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  The snow gives the landscape a washing-day appearance,—here a streak of white, there a streak of dark; it is spread like a napkin over the hills and meadows. This must be a rare drying day, to judge from the vapor that floats over the vast clothes-yard.

  A hundred guns are firing and a flag flying in the village in celebration of the whig victory. Now a short dull report,—the mere disk of a sound, shorn of its beams,—and then a puff of smoke rises in the horizon to join its misty relatives in the skies.

  Colder weather and very windy, but still no snow. A verv little ice along the edges of the river, which does not all melt before night . . .

  I send you herewith 100 pages of “Cape Cod.” It is not yet half the whole. The remainder of the narrative is more personal, as I reach the scene of my adventures. I am a little in doubt about the extracts from the old ministers. If you prefer to, you may omit from the middle of the 86th page to the end of this parcel: (the rest being respected); or perhaps a smaller type will use it up fast enough.

  As for the conditions of sale; if you accept the paper, it is to be mine to reprint, if I think it worth the while, after it has appeared in your journal.

  I shall expect to be paid as fast as the paper is printed, and if it is likely to be on hand long, to receive reasonable warning of it.

  I have collected this under several heads for your convenience. The next subject is “The Beach,” which I will copy out & forward as soon as you desire it.

Yrs
Henry D. Thoreau

  The river still higher than yesterday. I paddled straight from the boat’s place to the Island . . . (Journal, 5:508).

  I have been here much longer than I expected, but have deferred answering you, because I could not foresee when I shall return. I do not know yet within three or four days. This uncertainty makes it impossible for me to appoint a day to meet you, until it shall be too late to bear from you again. I think, therefore, that I must go straight home. I feel some objection to reading that “What shall it profit” lecture again in Worcester; but if you are quite sure that it will be worth the while (it is a grave consideration), I will even make an independent journey from Concord for that purpose. I have read three of my old lectures (that included) to the Eagleswood people, and, unexpectedly, with rare success-i. e., I was aware that what I was saying was silently taken in by their ears.

  You must excuse me if I write mainly a business letter now, for I am sold for the time,-am merely Thoreau the surveyor here,-and solitude is scarcely obtainable in these parts . . .