Yesterday was quite warm, requiring the thinnest coat. To-day is cooler. The elm leaves have in some places more than half fallen and strew the ground with thick rustling beds . . .

  Since Esta will not take the trouble to write me, as she promised, I address myself to you. I received your letter this evening as I returned from an afternoon’s tramp with Mr. Thoreau. Mrs. T. kindly invited me to tea & said she should expect me, but I thought it better to decline & since, I have been glad I have done so, as I got your letter, & can sit & write here so comfortably—It only wants one or two people here to make it quite pleasant.

  I dined at Mr. Thoreau’s today. I went in and knocked gently, but as no one heard, for the family was in the next room, walked in & made myself at home reading Walden. There was an English Gentleman, with an unpronounceable name [Cholmondeley] which I wish I had written just for curiosity, there. He came there for Mr. Thoreau to teach him botany which Mr. T. says he never professed to know, though he acknowledged to me today that he never met with a new plant now & had given up the study. The English gentleman wears a long beard & mustache & is a graduate of Oxford.

  Mr. T’s mother is a rather tall & very pleasant lady. She made herself very agreeable and said she knew my father & mother which I found were Uncle Brown & Aunt Hannah. Mr. T’s father and sister are very pleasant. They had a mutton for dinner which would suit you. It was much better than we have at home. By going in so I had the opportunity of hearing Mr. Thoreau play upon his flute in the next room, which was very fine. He accompanied his sister upon the piano, Mrs. T. says.

  They must be pretty well off by the look of things. Mr. T. showed me another large white two story house [the Texas house] a short distance over the fields which he said his father owned. He said he dug the cellar while he lived at Walden & stoned it. They lived there when it was built but his mother & sister preferred living down nearer & so they moved down. He said he didn’t care where they lived, so long as it was in Concord, if he could only get off the back way into the woods, which you can do from almost every house by going across the fields or meadows.

  After dinner we set off for a walk. We went up on the hill from which you can see distant mountains & a wide prospect of river, dale & hamlet around. We soon came to the “Cliff,”—a perpendicular ledge of rocks some hundred (200 feet) above the wood & river below—all wild & rugged far from any house, a stupendous work of nature & worth as much to see as Niagara Falls or the Giants’ Causeway!!! I should like to see you look down there—you would have to hold on though it makes one so dizzy. We saw and passed through “Pleasant Meadow” & the “Baker Farm,” saw the house where John Field lived & “Fairhaven Bay” & “Conantum,” the desolate pasture & river reach & wild apple orchard & deserted house. The river pleases me most for it is a perfectly natural stream lying in the meadow at rest. Sell out and buy a farm in concord. You can have a little skiff on the river, and paddle freely right into another state if you choose. Mr. T. has paddled fifty miles in a day.

  It is a charming prospect to stand above Mr. Lee’s farm and look down. The house stands back from the river & facing it, with a smooth lawn running down to it, & a boat. The beauty of it is that the river does not flow but lies still & calm so that I could not tell which way it runs. Mr. T. says some Irish people live by it some years & don’t know. You do not see it in the village at all. There are no masts to offend the eye.

  We saw a beautiful trout brook on the Baker Farm. Nobody lives there & no doubt it could be bought! I went down & saw Mr. [A. Bronson] Alcott’s house, now Mr. [Nathaniel] Hawthorne’s this forenoon. I am going tomorrow to see Mr. Minott opposite Mr. [Ralph Waldo] Emerson’s, an old man who doesn’t go away from his farm & has never seen the depot. I told Mr. T. of a parallel case in Uncle Johnny Bradford.

  Mr. [William Ellery] Channing’s home is directly opposite Mr. T’s & the lot runs down to the river & is level. I went down & saw his boat. There are some very ancient houses one with the upper story larger than the lower. The most of the houses are large with an ample porch & painted white with green blinds. The church spires show beautifully from a distance. They are white and stand among the trees with the green meadows around. I could write a few more sheets but I think I had better retire.

Your affectionate Son

James Spooner