Handbills of the _Pioneer_ in red and black with a spread eagle at the head of them face me everywhere. I could not but laugh to see a drayman standing with his hands in his pockets diligently spelling it out, being attracted thereto doubtless by the bird of America, which probably led him to think it a proclamation of the President--a delusion from which he probably did not awake after perusing the document.... I shall endeavor while I am here to write an article on Pope. _Something_ I will send you for the next number, besides what I may possibly glean from others. A new magazine has just been started here, but it is illiberal and will probably fail. January 17, 1843. I shall only write a word or two, as I have already been writing, and my eyes, having been operated on yesterday _with the knife_, must be used charily.... I hope to hear better accounts of money matters in your next. Explain as to the 500 copies you speak of as sold the day before. Remember how interesting the least particle of news is to me, and I may be at home under three weeks from this, though I hope to be in a fortnight.... January 19. So you are fairly bewitched![36] Well, I might have expected it, but still it was no reason that you should have told me so little about the magazine. _I_ should not have talked wholly about one individual--of course not. _I_ should not have been bewitched.... Have you got any copy for the third number? Do not ask any conservatives to write, for it will mar the unity of the magazine. We shall be surer of success if we maintain a uniform course, and have a decided tendency either one way or the other. We shall, at least, gain more influence in that way. I have picked up a poem by Harry Franco against capital punishment. It has a good deal of humor in it and is striking. A woodcut of a poor devil hanging with the crows discussing his fate will perhaps accompany it. Prose I have got no scent of as yet.... January [20]. I have received _all_ your letters, and like to have you send by express. I should like to see Miss Gray’s and Miss Peabody’s articles before they go to press. I am a better judge of that kind of merchandise than you. The second number is a good one, but _full_ of misprints. The notices in the cover, if printed at all, should have been expurgated. See to it next time, and do not let your kind heart seduce you into printing any more puffs of _me_ personally. What do you mean by that notice of Emerson? I shall have to write to him. Your notice of De Quincey was excellent.