Also to Thoreau, and spend the evening, sad to find him failing and feeble. He is talkative, however; is interested in books and men, in our civil troubles especially, and speaks impatiently of what he calls the temporizing policy of our rulers; blames the people too for their indifferency to the true issues of national honor and justice. Even Seward’s letter to Earl Grey respecting Mason’s and Liddell’s case, comforting as it is to the country and serving as a foil to any hostile designs of England for the time at least, excites his displeasure as seeming to be humiliating to us, and dishonorable.

  We talk of Pliny, whose books he is reading with delight. Also of Evelyn and the rural authors. If not a writer of verses, Thoreau is a poet in spirit, and has come as near to the writing of pastorals as any poet of his time. Were his days not numbered, and his adventures in the wild world once off his hands, then he might come to orchards and gardens, perhaps treat these in manner as masterly, uniting the spirit of naturalist and poet in his page. But the most he may hope for is to prepare his manuscripts for others’ editing, and take his leave of them and us. I fear he has not many months to abide here, and the spring’s summons must come for him soon to partake of “Syrian peace, immortal leisure.”

  I was in hope to read something more form your pen in Mr. Conway’s “Dial,” but only recognized that fine pair of Walden twinlets. Of your two books, I perhaps prefer the “Week,”—but after all, “Walden” is but little less a favorite. In the former, I like especially those little snatches of poetry interspersed throughout. I would like to ask what progress you have made in a work some way connected with natural history,—I think it was on Botany,—which Mr. Emerson told me something about in a short interview I had with him two years ago at Poughkeepsie . . .

  If you should feel perfectly able at any time to drop me a few lines, I would like much to know what your state of health is, and if there is, as I cannot but hope, a prospect of your speedy recovery.

  I thought you would like to have a few lines from me, providing they required no answer.

  I have quite recovered from my illness, and am able to walk and skate as usual. My son, Walton, and I do both nearly every day of late. The weather here—as I suppose has been the case with you at Concord—has been very cold, the thermometer as low one morn (Saturday last) as five degrees above zero.

  We propose soon to take our annual tour on skates over the Middleboro’ ponds.

  I received your sister’s letter in reply to mine inquiring after your health. I was sorry to hear of your having pleurisy, but it may prove favorable after all to your case, as a counter-irritant often does to sick people. It appears to me you will in time recover—Nature can’t spare you, and we all, your friends, can’t spare you. So you must look out for us and hold on these many years yet.

  I wish I could see you oftener. I don’t believe in your silence and absence from congenial spirits. Companionship is one of the greatest blessings to me.

  Remember me kindly to my valued friends Mr. and Mrs. Alcott.

Yours truly, in haste,
D. R.

P.S. Thank your sister for her letter.

  At any time when you wish to visit us, just send a line. You are always welcome.

  The demand for your books here seems to be rather on the increase. Two copies of the Week are wanted & I am requested to write for them.

  Walden also is wanted but I presume you can’t help us to that.

  You will have to get out another edition of that. I hope the next edition of both books will be small in size & right for the pocket, & for “field service.”

  Is it discouraging to you to have me speak thus of your books?—to see me sticking at what you have left? Have you left it?

  Whether it be discouraging to you or the contrary, I have long desired to acknowledge my indebtedness to you for them & to tell you that through them the value of everything seems infinitely enhanced to me.

  We took to the river and our skates, instead of the cars, on leaving you & had a good time of it, keeping above the ice all the way.
The little snow-storm that we started in grew into quite a large one, or fast one, & made the day all the better. There was a sober cheer in the day, such as belongs to stormy days.

  But to come back to business. I was requested to ask you to write your name in one of the books. & I would like to have you write it in the other—

  I have forgotten the price of your books but I have the impression that it is $1.25 and accordingly will enclose $2.50. If I am not right you will tell me.

