Dear Carlyle,—­Some three weeks ago came to me a note from Mr. Haven of Worcester, announcing the arrival there of “King Friedrich,” and, after a fortnight, the good book came to my door.  A week later, your letter arrived.  I was heartily glad to get the crimson Book itself.  I had looked for it with the first ships.  As it came not, I had made up my mind to that hap also.  It was quite fair:  I had disentitled myself.  He, the true friend, had every right to punish me for my sluggish contumacy,—­ backsliding, too, after penitence.  So I read with resignation our blue American reprint, and I enclose to you a leaf from my journal at the time, which leaf I read afterwards in one of my lectures at the Music Hall in Boston.  But the book came from the man himself.  He did not punish me.  He is loyal, but royal as well, and, I have always noted, has a whim for dealing en grand monarque. The book came, with its irresistible inscription, so that I am all tenderness and all but tears.  The book too is sovereignly written.  I think you the true inventor of the stereoscope, as having exhibited that art in style, long before we had heard of it in drawing.

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* This letter and the Extract from the Diary are printed from a
copy of the original supplied to me by the kindness of Mr.
Alexander Ireland, who first printed a portion of the letter in
his “Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Biographical Sketch,” London, 1882. 
One or two words missing in the copy are inserted from the rough
draft, which, as usual, varies in minor points from the letter
as sent.
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The letter came also.  Every child of mine knows from far that handwriting, and brings it home with speed.  I read without alarm the pathetical hints of your sad plight in the German labyrinth.  I know too well what invitations and assurance brought you in there, to fear any lack of guides to bring you out.  More presence of mind and easy change from the microscopic to the telescopic view does not exist.  I await peacefully your issue from your pretended afflictions.

What to tell you of my coop and byre?  Ah! you are a very poor fellow, and must be left with your glory.  You hug yourself on missing the illusion of children, and must be pitied as having one glittering toy the less.  I am a victim all my days to certain graces of form and behavior, and can never come into equilibrium.  Now I am fooled by my own young people, and grow old contented.  The heedless children suddenly take the keenest hold on life, and foolish papas cling to the world on their account, as never on their own.  Out of sympathy, we make believe to value the prizes of their ambition and hope.  My, two girls, pupils once or now of Agassiz, are good, healthy, apprehensive, decided young people, who love life.  My boy divides his time between Cicero and cricket, knows his boat, the birds, and Walter Scott—­verse and prose, through and through,—­ and will go to College next year.  Sam Ward and I tickled each other the other day, in looking over a very good company of young people, by finding in the new comers a marked improvement on their parents.  There, I flatter myself, I see some emerging of our people from the prison of their politics.  The insolvency of slavery shows and stares, and we shall perhaps live to see that putrid Black-vomit extirpated by mere dying and planting.