e
from Binder, nine remaining imperfect, and so not bound. But in
all my reckonings of the particulars of distribution I make
either more or less than nine hundred and ninety-one copies. And
some of my accounts are with private individuals at a distance,
and they have their uncertainties and misrememberings also. But
the facts will soon show themselves, and I count confidently on a
small balance against the world to your credit.

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* This letter appeared in the _Athenaeum,_ July 22, 1882.
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The _Miscellanies_ go forward too slowly, at about the rate of
seventy-two pages a week, as I understand. Of the _Fraser_
articles and of some others we have but a single copy, (such are
the tough limits of some English immortalities and editorial
renowns,) but we expect the end of the printing in six weeks.
The first two volumes, with title-pages, are gone to the binder--
two hundred and sixty copies--with strait directions; and I
presume will go to sea very soon. We shall send the last two
volumes by a later ship. You will pay nothing for the books
we send except freight. We shall deduct the cost of the
books from the credit side of your account here. We print
of the second series twelve hundred and fifty copies, with the
intention of printing a second edition of the first series of
five hundred, if we see fit hereafter to supply the place of the
emigrating portion of the first. You express some surprise at
the cheapness of our work. The publishers, I believe, generally
get more profits. They grumbled a little at the face of the
account on the 1st of January; so in the new contract for the
new volumes I have allowed them nine cents more on each copy sold
by them. So that you should receive ninety-one cents on a copy
instead of one dollar. When the two hundred and fifty copies of
our first two volumes are gone to you, I think they will have but
about one hundred copies more to sell.

Your books are read. I hear, I think, more gratitude expressed
for the _Miscellanies_ than for the _History._ Young men at all
our colleges study them in closets, and the Copernican is
eradicating the Ptolemaic lore. I have frequent and cordial
testimonies to the good working of the leaven, and continual
inquiry whether the man will come hither. _Speriamo._

I was a fool to tell you once you must not come if I did tell you
so. I knew better at the time, and did steadily believe, as far
as I was concerned,