e_
with them, whatever they may do for themselves. I am misanthropical in
respect to the booksellers. They manage one as they please, and not at
all to please one. I have no more to say to the fate of my books than
you have--and not much more to pocket. This third edition, for instance,
which should have been out four or five months ago, they are keeping, I
suppose, for the millennium, encouraged probably by the spiritual
manifestations; and _my_ personal manifestations meanwhile have as much
weight with them as facts have with Faraday, or the theory of fair play
with the London 'Athenaeum.' I am sick of it all, indeed. I look down on
it all as the epicurean gods do on the world without putting out a
finger to save an empire; perhaps because they can't. Long live the
----, who are kings of us. It's the best thing possible, I conclude, in
this best of possible social economies, though for ourselves
individually it may not be a very good thing; not precisely what we
should choose. Think of the separate book of outlines. Seriously, Robert
and I recommend you to consider it. You might make a book for
drawing-room tables which would be generally acceptable if not too
expensive. And Mr. Spicer is bringing me more? How kind of you. And when
is he coming? Scarcely could anyone come as a stranger whom I desire
more to see, and I do hope he will bring me facts and fantasies too on
the great subject which is interesting me so deeply. His book of 'Sights
and Sounds' we have read, but the new book has not penetrated to us.
'Sights and Sounds' is very curious, and the authenticity of its facts
has been confirmed to me by various testimonies, but the author is too
clever for his position; I mean too full of flash and wit. There's an
air of levity, and of effective writing, without which the book would
have been more impressive and convincing; don't you think so? And here
we get to the heart of most of the difficulties of the subject. Why do
we make no quicker advances, do you say? Why are our communications
chiefly trivial? Why, but because we ourselves are trivial, and don't
bring serious souls and concentrated attentions and holy aspirations to
the spirits who are waiting for these things? Spirit comes to spirit by
affinity, says Swedenborg; but our cousinship is not with the high and
noble. We try experiments from curiosity, just as children play with the
loadstone; our ducks swim, but they don't get beyond that, and _won't_,
unless