I read your paragraph to Miss Martineau; she received it, as she was bound, with a good grace.  But I doubt, I doubt, O Ralph Waldo Emerson, thou hast not been sufficiently ecstatic about her,—­thou graceless exception, confirmatory of a rule!  In truth there are bores, of the first and of all lower magnitudes.  Patience and shuffle the cards.

XXVIII.  Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 17 October, 1838

My Dear Friend,—­I am quite uneasy that I do not hear from you.  On the 21st of July I wrote to you and enclosed a remittance of L50 by a Bill of Exchange on Baring Brothers, drawn by Chandler, Howard, & Co., which was sent in the steamer “Royal William.”  On the 2d of August I received your letter of inquiry respecting our edition of the Miscellanies, and wrote a few days later in reply, that we could send you out two or three hundred copies of our first two volumes, in sheets, at eighty-nine cents per copy of two volumes, and the small additional price of the new title-page.  I said also that I would wait until I heard from you before commencing the printing of the last two volumes of the Miscellanies, and, if you desired it, would print any number of copies with a title-page for London.  This letter went in a steamer—­he “Great Western” probably—­about the 10th or 12th of August. (Perhaps I misremember the names [of the steamers], and the first should be last.) I have heard nothing from you since.  I trust my letters have not miscarried. (A third was sent also by another channel inclosing a duplicate of the Bill of Exchange.) With more fervency, I trust that all goes well in the house of my friend,—­and I suppose that you are absent on some salutary errand of repairs and recreation. Use, I pray you, your earliest hour in certifying me of the facts.

One word more in regard to business.  I believe I expressed some surprise, in the July letter, that the booksellers should have no greater balance for us at this settlement.  I have since studied the account better, and see that we shall not be disappointed in the year of obtaining at least the sum first promised,—­seven hundred and sixty dollars; but the whole expense of the edition is paid out of the copies first sold, and our profits depend on the last sales.  The edition is almost gone, and you shall have an account at the end of the year.

In a letter within a twelvemonth I have urged you to pay us a visit in America, and in Concord.  I have believed that you would come one day, and do believe it.  But if, on your part, you have been generous and affectionate enough to your friends here—­or curious enough concerning our society—­to wish to come, I think you must postpone, for the present, the satisfaction of your friendship and your curiosity.  At this moment I would not have you here, on any account.  The publication of my Address to the Divinity College (copies of which I sent you)