d that have not potatoes
enough"! I declare, in History I find nothing more tragical. I
find also that it will alter; that for me as one it has altered.
Me Mammon will _pay_ or not as he finds convenient; buy me he
will not.--In fine, I say, sit still at Concord, with such spirit
as you are of; under the blessed skyey influences, with an open
sense, with the great Book of Existence open round you: we shall
see whether you too get not something blessed to read us from it.

The Paper is declining fast, and all is yet speculation. Along
with these two "Articles" (to be sent by Liverpool; there are
two of them, _Diamond Necklace_ and _Mirabeau_), you will very
probably get some stray Proofsheet--of the unutterable _French
Revolution!_ It is actually at Press; two Printers working at
separate Volumes of it,--though still too slow. In not many
weeks, my hands will be washed of it! You, I hope, can have
little conception of the feeling with which I wrote the last word
of it, one night in early January, when the clock was striking
ten, and our frugal Scotch supper coming in! I did not cry; nor
I did not pray but could have done both. No such _spell_ shall
get itself fixed on me for some while to come! A beggarly
Distortion; that will please no mortal, not even myself; of
which I know not whether the fire were not after all the due
place! And yet I ought not to say so: there is a great blessing
in a man's doing what he utterly can, in the case he is in.
Perhaps great quantities of dross are burnt out of me by this
calcination I have had; perhaps I shall be far quieter and
healthier of mind and body than I have ever been since boyhood.
The world, though no man had ever less empire in it, seems to me
a thing lying _under_ my feet; a mean imbroglio, which I never
more shall fear, or court, or disturb myself with: welcome and
welcome to go wholly _its own way;_ I wholly clear for going
mine. Through the summer months I am, somewhere or other, to
rest myself, in the deepest possible sleep. The residue is vague
as the wind,--unheeded as the wind. Some way it will turn out
that a poor, well-meaning Son of Adam has bread growing for him
too, better or worse: _any_ way,--or even _no_ way, if that be
it,--I shall be content. There is a scheme here among Friends
for my Lecturing in a thing they call Royal Institution; but it
will not do there, I think. The instant two or three are
gathered together under a