—­R.  W. Emerson

In our present ignorance of Mr. Alcott’s address I advised his wife to write to your care, as he was also charged to keep you informed of his place.  You may therefore receive letters for him with this.

LXXVII.  Carlyle to Emerson

Chelsea, London, 19 July, 1842

My Dear Emerson,—­Lest Opportunity again escape me, I will take her, this time, by the forelock, and write while the matter is still hot.  You have been too long without hearing of me; far longer, at least, than I meant.  Here is a second Letter from you, besides various intermediate Notes by the hands of Friends, since that Templand Letter of mine:  the Letter arrived yesterday; my answer shall get under way today.

First under the head of business let it be authenticated that the Letter enclosed a Draft for L51; a new, unexpected munificence out of America; which is ever and anon dropping gifts upon me,—­ to be received, as indeed they partly are, like Manna dropped out of the sky; the gift of unseen Divinities!  The last money I got from you changed itself in the usual soft manner from dollars into sovereigns, and was what they call “all right,”—­all except the little Bill (of Eight Pounds and odds, I think) drawn on Fraser’s Executors by Brown (Little and Brown?); which Bill the said Executors having refused for I know not what reason, I returned it to Brown with note of the dishonor done it, and so the sum still stands on his Books in our favor.  Fraser’s people are not now my Booksellers, except in the matter of your Essays and a second edition of Sartor; the other Books I got transferred to a certain pair of people named “Chapman and Hall, 186 Strand”; which operation, though (I understand) it was transacted with great and vehement reluctance on the part of the Fraser people, yet produced no quarrel between them and me, and they still forward parcels, &c., and are full of civility when I see them:—­so that whether this had any effect or none in their treatment of Brown and his Bill I never knew; nor indeed, having as you explained it no concern with Brown’s and their affairs, did I ever happen to inquire.  I avoid all Booksellers; see them rarely, the blockheads; study never to think of them at all.  Book-sales, reputation, profit, &c., &c.; all this at present is really of the nature of an encumbrance to me; which I study, not without success, to sweep almost altogether out of my head.  One good is still possible to me in Life, one only:  To screw a little more work out of myself, my miserable, despicable, yet living, acting, and so far imperial and celestial self; and this, God knows, is difficulty enough without any foreign one!