Your friend
Theo. Brown

  You have not been informed of Henry’s condition this winter, and will be sorry to hear that he grows feebler day by day, and is evidently failing and fading from our sights. He gets some sleep and has a pretty good appetite, reads at intervals, takes notes of his readings, and likes to see his friends, conversing, however with difficulty, as his voice partakes of his general debility. We had thought this oldest inhabitant of our Planet would have chosen to stay and see it fairly dismissed into the Chaos (out of which he has brought such precious jewels,—gifts to friends, to mankind generally, diadems for fame to coming followers, forgetful of his own claims to the honors) before he chose simply to withdraw from the space and times he has adorned with the truth of genius. But the masterly work is nearly done for us here. And our woods and fields are sorrowing, though not in sombre, but in robes of white, so becoming to the piety and probity they have known so long, and soon are to miss. There has been none such since Pliny, and it will be long before there comes his like: the most sagacious and wonderful Worthy of his time, and a marvel to coming ones.

  I write at the suggestion of his sister, who thought his friends would like to be informed of his condition to the latest date.

  Ever yours and respectfully,

  A Bronson Alcott

  If you have read the magazine which I loaned you the other day, (The Continental) will you have the goodness to give it to the bearer who will take it to Mrs [Sarah Bradford?] Ripley’s for Miss [Amelia?] Goodwin.

Yours truly
F. B. Sanborn

  Only extreme illness has prevented my answering your note earlier. I have no objection to having the papers you refer to printed in your monthly—if my feeble health will permit me to prepare them for the printer. What will you give me for them? They are, or have been used as, lectures of the usual length,—taking about an hour to read & I dont see how they can be divided without injury—How many pages can you print at once?—Of course, I should expect that no sentiment or sentence be altered or omitted without my consent, & to retain the copyright of the paper after you had used it in your monthly.—Is your monthly copyrighted?

Yours respectfully,
S. E. Thoreau
for H. D. Thoreau

  I am not anxious about Mr Thoreau. He has greatly decreased if it was possible in flesh; I do not think he weighs to-day but a very little and a few days since, his pulse was at 56. But his system suffers a retardation, it ceases to make blood, hence adipose tissue which is formed of the elements of blood ceases to be found and the lack of respiratory oxygenation combined with the lack of supplying sufficient stimuli to the blood-corpuscles, produces a semi state of metastatic dyscrasia.

  I will accept the offer contained in your last, & will forward to you a paper called “Autumnal Tints” in a day or two.

  I must ask two favors. First, that I may see the proofs, chiefly that I may look after my peculiarities, for I may not be well enough thoroughly to revise them, and therefore trust that you have a sharp-eyed reader, who will save me that labor.

  Secondly, I wish to have the MSS, of this article preserved, since I have no duplicate, & what I send will be culled out of a very large imperfect essay, whose integrity I wish to restore.

Respectfully,
Henry D. Thoreau

  I send you herewith, the paper called Autumnal Tints. I see that it will have to be divided, & I would prefer that the first portion terminate with page 42, in order that it may make the more impression. The rest I think will take care of itself.

  I may as well say now that on pages 55-6-7-8 I have described the Scarlet Oak leaf very minutely. In my lecturing I have always carried a very large & handsome one displayed on a white ground, which did me great service with the audience. Now if you will read those pages, I think that you will see the advantage of having a simple outline engraving of this leaf & also of the White Oak leaf on the opposite page, that the readers may the better appreciate my words—I will supply the leaves to be copied when the time comes.

  When you answer the questions in my last note, please let me know about how soon this article will be published.

Yours respectfully,
Henry D. Thoreau
by S. E. Thoreau

  Oct. 25th 1853 I received from Munroe & Co. the following note; “We send by express this day a box & bundle containing 250 copies of Concord River, & also 450. in sheets. All of which we trust you will find correct.”

  I found by count the number of bound volumes to be correct. The sheets have lain untouched just as received, in stout paper wrappers ever since.

  I find that I now have 146 bound copies. Therefore the whole number in my possession is,

    Bound copies   146

    In sheets      450

                  596

  You spoke when here, of printing a new edition of the Walden. If you incline to do so, I shall be happy to make an arrangement with you to that effect.

Yours respectfully

H. D. Thoreau
by S. E. Thoreau

P S. I will send you an article as soon as I can prepare it, which has no relation to the seasons of the year.

