This letter will be best explained by a reference to the Dial for October, 1843. The "Ethnical Scriptures" were selections from the Brahminical books, from Confucius, etc., such as we have since seen in great abundance. The Autumn verses are by Channing; "Sweep Ho!" by Ellen Sturgis, afterwards Mrs. Hooper; the "Youth of the Poet and Painter" also by Channing. The Letter to Contributors, which is headed simply "A Letter," is by Emerson, and has been much overlooked by his later readers; his "Ode to Beauty" is very well known, and does not deserve the slashing censure of Thoreau, though, as it now stands, it is better than first printed. Instead of
"Love drinks at thy banquet
Remediless thirst,"
we now have the perfect phrase,
"Love drinks at thy fountain
False waters of thirst."
"The Comic" is also Emerson's. There is a poem, "The Sail," by William Tappan, so often named in these letters, and a sonnet by Charles A. Dana, afterwards of the New York Sun.
TO HELEN THOREAU (AT CONCORD).
Staten Island, October 18, 1843.
Dear Helen,—What do you mean by saying that "we have written eight times by private opportunity"? Is n't it the more the better? And am I not glad of it? But people have a habit of not letting me know it when they go to Concord from New York. I endeavored to get you The Present when I was last in the city, but they were all sold; and now another is out, which I will send, if I get it. I did not send the Democratic Review, because I had no copy, and my piece was not worth fifty cents. You think that Channing's words would apply to me too, as living more in the natural than the moral world; but I think that you mean the world of men and women rather, and reformers generally. My objection to Channing and all that fraternity is that they need and deserve sympathy themselves rather than are able to render it to others. They want faith, and mistake their private ail for an infected atmosphere; but let any one of them recover hope for a moment, and right his particular grievance, and he will no longer train in that company. To speak or do anything that shall concern mankind, one must speak and act as if well, or from that grain of health which he has left. This Present book indeed is blue, but the hue of its thoughts is yellow. I say these things with the less hesitation, because I have the jaundice myself; but I also know what it is to be well. But do not think that one can escape from mankind who is one of them, and is so constantly dealing with them.