable side.  Your picture of America is faithful enough:  yet Boston contains some genuine taste for literature, and a good deal of traditional reverence for it.  For a few years past, we have had, every winter,