Emerson that my first steps in New York on this visit seem not to have been prudent, and so I lose several precious days.

February 11.

A society invited me to read my course before them in the Bowery, on certain terms, one of which was that they guaranteed me a thousand auditors. I referred them to my brother William, who covenanted with them. It turned out that their church was in a dark, inaccessible place, a terror to the honest and fair citizens of New York; and our first lecture had a handful of persons, and they all personal friends of mine, from a distant part of the city. But the Bereans felt so sadly about the disappointment that it seemed at last, on much colloquy, not quite good-natured and affectionate to abandon them at once, but to read also a second lecture, and then part. The second was read with faint success, and then we parted. I begin this evening anew in the Society Library, where I was last year. This takes more time than I could wish, a great deal, and I grieve that I cannot come home. I see W. H. Channing and Mr. [Henry] James at leisure, and have had what the Quakers call “a solid season “once or twice; with Tappan a very happy pair of hours, and him I must see again.

I am enriched greatly by your letter, and now by the dear letters which Mr. Mackay has brought me from Lidian Emerson and Elizabeth Hoar; and for speed in part, and partly because I like to write so, I make you the organ of communication to the whole household, and must still owe you a special letter. I dare not say when I will come home, as the time so fast approaches when I should speak to the Mercantile Library. Yesterday eve I was at Staten Island, where William had promised me as a lecturer. and made a speech at Tompkinsville. Dear love to my mother. I shall try within twenty-four hours to write to my wife. Thanks, thanks for your love to Edie! Farewell. R. WALDO E.

The “special letter,” if written, has failed to appear, and instead of it I find one devoted chiefly to the next number of the Dial, of which Emerson was then the editor, with Thoreau’s aid. For the January number of 1843 Thoreau had given his unmetrical translation of the Prometheus Bound of Æschylus; for the April number he gave translations from the pseudo-Anacreon, and those beautiful Grecian poems of his own on Smoke and Haze.

IV. EMERSON TO THOREAU

NEW YORK, 12 February, 1843.

MY DEAR HENRY, — I am sorry I have no paper but this unsightly sheet, this Sunday eve, to write you a message which I see must not wait. The Dial for April, what elements shall compose it? What have you for me? What has Mr. Lane? Have you any Greek translations in your mind? Have you given shape to the comment on Etzler?(3) (It was about some sentences on this matter that I made, some day, a most rude and snappish speech. I remember, but you will not, and must give the sentences as you first wrote them.) You must go to Mr. [Charles] Lane, with my affectionate respects, and tell him that I depend on his important aid for the new number, and wish him to give us the most recent and stirring matter that he has. If (as he is a ready man) he offers us anything at once, I beg you to read it; and if you see and say decidedly that it is good for us, you need not send it to me; but if it is of such quality that you can less surely pronounce, you must send it to me by Harnden.