ead with lively curiosity also) was
the best I have had on that subject.

I tried hard to write you by the December steamer, to tell you
how forward was my book of Poems; but a little affair makes me
much writing. I chanced to have three or four items of business
to despatch, when the steamer was ready to go, and you escaped
hearing of them. I am the trustee of Charles Lane, who came out
here with Alcott and bought land, which, though sold, is not
paid for.

Somebody or somebodies in Liverpool and Manchester* have proposed
once or twice, with more or less specification, that I should
come to those cities to lecture. And who knows but I may come
one day? Steam is strong, and Liverpool is near. I should
find my account in the strong inducement of a new audience to
finish pieces which have lain waiting with little hope for months
or years.

----------
* Mr. Alexander Ireland, who had made the acquaintance of Emerson
at Edinburgh, in 1833, was his Manchester correspondent. His
memorial volume on Emerson contains an interesting record of
their relations.
----------

Ah then, if I dared, I should be well content to add some golden
hours to my life in seeing you, now all full-grown and
acknowledged amidst your own people,--to hear and to speak is so
little yet so much. But life is dangerous and delicate. I
should like to see your solid England. The map of Britain is
good reading for me. Then I have a very ignorant love of
pictures, and a curiosity about the Greek statues and stumps in
the British Museum. So beware of me, for on that distant day
when I get ready I shall come.

Long before this time you ought to have received from John
Chapman a copy of Emerson's Poems, so called, which he was
directed to send you. Poor man, you need not open them. I know
all you can say. I printed them, not because I was deceived into
a belief that they were poems, but because of the softness or
hardness of heart of many friends here who have made it a point
to have them circulated.* Once having set out to print, I obeyed
the solicitations of John Chapman, of an ill-omened street in
London, to send him the book in manuscript, for the better
securing of copyright. In printing them here I have corrected
the most unpardonable negligences, which negligences must be all
stereotyped under his fair London covers and gilt paper to the
eyes of any curious London reader; from which recollection I
strive to turn away.

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