h will have told
you from how painful a state of anxiety your most welcome letter
relieved us. You have done quite right, my beloved friend, in
returning to Boston. The voyage, always so trying to you, would,
with your health so deranged, have been most dangerous, and next
year you will find all your friends, except one, as happy to see and
to welcome you. Even if you had arrived now our meeting would have
been limited to minutes. Dr. Parsons will tell you that fresh
feebleness in a person so long tried and so aged (sixty-seven) must
have a speedy termination. May Heaven prolong your valuable life,
dear friend, and grant that you may be as happy yourself as you have
always tried to render others!

I rejoice to hear what you tell me of "Atherton." Here the
reception has been most warm and cordial. Every page of it was
written three times over, so that I spared no pains, but I was
nearly killed by the terrible haste in which it was finished, and I
do believe that many of the sheets were sent to me without ever
being read in the office. I have corrected one copy for the third
English edition, but I cannot undertake such an effort again, so, if
(as I venture to believe) it be destined to be often reprinted by
you, you must correct it from _that_ edition. I hope you sent a copy
to Mr. Whittier from me. I had hoped you would bring one to Mr.
Hawthorne and Mr. De Quincey, but I must try what I can do with Mr.
Hurst, and must depend on you for assuring these valued friends that
it was not neglect or ingratitude on my part.

Mr. Boner, my dear and valued friend, wishes you and dear Mr.
Ticknor to print his "Chamois-Hunting" from a second edition which
Chapman and Hall are bringing out. I sent my copy of the work to Mr.
Bennoch when we were expecting you, that you might see it. It is a
really excellent book, full of interest, with admirable plates,
which you could have, and, speaking in your interest, as much as in
his, I firmly believe that it would answer to you in money as well
as in credit to bring it out in America. Also Mrs. Browning (while
in Italy) wrote to me to inquire if you would like to bring out a
new poem by her, and a new work by her husband. I told her that I
could not doubt it, but that she had better write duplicate letters
to London and to Boston. Our poor little boy