that
latter clause; at the same time, it was thrown in so cursorily I
would not let myself be much alarmed; and since that, various
New England friends have assured me here that there was nothing
of great moment in it, that the business was all well over now,
and you safe at Concord again. Yet how is it that I do not
hear? I will tell you my guess is that those Boston Carlylean
_Miscellanies_ are to blame. The Printer is slack and lazy as
Printers are; and you do not wish to write till you can send
some news of him? I will hope and believe that only this is it,
till I hear worse.

I sent you a Dumfries Newspaper the other week, for a sign of my
existence and anxiety. A certain Mr. Ellis of Boston is this day
packing up a very small memorial of me to your Wife; a poor
Print rolled about a bit of wood: let her receive it graciously
in defect of better. It comes under your address. Nay, properly
it is my Wife's memorial to your Wife. It is to be hung up in
the Concord drawing-room. The two Households, divided by wide
seas, are to understand always that they are united nevertheless.

My special cause for writing this day rather than another is the
old story, book business. You have brought that upon yourself,
my friend; and must do the best you can with it. After all, why
should not Letters be on business too? Many a kind thought,
uniting man with man, in gratitude and helpfulness, is founded on
business. The speaker at Dartmouth College seems to think it
ought to be so. Nor do I dissent.--But the case is this, Fraser
and I are just about bargaining for a second edition of the
_Revolution._ He will print fifteen hundred for the English
market, in a somewhat closer style, and sell them here at twenty-
four shillings a copy. His first edition is all gone but some
handful; and the man is in haste, and has taken into a mood of
hope,--for he is weak and aguish, alternating from hot to cold;
otherwise, I find, a very accurate creature, and deals in his
unjust trade as justly as any other will. He has settled with
me; his half-profits amount to some L130, which by charging me
for every presentation copy he cuts down to somewhere about L110;
_not_ the lion's share in the gross produce, yet a great share
compared with an expectancy no higher than _zero!_ We continue
on the same system for this second adventure; I cannot go
hawking about in search of new terms; I might go farther and
fare worse. And