uated; reverent of nothing but what is reverable in all ages
and places: so we will print it, and be done with it;--and try a
new turn next time. What I am to do, were the thing done, you
see therefore, is most uncertain. How gladly would I run to
Concord! And if I were there, be sure the do-nothing arrangement
is the only conceivable one for me. That my sick existence
subside again, this is the first condition; that quiet vision be
restored me. It is frightful what an impatience I have got for
many kinds of fellow-creatures. Their jargon really hurts me
like the shrieking of inarticulate creatures that ought to
articulate. There is no resource but to say: Brother, thou
surely art not hateful; thou art lovable, at lowest pitiable;--
alas! in my case, thou art dreadfully wearisome, unedifying: go
thy ways, with my blessing. There are hardly three people among
these two millions, whom I care much to exchange words with, in
the humor I have. Nevertheless, at bottom, it is not my purpose
to quit London finally till I have as it were _seen it out._ In
the very hugeness of the monstrous City, contradiction cancelling
contradiction, one finds a sort of composure for one's self that
is not to be met with elsewhere perhaps in the world: people
tolerate you, were it only that they have not time to trouble
themselves with you. Some individuals even love me here; there
are one or two whom I have even learned to love,--though, for the
present, cross circumstances have snatched them out of my orbit
again mostly. Wherefore, if you ask me, What I am to do?--the
answer is clear so far, "Rest myself awhile"; and all farther is
as dark as Chaos. Now for resting, taking that by itself, my
Brother, who has gone back to Rome with some thoughts of settling
as a Physician there, presses me to come thither, and rest in
Rome. On the other hand, a certain John Sterling (the best man I
have found in these regions) has been driven to Bordeaux lately
for his health; he will have it that I must come to him, and
walk through the South of France to Dauphine, Avignon, and over
the Alps next spring!* Thirdly, my Mother will have me return to
Annandale, and lie quiet in her little habitation;--which I
incline to think were the wisest course of all. And lastly from
over the Atlantic comes my good Emerson's voice. We will settle
nothing, except that all shall remain unsettled. _Die Zukunft
decket Schmerzen and Glucke._

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