Concord, Mass. Thoreau writes in his journal:
P.M.—See two yellow-spotted tortoises in the ditch south of Trillium Wood . You saunter expectant in the mild air along the soft edge of a ditch filled with melted snow and paved with leaves, in some slucltered place, yet perhaps with some ice at one end still, and are thrilled to see stirring amid the leaves at the bottom, sluggishly burying themselves from your sight again, these brilliantly spotted creatures . . .  I have not yet known a friendship to cease, I think. I fear I experienced its decaying. Morning, noon, and night, I suffer a physical pain, an aching of the breast which unfits me for my tasks. It is perhaps most intense at evening. With respect to Friendship I feel like a wreck that is driving before the gale, with a crew suffering from hunger and thirst, not knowing what shore, if any, they may reach, so long have I breasted the conflicting waves of this sentiment, my seams open, my timbers laid bare. I float on Friendship’s sea simply because my specific gravity is less than its, but no longer that stanch and graceful vessel that careered so buoyantly over it . . .
Bellvale, NY. John Burt writes to Thoreau:
Dear Sir,  If I was in a Lyceum Lecture Committee I would use my greatest efforts to engage you to deliver a Lecture as I perceive your name in among a list published a short time since. But as I do not occupy any such influential position in this Community I suppose I will have to forgo for the present a long cherished wish to see and hear you. To compensate for this deprivation I would most respectfully solicit your Autograph.
I have read your Hermit Life and also a very appropriate Fourth of July Oration on Slavery in Massachusetts. To say that I greatly admired both would be but an inadequate expression.
A compliance with the above request will be gratefully remembered by
Yours Truly
John Burt
Bellvale Orange Co N.Y.
