yesterday; my answer shall get under way today.

First under the head of business let it be authenticated that the
Letter enclosed a Draft for L51; a new, unexpected munificence
out of America; which is ever and anon dropping gifts upon me,--
to be received, as indeed they partly are, like Manna dropped out
of the sky; the gift of unseen Divinities! The last money I got
from you changed itself in the usual soft manner from dollars
into sovereigns, and was what they call "all right,"--all except
the little Bill (of Eight Pounds and odds, I think) drawn on
Fraser's Executors by Brown (Little and Brown?); which Bill the
said Executors having refused for I know not what reason, I
returned it to Brown with note of the dishonor done it, and so
the sum still stands on his Books in our favor. Fraser's people
are not now my Booksellers, except in the matter of your _Essays_
and a second edition of _Sartor;_ the other Books I got
transferred to a certain pair of people named "Chapman and Hall,
186 Strand"; which operation, though (I understand) it was
transacted with great and vehement reluctance on the part of the
Fraser people, yet produced no _quarrel_ between them and me, and
they still forward parcels, &c., and are full of civility when I
see them:--so that whether this had any effect or none in their
treatment of Brown and his Bill I never knew; nor indeed, having
as you explained it no concern with Brown's and their affairs,
did I ever happen to inquire. I avoid all Booksellers; see them
rarely, the blockheads; study never to think of them at all.
Book-sales, reputation, profit, &c., &c.; all this at present is
really of the nature of an encumbrance to me; which I study, not
without success, to sweep almost altogether out of my head. One
good is still possible to me in Life, one only: To screw a