Elizabeth Hoar writes to Thoreau:
The rain prevented me from seeing you the night before I came away, to leave with you a parting assurance of good will and good hope. We have become better acquainted within the two past years than in our whole life as schoolmates and neighbors before; and I am unwilling to let you go away without telling you that I, among your other friends, shall miss you much, and follow you with remembrance and all best wishes and confidence. Will you take this little inkstand and try if it will carry ink safely from Concord to Staten Island? and the pen, which, if you can write with steel, may be made sometimes the interpreter of friendly thoughts to those whom you leave beyond the reach of your voice,—or record the inspirations of Nature, who, I doubt not, will be as faithful to you who trust her in the sea-girt Staten Island as in Concord woods and meadows. Good-bye, and εὗ πραττειν [fare well], which, a wise man says, is the only salutation fit for the wise.
Truly your friend,
E. Hoar.
“Elizabeth Hoar, daughter of Concord’s most prominent family, had long time been an intimate friend of the Emersons, through whom she became more familiar with her old schoolmate Thoreau.”
