and not part with the plate till it were pronounced
satisfactory. In short, I am willing to do “anything
in reason”! Only if a Portrait is to be,
I confess I should rather avoid going abroad under
the hands of bunglers, at least of bunglers sanctioned
by myself. There is a Portrait of me in some
miserable farrago called Spirit of the Age;*
a farrago unknown to me, but a Portrait known, for
poor Lawrence brought it down to me with sorrow in
his face; it professes to be from his painting;
is a “Lais without the beauty” (as
Charles Lamb used to say); a flayed horse’s
head without the spiritualism, good or bad,—and
simply figures on my mind as a detestability; which
I had much rather never have seen. These poor
Spirit of the Age people applied to me; I described
myself as “busy,” &c.; shoved them off
me; and this monster of iniquity, resembling Nothing
in the Earth or under it, is the result. In
short, I am willing, I am willing; and so let us not
waste another drop of ink on it at present!—On
the whole, are not you a strange fellow? You
apologize as if with real pain for “trouble”
I had, or indeed am falsely supposed to have had, with
Chapman here; and forthwith engage again in correspondences,
in speculations, and negotiations, and I know not
what, on my behalf! For shame, for shame!
Nay, you have done one very ingenious thing; to
set Clark upon the Boston Booksellers’ accounts:
it is excellent; Michael Scott setting the Devil
to twist ropes of sand, “There, my brave one;
see if you don’t find work there for a while!”
I never think of this Clark without love and laughter.
Once more, Euge! Chapman is fast selling
your Books here; striking off a new Five Hundred from
his Stereotypes. You are wrong as to your Public
in this Country; it is a very pretty public; extends
pretty much, I believe, through all ranks, and is
a growing one,—and a truly aristocratic,
being of the bravest inquiring minds we have.
All things are breaking up here, like Swedish Frost
in the end of March; gachis epouvantable.
Deep, very serious eternal instincts, are at work;
but as yet no serious word at all that I hear, except
what reaches me from Concord at intervals. Forward,
forward! And you do not know what I mean by calling
you “unpractical,” “theoretic.”
0 caeca corda! But I have no room for such
a theme at present.
---------- * “A new Spirit of the Age. Edited by R.H. Horne.” In Two Volumes. London, 1844. ----------
The reason I tell you nothing about Cromwell is, alas, that there is nothing to be told. I am day and night, these long months and years, very miserable about it,—nigh broken-hearted often. Such a scandalous accumulation of Human Stupidity in every form never lay before on such a subject. No history of it can be written to this wretched, fleering, sneering, canting, twaddling, God-forgetting generation. How can you explain men to Apes by