I am glad to hear that you have arrived safely at Hodnet, and that there is a solid piece of ground of that name which can support a man better than a floating plank in that to me as yet purely historical England.

  But have I not seen you with my own eyes, a piece of England herself? And has not your letter come out to me thence? I have now reason to believe that Salop is as real a place as Concord, with, at least, as good an underpinning of granite floating in liquid fire. I congratulate you on having arrived safely at that floating isle, after your disagreeable passage in the steamer America. So are we not all making a passage, agreeable or disagreeable in the steamer Earth, trusting to arrive at last at some less undulating Salop or Brother’s house?

  I cannot say that I am surprised to hear that you have joined the militia after what I have heard from your lips, but I am glad to doubt if there will be occasion for your volunteering into the line. Perhaps I am thinking of the saying that it is always darkest just before the day. I believe that it is only necessary that England be fully awakened to a sense of her position, in order that he may right herself—especially as the weather will soon cease to be her foe.

  I wish I could believe that the cause in which you are embarked is the cause of the people of England. However, I have no sympathy with the idleness that would contrast this fighting with the teachings of the pulpit, for perchance more true virtue is being practiced at Sebastopol than in many years of peace. It is a pity that we seem to require a war from time to time to assure us that there is any manhood still left in man.

  I was much pleased by [J.J.G.] Wilkinson’s vigorous & telling assault on Allopathy, though he substitutes another and perhaps no stronger thigh for that. Something as good on the whole conduct of the war would be of service. Cannot Carlyle supply it? We will not require him to provide the remedy. Every man to his trade.

  As you know, I am not in any sense a politician. You who lives in that snug and compact isle may dream of a glorious Commonwealth, but I have some doubts whether I am the new king of the Sandwich Islands shall pull together. When I think of the gold-diggers and the Mormons, the slaves and the slave-holders, and the flibustiers, I naturally dream of a glorious private life. No—I am not patriotic; I shall not meddle with the gem of the Antilles; Gen. Quitman cannot count on my aid [in capturing Cuba], alas for him! nor can Gen. Pierce.

  I still take my daily walk or skate over Concord fields or meadows, and on the whole have more to do with nature than with man. We have not had much snow this winter, but have had some remarkable cold weather, the mercury Feb 6 not rising above 6° below zero during the day, and the next morning falling to 25°. Some ice is still 20 inches thick about us. A rise in the river has bade uncommonly good skating which I have improved to the extent of some 30 miles at a time, 15 out &15 in.

  Emerson is off westward, enlightened the Hamiltonians & others, mingling his thunder with that of Niagara. Since his themes are England & slavery some begin to claim him as a practical man.

  Channing still sits warming his 5 wits—his sixth you know is always limber—over that stove, with the dog down cellar.

  Lowell has just been appointed Professor of Belles Lettres in Harvard University, in place of Longfellow, resigned, and will go very soon to spend another year in Europe before taking his seat.

  I am from time to time congratulating myself on my general wants of success as a lecturer—apparent want of success, but it is not a real triumph? I do my work clean as I go along, and they will not likely to want me anywhere again. So there’s no danger of me repeating myself and getting to a varell of sermons which you must upset & begin again with.

  My father & mother & sister all desire to be remembered to you, & trust that you will never come within range of Russian bullets.

  Of course I would rather think of you as settled down there in Shropshire, in the camp of the English people, making acquaintance with your men—striking at the root of the evil—perhaps assaulting that rampart of cotton bags that you tell of. But it makes no odds where a man goes or stays if he is only about his business.

  Let me hear from you, wherever you are, and believe me yours ever in the good fight,—whether before Sebastopol or under the wreken—

  Henry D Thoreau