Please remember us affectionately to the Thoreaus. I often wish you three here to walk with me to the beach and hills again. We had pleasant times that week, did we not? I hope Helen’s health is better. I cannot bear to think of her growing worse. Give my love to her and Sophia if they are at home . . . George wishes John and Henry to be told that he has a beautiful new sled.

  Est magnus acervus nivis ad limina, et frigus intolerable intus. Coelum ipsum ruit, credo, et terrain operit. Sero stratum linquo et maturè repeto; in fenestris multa pruina prospectum absumit, et hîc miser scribo, non currente calamo, nam digiti mentesque torpescunt. Canerem cum Horatio, si vox non faucibus haeserit—

Sed olim, Musâ mutatâ, et laetiore plectro,—

  Quum turdus ferrugineus ver reduxerit, tu, spero, linques curas scholasticas, et negotio religato, desipere in loco audebis, aut mecum inter inter sylvas, aut super scopulos Pulchri-Portus, aut in cymba super lacum Waldensem, mulcens fluctus manu, aut specieum miratus sub undas.

  Bulwerius est mihi nomen incognitum, unus ex ignobile vulgo, nec refutandus nec laudandus. Certe alicui nonnullam honorem habeo qui insanabili Cacoëthe scribendi teneatur.

  Species flagrantis Lexingtonis non somnia deturbat? At non Vulcanum Neptunumque culpemus cum superstitioso grege. Natura curat animalculis aequê ac hominibus; cum serena, tum procellosa amica est.

  Si amas historian et fortia facta heroûm non depone Rollin, precor, ne Clio offendas nunc, nec illa det veniam olim.

  Quos libros Latinos legis? legis, inquam, non studes. Beatus qui potest suos libellos tractare et saepe perlegere sine metu domini urgentis! ab otio injurioso procul est; suos amicos et vocare et dimittere quandocunque velit potest. Bonus liber opus est nobilissimum hominis! Hinc ratio non modo cur legeres sed cur tu quoque scriberes. Nec lectores carent; ego sum. Si non librum meditaris, libellum certê. Nihil posteris proderit te spirâsse et vitam nunc lenîter nunc asperê egisse, sed cogitâsse praeciupue et scripsisse.
Vereor ne tibi peraesum hujus epistolae sit; Necnon alma lux caret,

H. D. Thoreaus.

Care Sophia,

  Samuel Niger crebis aegrotationibus, quae agilitatem et aequum animum abstulêre, obnoxius est; iis temporibus ad cellam descendit et multas horas (ibi) manet.

  Flores, ah crudelis pruina! parvo leti discrimine sunt. Cactus frigore ustus est, gerania vero adnuc vigent.

  Conventus sociabiles hac hieme reinstituti fuere. Conveniunt ad meum domum mense quarto vel quinto, ut tu hic esse possis. Matertera Sophia cum nobis remanet; quando urbem revertet non scio. Gravedine etiamnum, sed non tam aegre, laboramus.

  Adolescentula E. White apud pagum paulisper moratur. Memento scribere intra duas hebdomedas.

Te valere desiderium est
Tui Matris C. Thoreaus.

Amanuense, H. D. T.

P. S. Epistolam die solus proxima expectamus.

  There is a huge snowdrift at the door, and the cold inside is intolerable. The very sky is coming down, I guess, and covering up the ground. I turn out late in the morning, and go to bed early; there is thick frost on the windows, shutting out the view; and here I write in pain, for fingers and brains are numb. I would chant with Horace, if my voice did not stick in my throat,—

But soon, changing my tune, and with a cheerfuller note, I’ll say,—

  When Robin Redbreast brings back the springtime, I trust that you will lay your school-duties aside, cast off care, and venture to be gay now and then, roaming with me in the woods, or climbing the Fairhaven cliffs,—or else, in my boat on Walden, let the water kiss your hand, or gaze at your image in the wave.

  Bulwer is to me a name unknown,—one of the unnoticed crowd, attracting neither blame nor praise. To be sure, I hold any one in some esteem who is helpless in the grasp of the writing demon.

