Have we no more news from Wheeler? Has Bartlett none?(4)

I find Edward Palmer here, studying medicine and attending medical lectures. He is acquainted with Mr. Porter, whom Lane and Wright know, and values him highly. I am to see Porter. Perhaps I shall have no more time to fill this sheet; if so, farewell.

Yours, R. WALDO E.

This Edward Palmer appears again in a letter of Thoreau’s, and I think he afterwards made one of Alcott’s little community at Fruitlands, in Harvard, where Charles Lane owned the property, and resided for a time, with his son William and his friend Wright. To this editorial letter of Emerson, Thoreau, who was punctuality itself, replied at once.

V. THOREAU TO EMERSON.

CONCORD, February 15, l843.

MY DEAR FRIEND, — I got your letters, one yesterday and the other to-day, and they have made me quite happy. As a packet is to go in the morning, I will give you a hasty account of the Dial. I called on Mr. Lane this afternoon, and brought away, together with an abundance of good will, first, a bulky catalogue of books without commentary, — some eight hundred, I think he told me, with an introduction filling one sheet, — ten or a dozen pages, say, though I have only glanced at them; second, a review — twenty-five or thirty printed pages — of Conversations on the Gospels, Record of a School, and Spiritual Culture, with rather copious extracts. However, it is a good subject, and Lane says it gives him satisfaction. I will give it a faithful reading directly. [These were Alcott’s publications, reviewed by Lane.] And now I come to the little end of the horn; for myself, I have brought along the Minor Greek Poets, and will mine there for a scrap or two, at least. As for Etzler, I don’t remember any “rude and snappish speech” that you made, and if you did it must have been longer than anything I had written; however, here is the book still, and I will try. Perhaps I have some few scraps in my Journal which you may choose to print. The translation of the Æschylus I should like very well to continue anon, if it should be worth the while. As for poetry, I have not remembered to write any for some time; it has quite slipped my mind; but sometimes I think I hear the mutterings of the thunder. Don’t you remember that last summer we heard a low, tremulous sound in the woods and over the hills, and thought it was partridges or rocks, and it proved to be thunder gone down the river? But sometimes it was over Wayland way, and at last burst over our heads. So we ‘ll not despair by reason of the drought. You see, it takes a good many words to supply the place of one deed; a hundred lines to a cobweb, and but one cable to a man-of-war. The Dial case needs to be reformed in many particulars. There is no news from Wheeler, none from Bartlett. They all look well and happy in this house, where it gives me much pleasure to dwell. Yours in haste, HENRY.

P.S.

Wednesday Evening, February 16.

DEAR FRIEND, — I have time to write a few words about the Dial. I have just received the three first signatures, which do not yet complete Lane’s piece. He will place five hundred copies for sale at Munroe’s bookstore. Wheeler has sent you two full sheets — more about the German Universities — and proper names, which will have to be printed in alphabetical order for convenience; what this one has done, that one is doing, and the other intends to do. Ham-mer-Purgstall (Von Hammer) may be one, for aught I know.