assailing the public ear with such a succession of melodies that all the stones will advance to form a city of refuge for the just. I think with the greatest pleasure of working in company with you. But what will it be? will you give us poems or philosophy or criticism, and how much? for we are planning out our first number by the yard. Let me hear from you directly.”[1]
Later, she writes to him again: —
… “Henry, I adjure you, in the name of all the Genii, Muses, Pegasus, Apollo, Pollio, Apollyon, (‘and must I mention’ ——) to send me something good for this journal before the 1st May. All mortals, my friend, are slack and bare; they wait to see whether Hotspur wins, before they levy aid for as good a plan as ever was laid. I know you are plagued and it is hard to write, just so is it with me, for I also am a father. But you can help, and become a godfather! if you like, and let it be nobly, for if the first number justify not the magazine, it will not find justification; so write, my friend, write, and paint not for me fine plans on the clouds to be achieved at some future time, as others do who have had many years to be thinking of immortality.
“I could make a number myself with the help Mr. E. [Emerson] will give, but the Public, I trow, is too astute a donkey not to look sad at that.”[2]
On March 18, 1840, Emerson writes to Carlyle: —
