--But, enough now.
The "little Book" never came; and, I doubt, never will: it is a
fate that seems to await three fourths of the Books that attempt
to reach me by the American Post; owing to some _informality in
wrapping_ (I have heard);--it never gave me any notable _regret_
till now. However, I had already bought myself an English copy,
rather gaudy little volume (probably intended for the _railways,_
as if _it_ were a Book to be read there), but perfectly printed,
ready to be read anywhere by the open eye and earnest mind;--
which I read here, accordingly, with great attention, clear
assent for most part, and admiring recognition. It seems to me
you are all your old self here, and something _more._ A calm
insight, piercing to the very centre; a beautiful sympathy, a
beautiful _epic_ humor; a soul peaceably irrefragable in this
loud-jangling world, of which it sees the ugliness, but _notices_
only the huge new _opulences_ (still so anarchic); knows the
electric telegraph, with all its vulgar botherations and
impertinences, accurately for what it is, and ditto ditto the
oldest eternal Theologies of men.
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