  I send you with this a paper called The Higher Law, it being much shorter & easier to prepare than that on Walking. It will not need to be divided on account of its length, as indeed the subject does not permit it. I should like to know that you receive it & also about what time it will be published.

Yours truly

H D. Thoreau
by S. E. Thoreau

  This Scarlet Oak leaf is the smallest one in my collection, yet it must lose a bristle or two to gain admittance to your page.

  I wish simply for a faithful outline engraving of the leaf bristles & all. In the middle of page 57 or of a neighboring page, is a note in pencil—The leaf should be opposite to this page & this note to be altered into a note for the bottom of the page like this—viz “The original of the leaf on the opposite page was picked from such a pile”

Yours truly
Henry D Thoreau
by S. E. Thoreau

  I hereby acknowledge the receipt of your check for one hundred dollars on account of manuscript sent to you.—As for another title for the Higher Law article, I can think of nothing better than, Life without Principle. The paper on Walking will be ready ere long.

  I shall be happy to have you print 250. copies of Walden on the terms mentioned & will consider this answer as settling the business. I wish to make one alteration in the new edition viz, to leave out from the title the words “Or Life in the Woods.”

Yours truly
H. D. Thoreau
by S. E. Thoreau

  I send with this the paper on Walking & also the proofs of Autumnal Tints.

  The former paper will bear dividing into two portions very well, the natural joint being, I think at the end of page 44. At any rate the two parcels being separately tied up, will indicate it—

  I do not quite like to have the Autumnal Tints described as in two parts, for it appears as if the author had made a permanent distinction between them; Would it not be better to say at the end of the first portion “To be continued in the next number”?

  As for the leaf, I had not thought how it should be engraved, but left it to you. Your note suggests that perhaps it is to be done at my expense. What is the custom? and what would be the cost of a steel engraving? I think that an ordinary wood engraving would be much better than nothing.

Yours truly
Henry D. Thoreau
by S. E. Thoreau

  I thank you for your very kind letter, which, ever since I received it, I have intended to answer before I died, however briefly. I am encouraged to know, that, so far as you are concerned, I have not written my books in vain. I was particularly gratified, some years ago, when one of my friends and neighbors said, “I wish you would write another book,—write it for me.” He is actually more familiar with what I have written than I am myself.

  The verses you refer to in Conway’s “Dial,” were written by F. B. Sanborn of this town. I never wrote for that journal.

  I am pleased when you say that in “The Week” you like especially “those little snatches of poetry interspersed through the book,” for these, I suppose, are the least attractive to most readers. I have not been engaged in any particular work on Botany, or the like, though, if I were to live, I should have much to report on Natural History generally.

  You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

Yours truly,
Henry D. Thoreau,
by Sophia E. Thoreau

  As it is some time since I wrote you, I have thought that as a faithful chronicler of the season in this section, I would announce to you the present stage of our progress. I will not begin with the origin of creation as many worthy historians are wont, but would say that we have had a pretty steady cold winter through the months of January and February, but since the coming in of March the weather has been mild, though for the past week cloudy and some rain. Today the wind is southerly and the thermometer—3 p.m. – 46º , north side of our house. A flock of wild geese flew over about an hour ago, which I viewed with my spy-glass—their course about due east. Few things give me a stronger sense of the sublime than the periodical flight of these noble birds. Bluebirds arrived here about a fortnight ago, but a farmer who lives about 1 ½ miles from here north, says he heard them on the 7th Feb’y. I hear the call of the golden winged woodpecker, and the sweet notes of the meadow lark in the morning, and yesterday morning for the first time this spring, we were saluted with the song of a robin in a tree near our house. The song sparrow has been calling the maids to hang on their teakettles for several weeks, and this morning I heard the crackle of the cow-bunting. I must not forget, too, that last evening I heard the ground notes speed, speed of the woodcock and his warbling while descending from his spiral flight. The catkins begin to expand upon the willows, and the grass in warm and rich spots to look green.

