y singular and very pleasant it is to me to feel as
if I had a _house of my own_ in that far country: so many
leagues and geographical degrees of wild-weltering "unfruitful
brine"; and then the hospitable hearth and the smiles of
brethren awaiting one there! What with railways, steamships,
printing presses, it has surely become a most _monstrous_
"tissue," this life of ours; if evil and confusion in the one
Hemisphere, then good and order in the other, a man knows not
how: and so it rustles forth, immeasurable, from "that roaring
Loom of Time,"--miraculous ever as of old! To Ralph Waldo
Emerson, however, and those that love me as he, be thanks always,
and a sure place in the sanctuary of the mind. Long shall we
remember that Autumn Sunday that landed him (out of Infinite
Space) on the Craigenputtock wilderness, not to leave us as he
found us. My Wife says, whatever I decide on, I cannot thank you
too heartily;--which really is very sound doctrine. I write to
tell you so much; and that you shall hear from me again when
there is more to tell.

It does seem next to certain to me that I could preach a very
considerable quantity of things from that Boston Pulpit, such as
it is,--were I once fairly started. If so, what an unspeakable
relief were it too! Of the whole mountain of miseries one
grumbles at in this life, the central and parent one, as I often
say, is that you cannot utter yourself. The poor soul sits
struggling, impatient, longing vehemently out towards all corners
of the Universe, and cannot get its hest delivered, not even so
far as the voice might do it. Imprisoned, enchanted, like the
Arabian Prince with half his body marble: it is really bad work.
Then comes bodily sickness; to act and react, and double the
imbroglio. Till at last, I suppose, one does rise, like Eliphaz
the Temanite; states that his inner man is bursting (as if
filled with carbonic acid and new wine), that by the favor of
Heaven he will speak a word or two. Would it were come so far,--
if it be ever to come!

On the whole I think the odds are that I shall some time or other
get over to you; but that for this winter I ought not to go. My
London expedition is not decided hitherto; I have begun various
relations and arrangements, which it were questionable to cut
short so soon. That beggarly Book, were there nothing else,
hampers me every way. To fling it once for all into the fire
were perhaps the best; yet I grudg