l
it, which is a heavy load for one man!) were rolled off my
shoulders, and I could resume the habit of writing Letters, which
has almost left me for many months. By the unspeakable blessing
of Heaven that consummation has now arrived, about four days ago
I wrote my last word on _Cromwell's Letters and Speeches;_ and
one of the earliest uses I make of my recovered freedom is to
salute you again. The Book is nearly printed: two big volumes;
about a half of it, I think, my own; the real utterances of the
man Oliver Cromwell once more legible to earnest men. Legible
really to an unexpected extent: for the Book took quite an
unexpected figure in my hands; and is now a kind of Life of
Oliver, the best that circumstances would permit me to do:--
whether either I or England shall be, in my time, fit for a
better, remains submitted to the Destinies at present. I have
tied up the whole Puritan Paper-Litter (considerable masses of it
still unburnt) with tight strings, and hidden it at the bottom of
my deepest repositories: there shall _it,_ if Heaven please, lie
dormant for a time and times. Such an element as I have been in,
no human tongue can give account of. The disgust of my Soul has
been great; a really _pious_ labor: worth very little when I
have done it; but the best I could do; and that is quite
enough. I feel the liveliest gratitude to the gods that I have
got out of it alive. The Book is very dull, but it is actually
legible: all the ingenious faculty I had, and ten times as much
would have been useful there, has been employed in elucidation;
in saying, and chiefly in forbearing to say,--in annihilating
continents of brutal wreck and dung: _Ach Gott!_--But in fact
you will see it by and by; and then form your own conclusions
about it. They are going to publish it in October, I find: I
tried hard to get you a complete copy of the sheets by this
Steamer; but it proves to be flatly impossible;--perhaps
luckily; for I think you would have been bothering yourself with
some new Bookseller negotiation about it; and that, as copyright
and other matters now stand, is a thing I cannot recommend.
--Enough of it now: only let all my silences and other
shortcomings be explained thereby. I am now off for the North
Country, for a snatch still at the small remnants of Summer, and
a little free air and sunshine. I am really far from well,
though I have been riding diligently for three months back, and
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