  Does not the image of the Lexington afire trouble your dreams? But we may not, like the superstitious mob, blame Vulcan or Neptune. Nature takes as much care for little animals as for mankind; first she is a serene friend, then a stormy friend.

  If you like history, and the exploits of the brave, don’t give up Rollin, I beg; thus would you displease Clio, who might not forgive you hereafter. What Latin are you reading? I mean reading, not studying. Blessed is the man who can have his library at hand, and oft peruse the books, without the fear of a taskmaster! he is far enough from harmful idleness, who can call in and dismiss these friends when he pleases. An honest book’s the noblest work of Man. There’s a reason, now, not only for your reading, but for writing something, too. You will not lack readers, – here am I, for one. If you cannot compose a volume, then try a tract. It will do the world no good, hereafter, if you merely exist, and pass life smoothly or roughly; but to have thoughts, and write them down, that helps greatly.

  I fear you will tire of this epistle; the light of day is dwindling, too,—

  Therefore, good-by; fare ye well, and sleep in quiet, both my sisters! Don’t forget to write.

H. D. Thoreau

  Sam Black (the cat) is liable to frequent attacks that impair his agility and good-nature; at such times he goes down cellar, and stays many hours. Your flowers—O, the cruel frost! are all but dead; the cactus is withered by cold, but the geraniums yet flourish. The Sewing Circles have been revived this winter; they meet at our house in April or May, so that you may then be here. Your Aunt Sophia remains with us,—when she will return to the city I don’t know. We still suffer from heavy colds, but not so much. Young Miss E. White is staying in the village a little while. Don’t forget to write within two weeks.

  That you may enjoy good health is the prayer of

Your mother,
C. Thoreau.

H.D.T. was the scribe.

P.S. We expect a letter next Sunday.

  Such community to be a pledge of holy living. How could aught unworthy be admitted into our society? To listen with one ear to each summer sound, to behold with one eye each summer scene, our visual rays so to meet and mingle with the object as to be one bent and doubled; with two tongues to be wearied, and thought to spring lessly from a double fountain.

  It has a logic more severe than the logician’s.

  How little heroic it is! Let us devise never so perfect a system of living, and straightway the soul leaves it to shuffle along its own way alone. It is easy enough to establish a durable and harmonious routine; immediately all parts of nature consent to it. The sun-dial still points to the noon mark, and the sunrises and sets for it. The neighbors are never fatally obstinate when such a scheme is to be instituted; but forthwith all lend a hand, and ring the bell, and bring fuel and lights, and put by work and don their best garments, with an earnest conformity which matches the operations of nature. There is always a present and extant life which all combine to uphold, though its insufficiency is manifest enough. Still the sing-song goes on.

  Truth has properly no opponent, for nothing gets so far up on the other side as to be opposite. She looks broadcast over the field and sees no opponent (Journal, 1:118-119).

  I am glad Dotheboys flourishes and hope it will continue henceforth . . .

  George desires his love to Henry and John, and also to you and Grandmother. I am very glad to hear that Helen Thoreau is better, and trust she will soon be entirely well. All join me in best love to you and dear Grandmother, and regards to John and Henry.

  The one is his head, the other his foot; by one he is, by the other he lives.

  The unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of God, the end of the world.

  The very thrills of genius are disorganizing. The body is never quite acclimated to its atmosphere, but how often succumbs and goes into a decline!

  Corn grows in the night.

  Love never degrades its votaries, but lifts them up to higher walks of being. They over-look one another. All other charities are swallowed up in this; it is gift and reward both.

  We will have no vulgar Cupid for a go-between, to make us the playthings of each other, but rather cultivate an irreconcilable hatred instead of this.

