I have received your four books & what is more I have read them. Olmstead was the only entire stranger. His book I think might have been shortened-& if he had indeed written only one word instead of ten—I should have liked it better. Of your own book I will say nothing but I will ask you a question, which perhaps may be a very ignorant one. I have observed a few lines about [sentence unfinished].

  Now there is something here unlike anything else in these pages. Are they absolutely your own, or whose? And afterward you shall hear what I think of them. Walt Whitmans poems have only been heard of in Eggland to be laughed at & voted offensive—Here are “Leaves” indeed which I can no more understand than the book of Enoch or the inedited Poems of Daniel! I cannot believe such a man lives unless I actually touch him. He is further ahead of me in yonder west than Buddha is behind me in the Orient. I find reality & beauty mixed with not a little violence & coarseness both of which are to me effeminate. I am amused at his views of sexual energy—which however are absurdly false. I believe that rudeness & excitement in the act of generation are injurious to the issue. The man appears to me not to know how to behave himself. I find the gentleman altogether left out of the book Altogether these leaves completely puzzle me. Is there actually such a man as Whitman? Has anyone seen or handled him? His is a tongue “not understanded” of the English people. It is the first book I have ever seen which I should call ‘a new book’ & this I would sum up the impression it makes upon me.

  While I am writing, Prince Albert & Duke Constantine are reviewing the guards in a corner of St James Park. I hear the music. About two hours ago I took a turn round the Park before breakfast & saw the troops formed. The varieties of colour gleamed fully out from their uniforms. They looked like an Army of soldier butterflies just dropped from the lovely green trees under which they marched. Never saw the trees look so green before as they do this spring. Some of the oaks incredibly so. I stool before some of the other day in Richmond & was obliged to punch myself & ask ‘is this oak tree really growing on the earth they call so bad & wicked an earth; & itself so undeniably & astonishingly fresh & fair”? It did not look like magic. It was magic.

  I have had a thousand strange experiences lately—most of them delicious & some almost awful. I seem to do so much in my life when I am doing nothing at all. I seem to be hiving up strength all the while as a sleeping man does; who sleeps & dreams & strengthens himself unconsciously; only sometimes half-awakes with a sense of cool refreshment. Sometimes it is wonderful to me that I say so little & somehow cannot speak even to my friends! Why all the time I was at Concord I never could tell you much of all I have seen & done! I never could somehow tell you anything! How ungrateful to my guardian genius to think of any of it trivial or superfluous! But it always seemed already told & long ago said. What is past & what is to come seems as it were all shut up in some very simple but very dear notes of music which I never can repeat.

  Tonight I intend to hear Mr. [Neal] Dow the American lecture in Exeter Hall. I believe it is tonight. But I go forearmed against him—being convinced in my mind that a good man is all the better for a bottle of Port under his belt every day of his life.

  I heard Spurgeon the Preacher the other day.He said some very good things: among others “If I can make the bells ring in one heart I shall be content.” Two young men not behaving themselves, he called them as sternly to order as if they were serving under tim. Talking of Jerusalem he said that “every good man had a mansion of his own there & a crown that would fit no other head save his.” That I felt was true. It is the voice of Spurgeon that draws more than his matter. His organ is very fine—but I fear he is hurting it by preaching to too large & frequent congregations. I found this out—because he is falling into two voices the usual clerical infirmity.

  The bells—church bells are ringing somewhere for the queens birthday they tell me. I have not a court-guide at hand to see if this is so. London is cram-full. Not a bed! Not a corner! After all the finest sight is to see such numbers of beautiful girls riding about & riing well. There are certainly no women in the world like ours. The men are far inferior to them.

  I am still searching after an abode & really my adventures have been most amusing. One Sussex farmer had a very good little cottage close to Battle—but he kept “a few horses & a score or two of Pigs” under the very windows. I remarked at his stables were very filthy. The man started hard at me -as an English farmer only can stare: ie, as a man stares who is trying to catch a thought which is always running away from him. At last he said striking his stick on the ground—“But that is why I keep the Pigs. I want their dung for my hop-grounds” We could not arrange it after that. I received a very kind note today from Concord informing me that there was a farm to be sold on the hill just over your river & nearly opposite your house. But it is out of the question of buying land by Deputy! I have however almost decided to settle finally in America. There are many reasons for it. I think of running over in the trial-trip of the Great Eastern which will be at the close of the year. She is either to be the greatest success -or else to sink altogether without more ado! She is to be something decided. I was all over her the other day. The immense creature musical with the incessant tinkling of hammers is as yet unconscious of like. By measurement she is larger than the ark. From the promenade of her decks you see the town & trade of London; the river—(the sacred river) —; Greenwich with its park & palace; the vast town of Southward & the continuation of it at Deptford; the Sydenham palace & the Surrey hills. Altogether a noble Poem. Only think I am losing all my teeth. All my magnificent teeth are going. I now begin to know I have had good teeth. This comes of too many cups of warm trash. If I had held to cold drinks—they would have lasted me out; but the effeminacy of tea coffee chocolate & sugar has been my bane. Miserable wretches were they who invented these comforters of exhaustion! They could not afford wine & beer. Hence God to punish them for their feeble heards takes away the grinders from their representatives one of whom I have been induced to come. But, Thoreau, if ever I live again I vow never so much as to touch anything warm. It is as dangerous as to take a Poll which I am convinced is a most immoral custom. Give me ale for breakfast & caret or Port or ale again for dinner. Should then have a better conscience & not fear to lose my teeth any more than my tongue.

  Farewell Thoreau. Success & the county of goods attend you

  Yrs ever
  Thos Chol.ley