  Truly spring is here, and each day adds to the interest of the season. I hope you will catch a share of its healthful influences; at least feast upon the stock you have in store, for as friend Alcott says, in his quaint way, you have all weathers within you. Am I right in my intimations that you are mending a little, and that you will be able once more to resume your favorite pursuits so valuable to us all as well as to yourself? May I not hope to see you the coming season at Brooklawn where you are always a welcome guest? I see that you are heralded in the Atlantic for April, and find a genial appreciative notice of you under the head of “Forester,” which I suppose comes from either Alcott or Emerson, and Channing’s lines at the close, which I was also glad to see.

  I am reading a very interesting book called “Footnotes from the page of Nature, or first forms of vegetation.” By Rev. Hugh Macmillan, Cambridge and London, 1861. It treats of Mosses, Lichens, Fresh Water Algae and Fungi. The author appears to be rich in lore and writes in an easy manner with no pretension to science. Don’t fail to read it if you can obtain it. It is lent to me by a friendly naturalist.

  Hoping to hear of your improved state of health, and with the affectionate regards of my whole family, as well as my own,

I remain, dear friend,
Yours faithfully,
Dan’l Ricketson

P.S. I notice that Walden is to appear in a second edition, and hope that your publishers will consider your interests as well as their own. Would they not like to buy your unbound copies of “The Week”?

  Henry praised to me lately the manners of an old-established, calm, well-behaved river, as perfectly distinguished from those of a new river. A new river is a torrent; an old one slow and steadily supplied. What happens in any part of the old river relates to what befals in every other part of it. ’Tis full of compensations, resources, and reserve funds.

  Alone, and idle here this pleasant Sunday p.m., I thought I might write you a few lines, not that I expect you to answer, but only to bring myself a little nearer to you. I have to chronicle this time, the arrival of the purple Finch, and a number of warblers and songsters of the sparrow tribe.

  The spring is coming on nicely here, and to-day it is mild, calm, and sunny. I hope you are able to get out a little and breathe the pure air of your fields and woods. While sawing some pine wood the other day, the fragrance suggested to my mind that you might be benefited by living among, or at least frequenting pine woods. I have heard of people much improved in health who were afflicted in breathing, from this source, and I once seriously thought of taking my wife to the pine woods between here and Plymouth, or rather between Middleborough and Plymouth, where the pine grows luxuriantly in the dry yellow ground of that section.

  I have thought you might, if still confined, transport yourself in imagination or spirit to your favorite haunts, which might be facilitated by taking a piece of paper and mapping out your usual rambles around Concord, making the village the centre of the chart and giving the name of each part, marking out the roads and footpaths as well as the more prominent natural features of the country.

  I have had two unusually dreamy nights—last and the one before. Last night I was climbing mountains with some accidental companion, and among the dizzy heights when near the top I saw and pointed out to my fellow-traveller two enormous birds flying over our heads. These birds soon increased, and, from being as I at first supposed eagles of great size, became griffins! as large as horses, their huge bodies moved along by broadspread wings. The dream continued, but the remainder is as the conclusion of most dreams in strange contrast. I found myself passing through a very narrow and filthy village street, the disagreeable odor of which so quickened my speed as to either awake me or cut off my dream. At any rate, when I awoke my head was aching and I was generally exhausted. But enough of this.

  Two young men in a buggy-wagon have just driven up the road singing in very sonorous strains the “John Brown” chorus. I wish its pathetic and heart-stirring appeals could reach the inward ears of Congress and the President. I hope you can see some light on our present benighted way, for I cannot except by the exercise of my faith in an overruling Providence.

  I may write you again soon, and hope I do not tire you.

  With kind regards to your family and my other Concord friend, I remain,

Yours affectionately,
Dan’l Ricketson

P.S. I have just seen a cricket in the path near the house. Flies are very lively in my shanty windows. Two flocks wild geese just passed, 4 p.m., N.E. by N. Honk-honk! Honk-honk!

  I send you herewith the paper on Wild Apples.

  You have made me no offer for the “Week.” Do not suppose that I rate it too high, I shall be glad to dispose of it; & it will be an advantage to advertize it with Walden.

