I have been here much longer than I expected, but have deferred answering you, because I could not foresee when I shall return. I do not know yet within three or four days. This uncertainty makes it impossible for me to appoint a day to meet you, until it shall be too late to bear from you again. I think, therefore, that I must go straight home. I feel some objection to reading that “What shall it profit” lecture again in Worcester; but if you are quite sure that it will be worth the while (it is a grave consideration), I will even make an independent journey from Concord for that purpose. I have read three of my old lectures (that included) to the Eagleswood people, and, unexpectedly, with rare success-i. e., I was aware that what I was saying was silently taken in by their ears.

  You must excuse me if I write mainly a business letter now, for I am sold for the time,-am merely Thoreau the surveyor here,-and solitude is scarcely obtainable in these parts . . .