first, the above-mentioned Vol. II. of _Cromwell;_
and, second, long before, a second copy of _Sartor Resartus,_
apparently instead of the Vol. I. of the _French Revolution,_
which did not come. I proposed to Fields to send back to Chapman
these two duplicates. But he said, "No, it will cost as much as
the price of the books." I shall try to find in New York who
represents Chapman and sells these books, and put them to his
credit there, in exchange for the volumes I lack. Meantime, my
serious thanks for all these treasures go to you,--steadily good
to my youth and my age.

Your letter was most welcome, and most in that I thought I read,
in what you say of not making the long-promised visit hither, a
little willingness to come. Think again, I pray you, of that
Ocean Voyage, which is probably the best medicine and restorative
which remains to us at your age and mine. Nine or ten days will
bring you (and commonly with unexpected comfort and easements on
the way) to Boston. Every reading person in America holds you in
exceptional regard, and will rejoice in your arrival. They have
forgotten your scarlet sins before or during the war. I have
long ceased to apologize for or explain your savage sayings about
American or other republics or publics, and am willing that
anointed men bearing with them authentic charters shall be laws
to themselves as Plato willed. Genius is but a large infusion of
Deity, and so brings a prerogative all its own. It has a right
and duty to affront and amaze men by carrying out its perceptions
defiantly, knowing well that time and fate will verify and
explain what time and fate have through them said. We must not
suggest to Michel Angelo, or Machiavel, or Rabelais, or Voltaire,
or John Brown of Osawatomie (a great man), or Carlyle, how they
shall suppress their paradoxes and check their huge gait to keep
accurate step with the procession on the street sidewalk. They
are privileged persons, and may have their own swing for me.

I did not mean to chatter so much, but I wish you would come out
hither and read our possibilities now being daily disclosed, and
our actualities which are not nothing. I shall like to show you
my near neighbors, topographically or practically. A near
neighbor and friend, E. Rockwood Hoar, whom you saw in his youth,
is now an inestimable citizen in this State, and lately, in
President Grant's Cabinet, Attorney-General of the United States.
He lives in this t