Chelsea, London, 31 October, 1843

My Dear Emerson,—­It is a long weary time since I have had the satisfaction of the smallest dialogue with you.  The blame is all my own; the reasons would be difficult to give,—­alas, they are properly no-reasons, children not of Something, but of mere Idleness, Confusion, Inaction, Inarticulation, of Nothing in short!  Let us leave them there, and profit by the hour which yet is.

I ran away from London into Bristol and, South Wales, when the heats grew violent, at the end of June.  South Wales, North Wales, Lancashire, Scotland:  I roved about everywhere seeking some Jacob’s-pillow on which to lay my head, and dream of things heavenly;—­yes, that at bottom was my modest prayer, though I disguised it from myself and the result was, I could find no pillow at all; but sank into ever meaner restlessness, blacker and blacker biliary gloom, and returned in the beginning of September thoroughly eclipsed and worn out, probably the weariest of all men living under the sky.  Sure enough I have a fatal talent of converting all Nature into Preternaturalism for myself:  a truly horrible Phantasm-Reality it is to me; what of heavenly radiances it has, blended in close neighborhood, in intimate union, with the hideousness of Death and Chaos;—­a very ghastly business indeed!  On the whole, it is better to hold one’s peace about it.  I flung myself down on sofas here,—­for my little Wife had trimmed up our little dwelling-place into quite glorious order in my absence, and I had only to lie down:  there, in reading books, and other make-believe employments, I could at least keep silence, which was an infinite relief.  Nay, gradually, as indeed I anticipated, the black vortexes and deluges have subsided; and now that it is past, I begin to feel myself better for my travels after all.  For one thing, articulate speech having returned to me,—­you see what use I make of it.

On the table of the London Library, voted in by some unknown benefactor whom I found afterwards to be Richard Milnes, there lay one thing highly gratifying to me:  the last two Numbers of the Dial. It is to be one of our Periodicals henceforth; the current Number lies on the Table till the next arrive; then the former goes to the Binder; we have already, in a bound volume, all of it that Emerson has had the editing of.  This is right.  Nay, in Edinburgh, and indeed wherever ingenuous inquisitive minds were met with, I have to report that the said Emerson could number a select and most loving public; select, and I should say fast growing:  for good and indifferent reasons it may behove the man to assure himself of this.  Farther, to the horror of poor Nickerson (Bookseller Fraser’s Successor), a certain scoundrel interloper here has reprinted Emerson’s Essays on grayish paper, to be sold at two shillings,—­distracting Nickerson with the fear of change!  I was glad at this, if also angry:  it indicates several