Very few trees have any. I can only manage small ones, fifteen or twenty feet high, climbing til I can reach the dangling green pickle-like fruit in my right hand, while I hold to the main stem with my left. The cones are now all flowing with pitch, and my hands are so covered with it that I cannot easily cast down the cones where I would, they stick to my hands so. I cannot touch the basket, but carry it on my arm; nor can I pick up my coat, which I have taken off, unless with my teeth, or else I kick it up and catch it on my arm. Thus I go from tree to tree, from time to time rubbing my hands in brooks and mud-holes, in the hope of finding something that will remove pitch like grease, but in vain. It is the stickiest work I ever did. I do not see how the squirrels that gnaw them off and then open them scale by scale keep their paws and whiskers clean. They must know of, or possess, some remedy for pitch that we know nothing of. How fast I could collect cones, if I could only contract with a family of squirrels to cut them off for me! . . .

  I thank you for your kind invitation to visit you-but I have taken so many vacations this year—at New Bedford—Cape Cod—& Maine—that any more relaxation, call it rather dissipation, will cover me with shame & disgrace. I have not earned what I have already enjoyed. As some heads cannot carry much wine, so it would seem that I cannot bear so much society as you can. I have an immense appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep, and if I don’t get enough of it this year I shall cry all the next I believe that Channing is here still—he was two or three days ago—but whether for good & all, I do not know nor ask.

  My mother’s house is full at present; but if it were not, I should have no right to invite you hither, while entertaining such designs as I have hinted at. However, if you care to storm the town, I will engage to take some afternoon walks with you—retiring into profound solitude the most sacred part of the day

  Yrs sincerely
  H D T