  I am freer than any planet; no complaint reaches round the world. I can move away from public opinion, from government, from religion, from education, from society. Shall I be reckoned a ratable poll in the county of Middlesex, or be rated at one spear under the palm trees of Guinea? Shall I raise corn and potatoes in Massachusetts, or figs and olives in Asia Minor? sit out the clay in my office in State Street, or ride it out on the steppes of Tartary? For my Brobdingnag I may sail to Patagonia; for my Lilliput, to Lapland. In Arabia and Persia, my day’s adventures may surpass the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. I may be a logger on the head waters of the Penobscot, to be recorded in fable hereafter as an amphibious river-god, by as sounding a name as Triton or Proteus; carry furs from Nootka to China, and so be more renowned than Jason and his golden fleece; or go on a South Sea exploring expedition, to be hereafter recounted along with the periplus of Ianno. I may repeat the adventures Marco Polo or Mandeville.

  These are but few of my Chances, and how many more things may I do with which there are none to be compared!

  This was a day of misfortunes. At noon Charles & I fired upon a party of boys going by in the road. A skirmish ensued and we being inferior in force although Joseph and Jesse had joined us were driven into the house except Charles who was chased away by the boys.

  We boys in the house being desirous of seeing the marauders ran into the entry where there was an open window and (as we afterwards found) a pudding cooling to look out of the window. None of us saw the pudding till it was lying bottom upwards on the ground and each declared that he was not conscious of knocking it over. As for myself I did not know anything about there being any pudding till some body called out that the pudding was knocked over.

  I had therefore to make a dinner on salt fish which I hate. After dinner we took a walk along the river and eat some cranberries and checkerberries. When we got back I carried my letter to the Post Office and solaced myself with two apples and two figs procured at the “Exchange.” When I got home Mr. John gave me another fig so I did very well till supper time. Just before supper Joseph who was leaning the back of his chair against the wall slipped down hurt him self some and the chair more for one of the upright rods at the back was started. I believe nobody knows of this but us boys and I hope it will not be discovered before its time. In the evening a small bottle of blue ink was upset on the table cloth. P.S. I’m sorry the pudding was lost for it was a baked rice one such as I should have liked.

  We soon went to bed after this and I dreamed of eating clams.

  Before supper Mr John had made a fire in our room and we boiled a “monkey” full of clams leaving them to cool while we eat supper.

  After supper we went and eat them and they were delicious. Then we put some more clams into the broth to boil and Mr John went down and got the boys and they all came up into the room.

  When they were done and cool we eat them broth and all and then put on another lot which we eat also. We had been rendered cautious by our last nights misfortune and had a box for a table when eating and a seat when waiting for them to be done. We also set the monkey into a tin pan so that if it did upset it might be saved if possible from going on the carpet. We met with no accident however saving that a single clam dropped out of the window where they were put to cool which was afterwards brought in and eaten by Charles [Henry Cummings].

  We then went to the Lyceum expecting that a Phrenologist would lecture. His apparatus was there but the lecturer had not arrived. A man there set out his casts and several real skulls on the desk but immediately put them back again. One of the skulls was that of a British soldier who fell in the Battle of Concord. It was dug up in Lincoln. It was only the upper half of the head. There was the bullet hole through which the ball which killed him had passed. A Mr. [David Greene] Haskins lectured on Roger Williams the founder of Rhode Island—a description of his life. Bought 2 cents worth of burnt almonds going home. I forgot to say while speaking of the lecture that he said that the Pilgrims were so poor that when a man had invited his neighbor to a dish of clams (very apropos to our clam feast) he returned thanks that they were permitted “such of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hid in the sand.”

  In the evening went to the phrenological lecture which was pretty interesting. (N.B. I made an erroneous statement about this lecturer a few days ago. I said he had not come up from Boston. He had been engaged on the supposition that Mr Haskins would not come but as Mr H. did come he had to give place).

  I have been out to sail once since I have been here in Mr. Thoreau’s boat. He has a very good boat which he and his brother made themselves. The river was then quite high and we sailed very fast a part of the way.

