I received your note inviting me to Salem after my lecture Wednesday evening. My first impulse was to go to you; but I reflected that Mr [Parker] Pillsbury had just invited me to Lynn, thro’ Mr Buffum, promising to be there to meet me, indeed, we had already planned some excursions to Nahant, &—and he would be absent on Friday;—so I felt under obligations to him & the Lynn people to stay with them. Jonathan Buffum & Son, Pillsbury & Mr. [Benjamin?] Mudge—My reason for not running over to Salem for an hour, or a fraction of the day, was simply that I did not wish to impair my right to come by & by when I may have leisure to take in the whole pleasure & benefit of such a visit—for I hate to feel in a hurry.

  I shall improve or take an opportunity to spend a day—or part of a clay with you ere long, and I trust that you will be attracted to Concord again, and will find me a better walker than I chanced to be when you were here before.

  I have often thought of taking a walk with you in your vicinity. I have a little to tell you, but a great deal more to hear from you. I had a grand time deep in the woods of Maine in July, &c &c. I suppose that I saw the genista tinctoria in the N. W. part of Lynn—on my way to the boulder & the mill-stone ledge.

  Please remember me to Mr. [George P.?] Bradford.

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau