CLXXVIII. Emerson to Carlyle

Concord, 23 January, 1870*

My Dear Carlyle,--'T is a sad apology that I have to offer for
delays which no apology can retrieve. I received your first
letter with pure joy, but in the midst of extreme inefficiency.
I had suddenly yielded to a proposition of Fields & Co. to
manufacture a book for a given day. The book was planned, and
going on passably, when it was found better to divide the matter,
and separate, and postpone the purely literary portion (criticism
chiefly), and therefore to modify and swell the elected part.
The attempt proved more difficult than I had believed, for I only
write by spasms, and these ever more rare,--and daemons that have
no ears. Meantime the publication day was announced, and the
printer at the door. Then came your letter in the shortening
days. When I drudged to keep my word, _invita Minerva._

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* This letter is printed from an imperfect rough draft.
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I could not write in my book, and I could not write a letter.
Tomorrow and many morrows made things worse, for we have
indifferent health in the house, and, as it chanced, unusual
strain of affairs,--which always come when they should not. For
one thing--I have just sold a house which I once built opposite
my own. But I will leave the bad month, which I hope will not