  We went to Goose pond where we heard a tremendous chirping of frogs. It has been disputed whether the noise was caused by frogs so we were very curious to know what it was. Mr Thoreau however caught 3 very small frogs two of them in the very act of chirping. While bringing them home one of them chirped in his hat. He carried them to Mr Emerson in a tumbler of water. They chirped there also.

  On Sunday morning I believe he put them into a barrel with some rainwater in it. he threw in some sticks for them to rest on. They some times rested on these sticks. They sometimes crawled up the side of the barrel. I saw one of them chirping he had swelled out the loose skin of his chest like a little bladder.

Charles [Henry Cummings] Joseph & I went down with a wheelbarrow and got them out of the boat.

  Some of the boys had been up ringing the Academy bell.

  There is surely time for you to send this paper back to Thoreau for any corrections: a few words I noticed, but thought I would not keep it for them.

  In the afternoon I am exclusively under Mr. Henry’s jurisdiction. I recite in Algebra and Latin generally before recess. In the afternoon Mr. Henry’s classes go up into the hall over the schoolroom to recite. In Latin I am in company with Miss Hine. We are now on the life of Alcibiades in Nepos and in the exception in conjugation in the grammar.

  Geography is studied by a good many. We draw maps of the states. Saturday morning is devoted to writing composition. The two that I have written have been on birds and berries.

  The school hours are from half past eight to half past twelve in the morning and from two to four in the afternoon. Mr. Thoreau reads [a]loud those compositions which he thinks will please the scholars, which sometimes occasions a great deal of laughter. The boys sometimes write their lives or those of some venerable Aunt Hannah or Uncle Ichabod.

  Grandma sent me a nice pair of cotton stockings in the bundle and John Thoreau sent me an arrowhead. Anything from him is acceptable. He sent Georgie some goldleaf.

  If we are not sensible of kindness, then indeed we incur a debt. Not to be pleased by generous deeds at any time, though done to another, but to sit crabbedly silent in a corner, what is it but a voluntary imprisonment for debt? It is to see the world through a grating. Not to let the light of virtuous actions shine on us at all times, through every crevice, is to live in a dungeon. War is the sympathy of concussion. We would fain rub one against another. Its rub may be friction merely, but it would rather be titillation. We discover in the quietest scenes how faithfully war has copied the moods of peace. Men do not peep into heaven but they see embattled hosts there. Milton’s heaven was a camp. When the sun bursts through the morning fog I seem to hear the din of war louder than when his chariot thundered on the plains of Troy. Every man is a warrior when he aspires. He marches on his post. The soldier is the practical idealist; he has no sympathy with matter, he revels in the annihilation of it. So do we all at times. When a freshet destroys the works of man, or a fire consumes them, or a Lisbon earthquake shakes them down, our sympathy with persons is swallowed up in a wider sympathy with the universe. A crash is apt to grate agreeably on our ears.

  Let not the faithful sorrow that he has no car for the more fickle harmonies of creation, if he is awake to the slower measure of virtue and truth. If his pulse: does not beat in unison with the musician’s quips and turns, it accords with the pulse-beat of the ages.

  That letter to John, for which you had an opportunity doubtless to substitute a more perfect communication, fell, as was natural, into the hands of his “transcendental brother,” who is his proxy in such cases, having been commissioned to acknowledge and receipt all bills that may be presented. But what’s in a name? Perhaps it does not matter whether it be John or Henry. Nor will those same six months have to be altered, I fear, to suit his case as well. But methinks they have not passed entirely without intercourse, provided we have been sincere though humble worshipers of the same virtue in the mean time. Certainly it is better that we should make ourselves quite sure of such a communion as this by the only course which is completely free from suspicion,—the coincidence of two earnest and aspiring lives,—than run the risk of a disappointment by relying wholly or chiefly on so meagre and uncertain a means as speech, whether written or spoken, affords. How often, when we have been nearest each other bodily, have we really been farthest off! Our tongues were the witty foils with which we fenced each other off. Not that we have not met heartily and with profit as members of one family, but it was a small one surely, and not that other human family. We have met frankly and without concealment ever, as befits those who have an instinctive trust in one another, and the scenery of whose outward lives has been the same, but never as prompted by an earnest and affectionate desire to probe deeper our mutual natures. Such intercourse, at least, if it has even been, has not condescended to the vulgarities of oral communication, for the ears are provided with no lid as the eye is, and would not have been deaf to it in sleep. And now glad am I, if I am not mistaken in imagining that some such transcendental inquisitiveness has traveled post thither,—for, as I observed before, where the bolt hits, thither was it aimed,—any arbitrary direction notwithstanding.

