Chelsea, London, 5 November, 1836

My Dear Friend,—­You are very good to write to me in my silence, in the mood you must be in.  My silence you may well judge is not forgetfulness; it is a forced silence; which this kind Letter enforces into words.  I write the day after your letter comes, lest the morrow bring forth something new to hinder me.

What a bereavement, my Friend, is this that has overtaken you!  Such a Brother, with such a Life opening around him, like a blooming garden where he was to labor and gather, all vanished suddenly like frostwork, and hidden from your eye!  It is a loss, a sore loss; which God had appointed you.  I do not tell you not to mourn:  I mourn with you, and could wish all mourners the spirit you have in this sorrow.  Oh, I know it well!  Often enough in this noisy Inanity of a vision where we still linger, I say to myself, Perhaps thy Buried Ones are not far from thee, are with thee; they are in Eternity, which is a Now and HERE!  And yet Nature will have her right; Memory would feel desecrated if she could forget.  Many times in the crowded din of the Living, some sight, some feature of a face, will recall to you the Loved Face; and in these turmoiling streets you see the little silent Churchyard, the green grave that lies there so silent, inexpressibly wae. O, perhaps we shall all meet YONDER, and the tears be wiped from all eyes!  One thing is no Perhaps:  surely we shall all meet, if it be the will of the Maker of us.  If it be not His will,—­then is it not better so?  Silence,—­since in these days we have no speech!  Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, in any day.

You inquire so earnestly about my welfare; hold open still the hospitable door for me.  Truly Concord, which I have sought out on the Map, seems worthy of its name:  no dissonance comes to me from that side; but grief itself has acquired a harmony:  in joy or grief a voice says to me, Behold there is one that loves thee; in thy loneliness, in thy darkness, see how a hospitable candle shines from far over seas, how a friendly heart watches!  It is very good, and precious for me.

As for my health, be under no apprehension.  I am always sick; I am sicker and worse in body and mind, a little, for the present; but it has no deep significance:  it is weariness merely; and now, by the bounty of Heaven, I am as it were within sight of land.  In two months more, this unblessed Book will be finished; at Newyearday we begin printing:  before the end of March, the thing is out; and I am a free man!  Few happinesses I have ever known will equal that, as it seems to me.  And yet I ought not to call the poor Book unblessed:  no, it has girdled me round like a panoply these two years; kept me invulnerable, indifferent, to innumerable things.  The poorest man in London has perhaps been one of the freest:  the roaring press of gigs and gigmen, with their