WCP730

[1]^{1, 2}

Carr Place, Belmont,

P[ort]. of Spain Mar[ch]. 6th [19]05

My dear true friend

It is good of you to go to so much labour on my behalf. I don’t know what I should have done without your help. I feel infinitely indebted to you. A father could not do more for his son than you have done for me. And I, what have I done in return? Nothing, not even got you the mosses & ground orchids & wild pines yet. I shall do tho[ugh]’ at the first opportunity.

³But I thank you most for the love & patience you have shown ^borne to me, & I want to give the best of myself in return. As the heaven is above the earth — the life above the body (in which it is manifest) so is goodwill between men ^us above the material manifestation of it. Soul can only be satisfied by soul. As Thoreau says — "We should give back life for life". How true these things are, one only completely realizes after experiencing the opposite & deadly poisonous extreme of man’s nature ^habits [,] the cold calculating selfishness which is (shame upon us that it should be so) called "business". I go forth ready to treat [2]⁴ all men as gods — superior beings, but the moment I come to negotiate for the wherewithal to supply my bodily needs, lo, I have to descend & higgle [sic] & bargain ^{find fault & higgle} [sic] & threaten until I feel as if body were conspiring against soul all the world over. When, oh when will men let the good (God) spirit rule in them in place of the do-evil (Devil) spirit? Truly does Thoreau say — "Trade curses everything it handles." Half the pleasure I used to derive from the study of nature seems to have departed since I began selling her treasures — God’s property. I long to be independent of the sale of them — to become a tiller of the soil, with nature study my recreation once more. In [my] imagination I see a clearing on the bank of some noble river, with plantations of cacao & plantain, coir, & fruit trees & sugar cane & the other necessaries surrounding a cool wide veranda’d [sic] house. & backed by a glorious forest 50 or 1000 miles deep — an inexhaustible storehouse of wonders in the plant & animal world , to the study of which I could turn with freedom & delight as soon as the necessary for the body labour of the day was performed.

⁵Why should I conceal from you that I will never be really satisfied, contented until I [3]⁶ reach some such state? The page wherein you describe such a home in "Travels on the Amazon"⁷ seems the most valuable & sacred of the book ^{(to me)} & I turn to it with delight! But I’ve learnt that it will need far more labour than your words suggest to a northerner [to] establish such a paradise.

⁸If you wrote it for the benefit ^{enlightenment} of the emigrant, you should have told him of the great labour required to get each house post out from the forest & each board split for boarding[?] & flooring. & furniture, & the scores of other difficulties he would have to surmount. The thinker speaks to the thinker: only the labourer can speak adequately to the labourer. I hope you will forgive me for saying this. I say it with deep love for you.

In the meantime, before such contentment can be realized, I will strive my level best to collect in a generous spirit thinking of the pleasure & knowledge the people at home will gain rather than the money value of my specimens. Yet even now I am about to discuss the latter!

If I do as you suggest in your last letter ^{i.e. ask for a statement of sales purchasers, price etc} it will almost certainly mean that Janson⁹ will refuse to be my agent. Perhaps this will be for the best, but I’m not sure. I received a letter from him this morning which I [4]^{10, 11} am now about to copy to enclose with this that you may advise me on it…

¹² I have just finished copying it & want to know what you think. Is it the letter of an honest man or of a schemer? Now read what I have sent him in reply, following your instruction in your last letter….Have I worded it too strongly? I think what you told me to write is as severe as anything in it, is it not? If he takes no heed of this it will prove that he prefers[?] has something to conceal. The worst of the whole matter is that is that he may promise to give a statement, & not give an accurate one. However, I’m beginning to think that it w[oul]d be much better to be employed directly by M^r Druce¹³ & M^r Schill. In aAll my life I have preferred to deal directly with men rather than indirectly thro[ugh]’ another. So I shall be exceedingly glad if you can arrange with Mess^rs Druce & Schill to take first pick of everything I send them at a fixed price per specimen. I will endeavour to be ready to go anywhere they wish, but should like to try Guayagauyare ^{S.E. Trin[idad]} first, then Santa Catalina on the Orinoco — just above where the Delta starts to¹⁴