Yours truly,

Henry D. Thoreau
by S. E. Thoreau

  Your paper on Wild Apples is rece’d. In a few days we will send proof of the article on “Walking.” Touching the “Week on [page torn] we find by yours of [page torn] those already in cloth if we found them rusty. Since the volume was published prices have changed materially and discounts to Booksellers have largely increased. We now make ⅓ & 40% to the Trade as a matter of course. What with bad [page torn] we could not [page torn] our check for the amount.

Yours very truly
Ticknor & Fields

  Another Sunday has come round, and as usual I am to be found in the Shanty, where I should also be glad to have you bodily present.

  We have had a little interruption to our fine weather during the past week in the shape of a hail-storm yesterday p.m. and evening, but it is clear again to-day, though cooler.

  I have to Kronikle the arrival of the white-bellied swallow and the commencement of the frog choir, which saluted my ear for the first time on the evening of the 3d inst. The fields are becoming a little greener, and the trailing moss is already waving along the sides of the rivulets. I have n’t walked much, however, as I have been busy about farm work, the months of April and May being my busiest time, but as my real business is with Nature, I do not let any of these ‘side issues’ lead me astray. How serenely and grandly amid the din of arms Nature preserves her integrity, nothing moved; with the return of spring come the birds and the flowers, the swollen streams go dancing on, and all the laws of the great solar system are perfectly preserved. How wise, how great, must be the Creator and Mover of it all! But I descend to the affairs of mortals, which particularly concern us at this time. I do not think that the people of the North appear to be awakened, enlightened, rather, to their duty in this great struggle. I fear that there is a great deal of treachery which time will alone discover and remove, for the Right must eventually prevail. Can we expect when we consult the page of history that this revolution will be more speedily terminated than others of a like nature? The civil war of England lasted, I think, some ten years, and the American Revolution some seven or eight years, besides the years of antecedent agitation. We have no Cromwell, unless Wendell Phillips shall by and by prove one; but at present he rather represents Hampden, whose mournful end was perhaps a better one than to be killed by a rotten-egg mob. The voice of Hogopolis (the mob portion of Cincinnati), if such grunts can be thus dignified, must prove a lasting disgrace. The government party, if we have a government, seems to continue with a saintly perseverance their faith in General McClellan. How much longer this state of delay will continue to be borne it is difficult to foresee, but I trust the force of circumstances (sub Deo) will soon require a move for the cause of liberty.

  I read but little of the newspaper reports of the war, rather preferring to be governed by the general characteristics of the case, as they involuntarily affect my mind.

  4 p.m. Since writing the foregoing, somewhat more than an hour ago, I have taken a stroll with my son Walton and our dog through the woods and fields west of our house, where you and I have walked several times; the afternoon is sunny and of mild temperature, but the wind from the N.W. rather cool, rendering overcoat agreeable. Our principal object was to look at lichens and mosses, to which W. is paying some attention. We started up a woodcock at the south edge of the woods, and a large number of robins in a field adjoining, also pigeon-woodpeckers, and heard the warble of bluebirds.

  I remain, with faith in the sustaining forces of Nature and Nature’s God,

Yours truly and affectionately,
Daniel Ricketson

  I received a letter from your dear Sister a few days ago, informing me of your continued illness and porstration of physical strength, which I was not altogether unprepared to learn, as our valued friend Mr. Alcott wrote me by your sister’s request in February last, that you were confined at home and very feeble. I am glad, however, to learn from Sophia that you still find comfort and are happy, the reward I have no doubt of a virtuous life, and an abiding faith in the wisdom and goodness of our Heavenly Father. It is undoubtedly wiser ordained that our present lives should be mortal. Sooner or later we must all close our eyes for the last time upon the scenes of this world, and oh! how happy are they who feel the assurance that the spirit shall survive the earthly tabernacle of clay, and pass on to higher and happier spheres of experience.

“It must be so—Plato, though reasonest well:—
Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality.”
(Addison, Cato.)

“The soul’s dark cottage, battered, and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made:
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old both worlds at once they view
Who stands upon the threshold of the new.”
(Waller.)

