I must endeavor to thank you for your magnificent, your princely gift to me. My father, with his hand in his pocket, and an air of mystery and importance about him suggests that I have another letter from Mr. Cholmondeley, and hands me a ship letter. I open eagerly upon a list of books (made up in one parcel) for Henry D. &c &c”; and my eye glances down a column half as long as my arm, where I already detect some emineces which I had not seen or heard of, standing out like the peak of the Himalayas. No! it is not Cholmondeley’s writing.—But what good angel has divined my thoughts? Has any company of the faithful in England passed a resolution to overwhelm me with their munificent regards “Wilson Rig veda Sanhitu” [sic] Vol 1 & 2no. “Translation of Mandukya Upanishads.” I begin to step from pinnacle to pinnacle. Ah! but here it is “Longon, King William Street. Truly yours John Chapman.” Enclosed is the list. “Mr Thomas Cholmondeley” and now I see through it, and here is a land I know and father was right after all. While he is gone to the market I will read a little further in this list “Nala & Damyanta” “Bhagavita Purana.” “Institutes of Menu.”—

  How they look far away and grand!

  That will do for the present: a little at a time of these rich dishes. I will look again by and by. “Per Asia” too they have come, as I read on the envelope! Was there any design in that? The very nucleus of her cargo; Asia carried them in her womb long ago. Immobility itself is tossed on Atlantic billows to present the gift to me. Was not there an omen for you? No Africa; no Europe—no Baltic, but it would have sunk. And now we will see if America can sustain it. Build new shelves—display, unfold your columns. What was that dim pleak that loomed for an instant far behind, representatives of a still loftier and more distant range. “Vishnu Purana,” an azure mountain in itself.—gone again, but surely seen for once. And what was that which dimmed the brightness of the day, like an apex of Cotopaxi’s cone, seen against the disk of the sun by the voyager of the south American coast” Bhagavat Geeta”! whose great unseen base I can faintly imagine spreading beneath. “History of British India nine vols”!! Chevalier Bunsen vols 8vo cloth”!! Have at them! who cares numbers in a just cause England expects every man to do his duty. Be sure you are right and then go ahead. I begin to think myself learned for merely possessing such works: If here is not the wealth of the Indies, of what stuff then is it made. They may keep their rupees this and the like of this is what the great company traded and fought for, to convey the light of the East into the West:—this their true glory and success.

  And now you have gone to the East or Eastward, having assisted its light to shine westward behind you; have gone towards the source of light! To which I pray that you may get nearer and nearer