I fear that you had a lonely and disagreeable ride back to New Bedford, through the Carver woods & so on,—perhaps in the rain too, and I am in part answerable for it. I feel very much in debt to you & your for the pleasant days I spent at Brooklawn. Tell Arthur & Walter [Waon; perhaps a slip of Thoreau’s pen] that the shells which they gave me are spread out, and make quite a show to inland eyes. Methinks I still hear the strains of the piano and violin & the flageolet blend together. Excuse me for the noise which I believe drove you to take refuge in the shanty. That shanty is indeed a favorable place to expand in, which I fear I did not enough improve.

  On my way through Boston I inquired for Gilpin’s work at Little Brown & Co’s, Monroes, Ticknor’s & Burnham’s. They have not got them. They told me at Little Brown & Co’s that his work (not complete in 12 vols 8vo, were imported & sold in this country 5 or 6 years ago for about 15 dollars. Their terms for importing at 10 per cent on the cost. I copied from “The London Catalogue of Books, 1816-51” at their shop, the following list of Gilpin’s books—

  I still see an image of those Middleborough Ponds in my mind’s eye—board shallow lakes with an iron mine at their bottom—comparatively unvexed by sails—only by Tom Smith & his squaw Sepit’s “sharper.” I find my map of the state to be the best I have seen of that district. It is a question whether the island of Long Pond or Great Quitteus offer the most attractions to a Lord of the Isles. That plant which I found on the Shore of Long Pond chances to be a rare & beautiful flower—the Sabbatia chlorides—referred to Plymouth.

  In a Description of Middleborough in the Hist. Coll vol 3d 1810—signed Nehemiah Bennet Middleborough 1793—it is said “There is on the easterly shore of Assawampsitt Pond on the shore of Bett’s Neck, two rocks which have curiously marks thereon (supposed to be done by the Indians) which appear like the stepping of a person with naked feet which settled into the ricks, likewise the prints of a land on several places, with a number of other marks; also there is a rock on a high hill a little to the eastward of the old stone fishing wear, where there is the print of a person’s hand in said rock.”
It would be well to look at those rocks again more carefully—also a the rock on the hill.

  I should think that you would like to explore Shipatuct Pond in Rochester [it] is so large & near. It is an interesting fact that the alewives used to ascend to it—if they so not still both from Mattapoisett & through Great Quitticus.

  There will be no trouble about the chamber in the old house, though, as I told you, Hosmer counts his coppers and may expect some compensation for it. He says “Give my respects to Mr R. & tell him that I cannot be at a large expense to preserve an antiquity or curiosity. Nature must do its work. “But” say I, [“] R asks you only not to assist Nature.”

  I find that Channing is gone to his wife at Dorchester—perhaps for the winter—& both may return to Concord in the Spring

  yrs
  Henry D.Thoreau