  It has been the lot of but a few, dear Henry, to extract so much from life as you have done. Although you number fewer years than many who have lived wisely before you, yet I know of no one, either in the past or present times, who has drank so deeply from the sempiternal spring of truth and knowledge, or who in the poetry and beauty of every-day life has enjoyed more or contributed more to the happiness of others. Truly you have not lived in vain—your works, and above all, your brave and truthful life, will become a precious treasure to those whose happiness it has been to have known you, and who will continue to uphold though with feebler hands the fresh and instructive philosophy you have taught them.

  But I cannot yet resign my hold upon you here. I will still hope, and if my poor prayer to God may be heard, would ask, that you may be spared to us a whole longer, at least. This is a lovely spring day here—warm and mild—the thermometer in the shade at 62 above zero (3p.m.). I write with my shanty door open and my west curtain down to keep out the sun, a red-winged blackbird is regaling me with a querulous, half-broken song from a neighboring tree just in front of the house, and the gentle southwest wind is soughing through my young pines. Here where you have so often sat with me, I am alone. My dear Uncle James who you may remember to have seen here, the companion of my woodland walks for more than quarter of a century, died a year ago this month: my boys and girls have grown into men and women, and my dear wife is an invalid still, so though a pater familias, I often feel quite alone. Years are accumulating upon me, the buoyancy of youth has erewhile departed, and with some bodily and many mental infirmities I sometimes feel that the cords of life are fast separating. I wish at least to devote the remainder of my life, whether longer or shorter, to the cause of truth and humanity—a life of simplicity and humility. Pardon me for this dwelling on myself.

  Hoping to hear you more favorable symptoms, but committing you (all unworthy as I am) unto the tender care of the great Sheperd, who “tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,”

  I remain, my dear friend and counsellor,
  Ever faithfully yours,
  Dan’l Ricketson

  We remember your fathers kind offer to assist us in our affliction, and it will be very agreeable to us all if he can be with us tonight, please ask him if it is convenient. My dear brother has failed very much since your father last saw him.

Yours truly,
S. E. Thoreau

  I have just returned from driving our cow to pasture and assisting in our usual in and outdoor work, the first making a fire in our sitting-room, a little artificial warmth being still necessary for my invalid wife, although I sit most of the time as I do now, with my Shanty door open, and without fire in my stove.

  Well, my dear friend and fellow-pilgrim, spring has again come, and here appears in full glow. The farmers are busy and have been for some weeks, ploughing and planting,—the necessity of paying more attention to agriculture being strongly felt in these hard times,—old fields and neglected places are now being brought into requisition, and with a good season our former neglected farms will teem with abundance.

  I, too, am busy in my way, but on rather a small scale, principally in my garden and among my fruit trees. Walton, however, is head man, and I am obliged generally to submit to his superior judgment.

  About all the birds have returned—the large thrush (T. rufus) arrived here on the 25th last month. I am now daily expecting the catbird and ground robin, and soon the Bob-o-link and golden robin. With the arrival of the two last our vernal choir becomes nearly complete. I have known them both to arrive the same day. Of the great variety of little woodland and wayside warblers, I am familiar with but few, yet some of them are great favorites of mine, particularly the oven bird, warbling vireo, veery (T. Wilsonii), etc., etc. The wind flower and blue violet have been in bloom some time, and I suppose the columbine and wild geranium are also, although I have not been to visit them as yet. How beautiful and how wonderful indeed is the return of life—how suggestive and how instructive to mankind! Truly God is great and good and wise and glorious.

  I hope this will find you mending, and as I hear nothing to the contrary, I trust that it may be so that you are. I did expect to be able to go to Concord soon; I still may, but at present i do not see my way clear, as we ‘Friends’ say. I often think of you, however, and join hands with you in the spirit, if not in the flesh, which I hope always to do.

