I have been out of town, else I should have acknowledged your letters before. Though not in the best mood for writing I will say what I can now. You plainly have a rare, though a cheap, resource in your shanty. Perhaps the time will come when every country-seat will have one—when every country-seat will be one. I would advice you to see the shanty business out, though you go shanty mad. Work your vein till it is exhausted, or conducts you to a broader one; so that C[hanning] shall stand before your shanty, & say “that is your house.”

  This has indeed been a grand winter for me & for all of us. I am not considering how much I have enjoyed it. What matters is how happy or unhappy we have been, if we have minded our business and advanced our affairs I have made it a part of my business to wade in the snow & take the measure of the ice. The ice on on of out pond was just two feet thick on the first of March—and I have to-day been surveying a wood—lot where I sank about two feet at every step.

  It is high time that you, fanned by the warm breeze of the Gulf Stream, had begun to “lay”—for even the Concord hens have—though one wonders where they find the raw material of egg-shells here. Beware how you put off your laying to any later spring, else your cackling will not have the inspired early spring sound. I was surprised to hear the other day that Channing was in New Bedford. When he was here last (in Dec., I think) he said, like himself, in answer to my inquiry where he lived, that he did not know the same of the place; so it has remained in a degree of obscurity to me. As you have made it certain to me that he is in New Bedford, perhaps I can return the favor by putting you on the track to his boarding house there. Mrs Anold told Mrs Emerson where it was—and the latter thinks, though she may be mistaken, that it was at a Mrs Lindsey’s

  I am rejoiced to hear that you are getting on so bravely with him & his verses. He and I, as you know, have been old cronies.

“Feed the same flock, by fountain, shade, & rill.
Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard &c &c &c”

“Bout O the heavy change” now he is gone!

  The C you have seen & described is the real Simon Pure. You have seen him. Many a good ramble may you have together. You will see in him still more of the same kind—to attract & to puzzle you. How to serve him most effectually has long been a problem with his friend. Perhaps it is left for you to solve it. I suspect that the most that you or any one can do for him is to appreciate his genius—to buy & read, & cause others to buy & read his poems. That is the land which he has put forth to the world —Take hold of that. Review them if you can. Perhaps take the risk of publishing something more which he may write.

  Your knowledge of Cowper will help you to know C. He will accept sympathy & aid, but he will not bear questioning—unless the aspects of the sky are particularly auspicious. He will even be “reserve & enigmatic,” & you must deal with him at arm’s length.

  I have no secrets to tell you concerning him, and do not wish to call obvious excellence & defects by far-fetched names. I think I have already spoken to you more, and more to the purpose, on this theme, than I am likely to write now—nor need I suggest how witty & poetic he is—and what an inexhaustible fund of good-fellowship you will find in him.

  As for visiting you in April,—though I am inclined enough to take some more rambles in your neighborhood, especially by the sea-side, I dare not engage myself, nor allow you to expect me. The truth is, I have my enterprises not as ever, at which I tug with ridiculous feebleness, but admirable perseverance—and cannot say when I shall be sufficiently fancy-free for such an excursion.

  You have done well to write a lecture on Cowper. In the expectation of getting you to read it here, I applied to the curators of our Lyceum but alas or Lyceum has been a failure this winter for want of funds. It ceased some weeks since, we a debt—they tell me, to be carried over to the next years’ account. Only one more lecture is to be read by a Signor somebody—an Italian—paid for by private subscription—as a deed of charity to the lecturer. They are not rich enough to offer you your expenses even, though probably a month or two ago they would have been glad of the chance.

  However the old house has not failed yet. That offers you lodging for an indefinite time after you get into it—and in the mean while I offer you bed & board in my father’s house—always expecting hair pillows & new-fangled bedding.

  Remember me to your family

  Yrs
  H.D.T