Part 17 (1/2)

Your paper is a triumph. It is so handsome to the eye and sweet to the mind, it is so pleasantly varied, and its sketches have such completeness of grace in themselves, that the reader is not ashamed of the pleasure it gives him and the interest he has in it, which you may have remarked is not always the case, for instance, in liking Anna Thillard's business at Niblo's (of which very little is certainly enough). I am half ashamed of myself for really enjoying what I know is so utterly artificial. Do you conceive?

I just see in the _National Era_ a long notice of you and your _Journal_.

It was not mine or the T.'s or I should have sent it to you. But you must find it.

You will receive an early copy of my Syrian book, the last of the Howadji, who, leaving the East, becomes a mere traveller. It was a real work of love, and I hope you may have some of the pleasure in reading that I had in writing it.

Give my love to your wife, and believe me always,

G.W.C.

I send you over the page a list of names of my subscribers and enclose you the funds in N.Y. money. [Enclosed were eight subscriptions to _Dwight's Journal of Music_, Curtis himself taking three copies.]

X

N.Y., _28th Apr., 1852._

My dear John,--I span out my letter so far that I had no room for pictures, but I will not forget them, and they will remain open until the middle of July.

I shall be only too delighted to see Mr. Goldschmidt, and sincerely regret that I have enjoyed no such opportunity of seeing Jenny Lind until just as she is going. We are beginning to stir. White and I have both suggested _one_ concert of the true stamp, and the _Times_ came out against us and we pitched back again into the _Times_; and the _Herald_ and other journals have called attention to the warfare, and insist that humbug, Barnumania, and high prices shall be put down. I am going to write an article upon Jenny Lind's right to ask $3 if she thinks fit, on the principle that d.i.c.kens, Horace Vernet, and every mola.s.ses merchant acts and properly acts.

Why not send your papers to the publisher of some Sat.u.r.day paper to distribute with his? The difficulty is that if people are irregular in getting it, it will lose its character of steadiness, which is fatal to such a paper. Ripley agrees in this. By mail the majority of people who haven't boxes at the P.O. get nothing at all, or only spasmodically. You will have to send it to some agent here, I am confident.

Cranch is about breaking up house-keeping preparatory to his summer rustication. He is in a tight place again, as he is too apt to be, poor fellow! The fact is art is poor pay unless you are a great artist. He fights very cheerfully, though, which is a comfort. His children are very interesting, and at his house there is a set of us who have the best of times, the most truly genial and poetic.

I enclose you the funds which I so amusingly forgot, and, if I can serve you by seeing any agent or other ”fallow deer,” I shall be most happy to do it; and don't fail always to call upon me.

Yours most truly and ever,

G.W.C.

Is this sum right?

XI

NEWPORT, _July 29th, 1852._

My dear John,--I have been running round for two or three weeks, and have forgotten to ask you to change the address of the papers which come to me....

I am charmingly situated here with Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow and Tom Appleton, and with some other pleasant people. It is very lovely and lazy; but I am quite busy. Give my love to your wife and believe me, always,

Your aff.

G.W.C.

XII

NEWPORT, _Oct. 11th, 1852._