Ellen Sewall writes in her diary on 16 November:
Tuesday was quite unpleasant but notwithstanding the mud Mary & I went up in the village in the evening to see our friend Elizabeth Hunt . . . That evening I received a letter of business from Father, Tuesday eve (transcript in The Thoreau Society Archives at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods; MS, private owner)
Sewall also writes to her aunt Prudence Ward on 18 November:
Last week Tuesday, the day I sent my last letter to you I received one from Father. He wished me to write immediately in a “short, explicit and cold manner to Mr. T.” He seemed very glad I was of the same opinion as himself with regard to the matter. I wrote to H. T. that evening. I never felt so badly at sending a letter in my life. I could not bear to think that both those friends whom I have enjoyed so much with would now no longer be able to have the free pleasant intercourse with us as formerly. My letter was very short indeed. But I hope it was the thing. It will not be best for either you or me to allude to this subject in our letters to each other. Your next letter may as well be to Mother perhaps, or Edmund. By that time the worst of this will be passed and we can write freely again. I do feel so sorry H. wrote to me. It was such a pity. Though I would rather have it so than to have him say the same things on the beach or anywhere else. If I had only been at home so that Father could have read the letter himself and have seen my answer, I should have liked it better. But it is all over now. We will say nothing of it till we meet . . . Burn my last
(transcript in The Thoreau Society Archives at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods; MS, private owner)
