My Dear Emerson,—­There cannot any right answer be written you here and now; yet I must write such answer as I can.  You said, “by steamship”; and it strikes me with a kind of remorse, on this my first day of leisure and composure, that I have delayed so long.  For you must know, this is my Mother’s house,—­a place to me unutterable as Hades and the Land of Spectres were; likewise that my Brother is just home from Italy, and on the wing thitherward or somewhither swiftly again; in a word, that all is confusion and flutter with me here,—­fit only for silence! My Wife sent me off hitherward, very sickly and unhappy, out of the London dust, several weeks ago; I lingered in Fifeshire, I was in Edinburgh, in Roxburghshire; have some calls to Cumberland, which I believe I must refuse; and prepare to creep homeward again, refreshed in health, but with a head and heart all seething and tumbling (as the wont is, in such cases), and averse to pens beyond all earthly implements.  But my Brother is off for Dumfries this morning; you before all others deserve an hour of my solitude.  I will abide by business; one must write about that.

Your Bill and duplicate of a Bill for L50, with the two Letters that accompanied them, you are to know then, did duly arrive at Chelsea; and the larger Letter (of the 6th of August) was forwarded to me hither some two weeks ago.  I had also, long before that, one of the friendliest of Letters from you, with a clear and most inviting description of the Concord Household, its inmates and appurtenances; and the announcement, evidently authentic, that an apartment and heart’s welcome was ready there for my Wife and me; that we were to come quickly, and stay for a twelvemonth.  Surely no man has such friends as I. We ought to say, May the Heavens give us thankful hearts!  For, in truth, there are blessings which do, like sun-gleams in wild weather, make this rough life beautiful with rainbows here and there.  Indicating, I suppose, that there is a Sun, and general Heart of Goodness, behind all that;—­for which, as I say again, let us be thankful evermore.

My Wife says she received your American Bill of so many pounds sterling for the Revolution Book, with a “pathetic feeling” which brought “tears” to her eyes.  From beyond the waters there is a hand held out; beyond the waters too live brothers.  I would only the Book were an Epic, a Dante, or undying thing, that New England might boast in after times of this feat of hers; and put stupid, poundless, and penniless Old England to the blush about it!  But after all, that is no matter; the feebler the well-meant Book is, the more “pathetic” is the whole transaction:  and so we will go on, fuller than ever of “desperate hope” (if you know what that is), with a feeling one would not give and could not get for several money-bags; and say or think, Long live true friends and Emersons, and (in Scotch phrase) “May ne’er waur be amang us!”—­I will buy something permanent, I think, out of this L50, and call it either Ebenezer or Yankee-doodle-doo. May good be repaid you manifold, my kind Brother! may good be ever with you, my kind Friends all!