and this would be a real satisfaction to me. But who then
would march through Coventry with such a set!" The extreme
insignificance of the Gift, this and nothing else, always gave
me pause.

Last Summer, I was lucky enough to meet with your friend C.E.
Norton, and renew many old Massachusetts recollections, in free
talk with [him]....; to him I spoke of the affair; candidly
describing it, especially the above questionable feature of it,
so far as I could; and his answer, then, and more deliberately
afterwards, was so hopeful, hearty, and decisive, that--in effect
it has decided me; and I am this day writing to him that such is
the poor fact, and that I need farther instructions on it so soon
as you two have taken counsel together.

To say more about the infinitesimally small value of the Books
would be superfluous: nay, in truth, many or most of them are
not without intrinsic value, one or two are even excellent as
Books; and all of them, it may perhaps be said, have a kind of
_symbolic_ or _biographic_ value; and testify (a thing not
useless) _on what slender commissariat stores_ considerable
campaigns, twelve years long or so, may be carried on in this
world. Perhaps you already knew of me, what the _Cromwell_ and
_Friedrich_ collection might itself intimate, that much _buying_
of Books was never a habit of mine,--far the reverse, even to
this day!

Well, my Friend, you will have a meeting with Norton so soon as
handy; and let me know what is next to be done. And that, in
your official capacity, is all I have to say to you at present.