Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to Thoreau:
I have your letter this evening by the advent of Mrs [Timothy] Fuller to [William] Ellery C[hanning] and am heartily glad of the robust greeting. Ellery brought it to me & as it was opened wondered whether he had not some right to expect a letter. So I read him what belonged to him. He is usually in good spirits & always in good wit, forms stricter ties with George Minott, and is always merry with the dulness of a world which will not support him. I am sorry you will dodge my hunters, T[appan] & W[aldo]. T. is a very satisfactory person only I could be very willing he should read a little more. he speaks seldom but easily & strongly, & moves like a deer. H James too has gone to England—I am the more sorry because you liked him so well. In Concord no events. We have had the new Hazlitt’s Montaigne which contained the “Journey into Italy”—new to me, & the narrative of the death of the renowned friend Etienne de la Boétie. Then I have had Saadis’ Gulistan Ross’s translation; and Marot; & Roman de la Rose; and Robert of Gloucester’s rhymed chronicle. Where are my translations of Pindar for the Dial? Fail not to send me something good & strong. They send us the “Revista Ligure,” a respectable magazine from Genoa; “la Democratie Pacifique,” a bright daily paper from Paris; the Deutsche Schnellpost,—German New York paper; and Phalanx from London; the New Englander from New Haven, which angrily affirms that the Dial is not as good as the Bible. By all these signs we infer that we make some figure in the literary world though we are not yet encouraged by a swollen publication list. Lidian says she will write you a note herself. If as we have heard, you will come home to Thanksgiving, you must bring something that will serve for Lyceum lecture—the craving thankless town!
Yours affectionately,
Waldo Emerson—