t) a copy of the _French
Revolution._ I regret exceedingly the printer's blunder about
the numbering the Books in the volumes, but he had warranted me
in a literal, punctual reprint of the copy without its leaving
his office, and I trusted him. I am told there are many errors.
I am going to see for myself. I have filled my paper, and not
yet said a word of how many things. You tell me how ill was Mrs.
C., and you do not tell me that she is well again. But I see
plainly that I must take speedily another sheet. I love
you always.
--R.W. Emerson
XXI. Emerson to Carlyle
Boston, 12 March, 1838
My Dear Friend,--Here in a bookseller's shop I have secured a
stool and corner to say a swift benison. Mr. Bancroft told me
that the presence of English Lord Gosford in town would give me a
safe conveyance of pamphlets to you, so I send some _Orations_ of
which you said so kind and cheering words. Give them to any one
who will read them. I have written names in three. You have, I
hope, got the letter sent nearly a month ago, giving account of
our reprint of the _French Revolution,_ and have received a copy
of the same. I learn from the bookseller today that six hundred
and fifty copies are sold, and the book continues to sell. So I
hope that our settlement at the end of six months will be final,
or nearly so.
I had nearly closed my agreement the other day with a publisher
for the emission of _Carlyle's Miscellanies,_ when just in the
last hour comes word from E.G. Loring that he has an authentic
catalogue from the Bard himself. Now I have that, and could wish
Loring had communicated his plan to me at first, or that I had
bad wit enough to have undertaken this matter long ago and
conferred with you. I designed nothing for you or your friends;
but merely a lucrative book for our daily market that would have
yielded a pecuniary compensation to you, such as we are all bound
to make, and have bought our Socrates a cloak. Loring
contemplated something quite different,--a "Complete Works,"
etc.,--and now clamors for the same thing, and I do not know but
I shall have to gratify him and others at the risk of injury to
this my vulgar hope of dollars,--that innate idea of the American
mind. This I shall settle in a few days. No copyright can be
secured here for an English book unless it contain original
matter: But my moments are going, and I can only promise to
write you quickly,
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