  Thus much, at least, our kindred temperament of mind and body—and long family-arity—have done for us, that we already find ourselves standing on a solid and natural footing with respect to one another, and shall not have to waste time in the so often unavailing endeavor to arrive fairly at this simple ground.

  Let us leave trifles, then, to accident; and politics, and finance, and such gossip, to the moments when diet and exercise are cared for, and speak to each other deliberately as out of one infinity into another,—you there in time and space, and I here. For beside this relation, all books and doctrines are not better than gossip or the turning of a spit.

Equally to you and Sophia, from

Your affectionate brother,
H. D. Thoreau.

  I have made inquiry of sundry songlovers and songwrights in the neighborhood, with a view to your proposals, with what result, favorable or unfavorable, will appear. Mr. [Elijah] Wood pronounces in his cool experience way that the scholars will not be forthcoming—for why? The town or parish contemplate a school the next winter which should be public, and open equally to old and young-learned and unlearned. The people, he says, have been accustomed to look to the parish for these things, and to them a dollar even has lost some of its weight when it has passed once through the assessors’ hands.

  Mr [William] Whiting, the Superintendent of the Sabbath School, affirms that there are whole platoons of children, whom the parish would be glad to have in a condition to do singing, but have never yet accomplished the thing by voting it, or once correctly pitching the tune. So he stands ready to render smooth official assistance by public notice to the school—and the like.

  But of what avail all this ballancing of reasons—depend upon it nothing good was ever done in accordance with, but rather in direct opposition to—advice. Have you not the sympathy of parish votes—that it will have singing? Or rather have you not the assurance of your own resolution that you will give it them at any rate?

  Mr. Wood then, who more than any man has gaged all throats—Juvenile and senile—in the vicinity—raises the cold water bucket.

  Mr. Whiting—and [Albert Hobart] Nelson and others rely mainly on the incalculable force there is in a man—who has sternly resolved to do what is in him to do,—the phial of laudanum—and nodding poppy—and Concord river running nine times round—to the contrary notwithstanding.

  At present I read in the faces of the children neither encouragement nor discouragement they having had no hint of the future.

Yrs to command
Henry D. Thoreau.

  They who are ready to go are already invited.

  Neither men nor things have any true mode of invitation but to be inviting.

  Can that be a task which all things abet, and to postpone which is to strive against nature?

  You cannot rob a man of anything which he will miss (Journal, 1:162).

  I observe a truly wise practice on every hand, in education, in religion, and the morals of society,—enough embodied wisdom to have set up many an ancient philosopher.

  This society, if it were a person to be met face to face, would not only be tolerated but courted, with its so impressive experience and admirable acquaintance with things.

  Consider society at any epoch, and who does not see that heresy has already prevailed in it?

  The value of many traits in Grecian history depends not so much on their importance history, as [on]the readiness with which they accept a wide interpretation, and illustrate the poetry and ethics of mankind. When they announce no particular truth, they are yet central to all truth. They are like those examples by which we improve, but of which we never formally extract the moral. Even the isolated and unexplained facts are like the ruins of the temples which in imagination we restore, and ascribe to some Phidias, or other master.

  The Greeks were boys in the sunshine, the Romans were men in the field, the Persians women in the house, the Egyptians old men in the dark.

  He who receives an injury is an accomplice of the wrong-doer.

  Not how is the idea expressed in stone or on canvas, is the question, but how far it has obtained form and expression in the life of the artist.