  I see by the papers that Concord has found a new voice in the way of a literary journal y’cept “The Monitor,” which has my good wishes for its success. I conclude that Mr. [Franklin B.] Sanborn is the pioneer in this enterprise, who appears to be a healthy nursing child of the old mother of heroes. I do not mean to be classic, and only intend to speak of old Mother Concord. I hope [William Ellery] Channing will wake up and give us some of his lucubrations, and father [A. Bronson] Alcott strike his Orphic lyre once more, and [Ralph Waldo] Emerson discourse wisdom and verse from the woods around. There sings a whortleberry sparrow (F. juncorum) from our bush pasture beyond the garden. I hear daily your sparrow (F. Graminus) with his “here! here! there! there! come quick or I’m gone!” By the way, is not Emerson wrong in his interpretation of the whistle of the Chickadee as “Phoebe”? The low, sweet whistle of the “black cap” is very distinct from the clearly expressed Phoebe of the wood pewee. But I must not by hypercritical with so true a poet and lover of Nature as E.

  How grandly is the Lord overruling all for the cause of the slave—defeating the evil machinations of men by the operation of his great universal and regulating laws, by which the universe of mind and matter is governed! I do not look for a speedy termination of the war, although matters look more hopeful, but I cannot doubt but that slavery will soon find its exodus. What a glorious country this will be for the next generation should this curse be removed!

  Amid the song of purple finches, robins, meadow-larks, and sparrows—a kind of T. solitarius myself—and with heart full of kind wishes and affection for you, I conclude this hasty epistle.

As ever, yours faithfully,
D. R.

P.S. I believe I answered your sister’s kind and thoughtful letter to me.

  Come tomorrow & bring Mrs Fields to my house. We will give you a very early dinner. Mr Channing is to write a hymn or dirge for the funeral, which is to be from the church, at 3 o’clock. I am to make an address, & probably Mr Alcott may say something.

Yours,
R. W. Emerson

  “There have been heroes for whom this world seemed expressly prepared, as if creation had at last succeeded; whose daily life was the stuff of which our dreams are made, and whose present enhanced the beauty and ampleness of nature herself where they walked.”

  “A more copious air invests the fields and clothes with purple light, and they know their own sun and stars. They have the heavens for their abettors, as those who have never stood from under them; they look at the stars with an answering ray. Our present senses are but the rudiments of what they are destined to become. Every generation makes the discovery that its divine vigor has been dissipated and each sense and faculty misapplied and debauched. The ears are made to hear celestial sounds; the eyes to behold beauty not invisible. Did not he that made that which is within make that which is without also? May we not see God? It is but a thin soil where we stand. I have felt my roots in a richer ere this. I have seen a bunch of violets in a glass vase, tied loosely with a wisp of straw, which reminded me of myself.”

  Hawthorne [Nathaniel Hawthorne] and family, Blake [H.G.O. Blake] and Brown [Theophilus Brown] from Worcester, J.T. Fields [James T. Fields] and wife and Alger [William Rounseville Alger] from Boston, and many of his townspeople and children of the schools attend the funeral. He is laid in the burying-ground back of the meeting house, near the North Primary School House.

  Afterwards interred in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, next to my lot and opposite Hawthorne’s.

  You are very attentive to Henry’s bequest in sending me, by fit hands, the rare and wise books, which in his last thoughtful hours, he deemed his friend worth inheriting. As every thought of his was a virtue, I shall prize these books the more on his account, and think tenderly of the giver whenever I open them. These volumes are from his choice library. They came to him honorably and are only older in time, but not in wisdom than his own writings. That he has left so much of his essence behind him: of his life, which he said

    —“has been the poem I could have writ,
    But I could not both live and utter it”

is a great happiness to his friends, and partly compensates for his laying aside his sun so soon. None living, had a better right to hold it. Nor do I think of contemporary who accomplished so much in so short a time as he has, whether we regard the weight of matter, or wealth of thought. We may be sure of his being read an prized by coming times, and the place and time pertaining to him will be forever and sweeter for his presence. For as flowers which are cut down with the morning dew upon them, do, for a long while after, retain their fragrancy, so the good actions of a wise man perfume his mind and leave a rich scent behind them; so that his memory is, as it were, watered with these essences, and owes it flourishing to them.

  Though I address this note to the mother, the sister is in my thoughts, also, as I write.

For Henry’s sake,

as for yours,

your obliged friend.
A. Bronson Alcott