Your Wilson Flagg seems a serious person, and it is encouraging to hear of a contemporary who recognizes nature so squarely, and selects such a theme as “Barns.” (I would rather “Mt Auburn” were omitted.) But he is not alert enough. He wants stirring up with a pole. He should practice turning a series of somersets rapidly, or jump up & see bow many times he can strike his feet together before coming clown. Let him make the earth turn round now the other way—and whet his wits on it, whichever way it goes, as on a grindstone;—in short, see how many ideas he can entertain at once.

  His style, as I remember, is singularly vague ( I refer to the book) and before I got to the end of the sentences I was off the track. If you indulge in long periods you must be sure to have a snapper at the end. As for style of writing—if one has any thing to say, it drops from him simply & directly, as a stone falls to the ground for there are no two ways about it, but down it comes, and he may stick in the points and stop wherever he can get a chance. New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash as an explosion, and perhaps somebody’s castle roof perforated. To try to polish the stone in its descent, to give it a peculiar turn and make it whistle a tune perchance, would be of no use, if it were possible Your polished stuff turns out not to be meteoric, but of this earth.—However there is plenty of time and Nature is an admirable schoolmistress.

  Speaking of correspondence, you ask me if I “cannot turn over a new leaf in this time.” I certainly could if I were to receive it; but just then I looked up and saw that your page was dated “may 10th” though mailed in August, and it occurred to me that I had not seen you since that date this year . Looking again, it appeared that your note was written in ‘56!! However, it was a new leaf to me, and I turned it over with as much interest as if it had been written the day before. Perhaps you kept it so long in order that the MS & subject matter might be more in keeping with the old fashioned paper on which it was written.

  I travelled the length of Cape Cod on foot, soon after you were here, and within a few days have returned from the wolds of Maine, where I have made a journey of 325 miles with a canoe & canoe an Indian & a single white companion, Edward Hoar of this town, lately from California,—traversing the headwaters of the Jennebeck—Penobscot—& St Johns.

  Channing was just leaving Concord for Plymouth when I arrived, but said be should be here again in 2 or 3 days.

  Please remember me to your family & say that I have at length learned to sing Tom Bowling according to the notes.

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau

  Fifteenthly. It seems to me that you need some absorbing pursuit. IT does not matter much what it is, so it be honest. Such employment will be favorable to your development in more characteristic and important directions. You know there must be impulse enough for for steerage way, though it the not toward your port, to prevent your drifting helplessly on to rocks or shoals. Some sails are set for this purpose only. There is the large fleet of scholars and men of science, for instance, always to be seen standing off and on every coast, and saved thus from running on to reefs, who will at last run into their proper haven, we trust.

  It is a pity you were not here with [Theo] Brown and [B.B.] Wiley. I think that in this case, for a rarity, the more the merrier.

  You perceived that I did not entertain the idea of our going together to Maine on such an excursion as I had planned. The more I thought of it, the more imprudent it appeared to me. I did think to have written to you before going, though not to propose your going also; but I went at last very suddenly, and could only have written a business letter, if I had tried, when there was no business to be accomplished. I have now returned, and think I have had a quite profitable journey, chiefly from associating with an intelligent Indian. My companion Edward Hoar, also found his account in it, though he suffered considerable from being obliged to carry unusual loads over wet and rough “carries,”—in one instance five miles through a swamp, where the water was frequently up to our knees, and the fallen timber higher than our heads. He went over the ground three times, not being able to carry all his load at once. This prevented his ascending Ktaadn. Our best nights were those when it rained the hardest, on account of the mosquitoes. I speak of these things, which were not expected, merely to account for my not inviting you.

  Having returned, I flatter myself that the world appears in some respects a little larger, and not as usual, smaller and shallower, for having extended my range. I have made a short excursion into the new work which the Indian dwells in, or is. He begins where we leave off. It is worth the while to detect new faculties in man,—he is so much the more divine; and anything that fairly excites our admiration expands us. The Indian, who can find his way so wonderfully in the woods, possesses so much intelligence which the white man does not, and it increases my own capacity, as well as faith, to observe it. I rejoice to find that intelligence flows in other channels that I knew. It redeems for me portions of what seemed brutish before.

  It is a great satisfaction to find that your oldest convitious are permanent. With regards to essentials, I have never had occasion to change my mind. The aspect of the world varies from year to year, as the landscape is differently clothed, but I find that the truth is still true, and I never regret any emphasis which it may have inspired. Ktaadn is there still, but much more surely my old conviction is there, respecting with more than mountain breadth and weigh on the world, the source still of fertilizing streams, and affording glorious views from its summit, if I can get up to it again. As the mountains still stand on the plain, and far more unchangeable and permanent,—stand still grouped around farther or nearer to my maturer eye, the ideas which I have entertained,—the everlasting teats from which we draw our nourishment.