_debt,_ far greater than either they or he are in the least aware
of at present! That I consider (for myself) to be an ascertained
fact. For which I myself at least am thankful and have long been.

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* It is missing now.
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It pleases me much to know that this English [book], so long
twinkling in our expectations and always drawn back again, is at
last verily to appear: I wish I could get hold of my copy:
there is no Book that would suit me better just now. But we must
wait for four weeks till we get back to Chelsea,--unless I call
find some trusty hand to extract it from the rubbish that will
have accumulated there, and forward it by post. You speak as if
there were something dreadful said of my own sacred self in that
Book: Courage, my Friend, it will be a most miraculous
occurrence to meet with anything said by you that does me _ill;_
whether the immediate taste of it be sweet or bitter, I will take
it with gratitude, you may depend,--nay even with pleasure, what
perhaps is still more incredible. But an old man deluged for
half a century with the brutally nonsensical vocables of his
fellow-creatures (which he grows to regard soon as _rain,_ "rain
of frogs" or the like, and lifts his umbrella against with
indifference),--such an old gentleman, I assure you, is grateful
for a word that he can recognize perennial sense in; as in this
case is his sure hope. And so be the little Book thrice welcome;
and let all England understand (as some choice portion of England
will) that there has not been a man talking about us these very
many years whose words are worth the least attention in comparison.