Autograph letter signed : London, to [Samuel] Laurence, 1843 May 17.

Concerning the prospect of producing a portrait of Carlyle for the American market, noting that the painter Gambardella had intended at one time to paint a portrait of Carlyle, and praising the accuracy of Laurence's own portrait of him: "I know not if I have a right to say that anybody in America specially 'wants my Picture.' Gambardella meant to give his work to Emerson, I believe, had he succeeded: 'R. Waldo Emerson, Concord, near Boston.' But Emerson is not a rich man; not a picture-buying man. ... On the whole, your friend's best way will be to inquire of the Boston Booksellers (Little & Brown is the title of one House, Munroe and Co of another), who will probably be able to set him on the track of discovering who is the suitable man, if suitable man there be. ... Your Portrait of me, sublimely ugly as it may be, is the only decent attempt at a likeness I have yet fallen in with; and indeed seems to me to contain in it, very visibly, the elements of an excellent Picture. Sterling, I think I have told you, prizes the chalk Sketch at an enormous rate."