“I have been happy now in freedom from headache and all other interruptions, and have spun out my thread as long and many-colored as was pleasing. The result I have not yet looked at; must put some days between me and it first. Then I shall revise and get it into printer’s ink by Christmas, I hope.”[1]
She wrote more fully, on the same day, to the Rev. W. H. Channing: —
“At last I have finished the pamphlet. The last day it kept spinning out beneath my hand. After taking a long walk early in one of the most noble, exhilarating sort of mornings, I sat down to write, and did not put the last stroke till near nine in the evening. Then I felt a delightful glow, as if I had put a good deal of my true life in it; as if, suppose I went away now, the measure of my footprint would be left on the earth. That was several days ago, and I do not know how it will look on revision, for I must leave several days more between me and it before I undertake that, but think it will be much better than if it had been finished at Cambridge, for here has been no headache, and leisure to choose my hours.
“It will make a pamphlet rather larger than a number of the ‘Dial,’ and would take a fortnight or more to print. Therefore I am anxious to get the matter en train before I come to New York, that I may begin the 1st December, for I want to have it out by Christmas. Will you, then, see Mr. Greeley about it the latter part of this week or the beginning of next? He is absent now, but will be back by that time, and I will write to
- ↑ MS.
