Page:The Atlantic Monthly vol. 69.djvu/752

742 I believe I must keep back all my communications on English topics until I get to London, which is England. Everything centralizes in this magnificent machine which England is. Manufacturer for the world, she is become, or becoming, one complete tool or engine in herself. Yesterday the time all over the kingdom was reduced to Greenwich time. At Liverpool, where I was, the clocks were put forward twelve minutes. This had become quite necessary on account of the railroads, which bind the whole country into swiftest connection, and require so much accurate interlocking, intersection, and simultaneous arrival that the difference of time produced confusion. Every man in England carries a little book in his pocket, called Bradshaw's Guide, which contains time-tables of every arrival and departure at every station, on all the railroads of the kingdom. It is published anew on the first day of every month, and costs six-pence. The proceeding effects of electric telegraph will give a new importance to such arrangements.

But lest I should not say what is needful, I will postpone England once for all, and say that I am not of opinion that your book should be delayed a month. I should print it at once, nor do I think that you would incur any risk in doing so that you cannot well afford. It is very certain to have readers and debtors, here as well as there. The Dial is absurdly well known here. We at home, I think, are always a little ashamed of it,—I am,—and yet here it is spoken of with the utmost gravity, and I do not laugh. Carlyle writes me that he is reading Doomsday Book. You tell me in your letter one odious circumstance, which we will dismiss from remembrance henceforward. Charles Lane instructed me, in London, to ask you to forward his Dials to him, which must be done, if you can find them. Three bound volumes are among his books in my library. The fourth volume is in unbound numbers at J. Munroe & Co.'s shop, received there in a parcel to my address, a day or two before I sailed, and which I forgot to carry to Concord. It must be claimed without delay. It is certainly there,—was opened by me and left; and they can inclose all four volumes to Chapman for me.

Well, I am glad the Pleasaunce at Walden suffered no more; but it is a great loss as it is, which years will not repair. I feel that I have balked you by the promise of a letter which ends in as good as none, but I write with counted minutes and a miscellany of things before me.

Yours affectionately, R. W. E.

[On a separate sheet this message:]

Will Mr. Thoreau please to bear in mind that when there is good mortar in readiness Mr. Dean must be summoned to fit the air-tight stove to the chimney in the schoolroom?—unless Mr. T. can do it with convenience himself.

Mr. Lane was the English owner of the farm in Harvard, where he had lived with the Alcotts; and Emerson had the care of his property in America, now that he had gone back to England. In the letter which follows "Whipple" is E. P. Whipple, the essayist, then a popular lecturer, and the "traveling professor" is Agassiz.

, December 29, 1847.

, I thank you for your letter. I was very glad to get it; and I am glad again to write to you. However slow the steamer, no time intervenes between the writing and the reading of thoughts, but they come freshly to the most distant port. I am here still, and very glad to be here, and shall not trouble you with any complaints because I do not fill my place better. I have had many good hours in the