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  Am surprised to see Fair Haven Pond completely frozen over during the last four days. It will probably open again. Thus, while all the channel elsewhere is open and a mere edging of ice amid the weeds is seen, this great expansion is completely bridged over, thus early . . .

  An apothecary in New Bedford told R. [Daniel Ricketson] the other day that a man (a Mr. Leonard) of Springfield told him that he once attended a meeting in Springfield where a woman was exhibited as in a mesmeric state, insensible to pain . . .

  Its merits to me are a noble recognition of nature, two or three manly thoughts, and, in one place, a plaintive music. The image of the ships does not please me originally. It illustrates the greater by the less and effects me as when Byron compares the light on Jura to that of the dark eye of woman. I cannot define my position here, and a large class of readers would differ from me. As the poet goes on to

  Yet now that I have some knowledge of the man, it seems there is no objection I could make to his lines, (with the exception of such offenses against taste as the lines about the humors of the eye &c as to which we are already agreed) which I would not make to himself. He is healthful, sure, of open eye, ready hand, and noble scope. He sets no limits to his life, nor to the invasions of nature; he is no wilfully pragmatical, cautious, ascetic of fantastical. But he is as yet a somewhat bare hill which the warm gales of spring have not visited. Thought lies too detached, truth is seen too much in detail, we can number and rank the substances embedded in the rock. Thus his verses are startling, as much as stern; the thought does not excuse its conscious existance by letting us see its relation with life; there is a want of fluent music. Yet what could a companion do at present unless to tame the guardian of the Alps too early. Leave him at peace amid his native snows. He is friendly; he will find the generous office that shall educate him. It is not a soil for the citron and the rose, but for the whortleberry, the pine or the heather. The unfolding of affections, a wider and deeper human experience, the harmonizing influences of other natures will mould the man, and melt his verse. He will seek thought less and find knowledge the more. I can have no advice or criticism for a person so sincere, but if I give my impression of him I will say He says too constantly of nature She is mine; She is not yours till you have been more hers. Seek the lotus, and take a draught of rapture. Say not so confidently All places, all occasions are alike. This will never come true till you have found it false.

  I do not know that I have more to say now, Perhaps these words will say nothing to you. If intercourse should continue, perhaps a bridge may be made between two minds so widely apart, for I apprehended you in spirit, and you did not seem to mistake me as widely as most of your kind do. If you should find yourself inclined to write to me, as you thought you might, I dare say many thoughts would be suggested to me; many have already by seeing you day by day. Will you finish the poem in your own way and send it for the Dial. Leave out “And seems to milk the sky”

  The image is too low. Mr. Emerson thought so too. Farewell. May Truth be irradiated by Beauty!—Let me know whether you go to the lonely hut, and write me about Shakespeare, if you read him there. I have many thoughts about him which I have never yet been led to express.

Margaret F.

The pencilled paper Mr. E. put into my hands. I have taken the liberty to copy it You expressed one day my own opinion that the moment such a crisis is passed we may speak of it. There is no need of artificial delicacy, of secrecy, it keeps its own secret; it cannot be made false. Thus you will not be sorry that I have seen the paper. Will you not send me some other records of the good week.

“Once again Margaret Fuller rejected manuscript that Thoreau had submitted for publication in the Dial The poem was “With Frontier strength ye stand your ground,” eventually included in his essay “A Walk to Wachusett” and published in the Boston Miscellany for January 1843. Thoreau accepted some of Miss Fuller’s in his final version, but ignored others. The “Lonely hut” is probably a reference to the Hollowell Farm, which Thoreau was talking of purchasing, rather than to any intent thus early to go to Walden. The “good week” indicates that he was already working on his first book.”

  What do you mean by saying that “we have written eight times by private opportunity”? Is’nt it the more the better? and am I not glad of it? But people have a habit of not letting me know it when they go to Concord from New York. I endeavored to get you The Present, when I was last in the city, but they were all sold—and now another is out, which I will send if I get it. I did not send the Dem Rev because I had no copy, and my piece was not worth fifty cents.—You think that [W. H.] Channing words would apply to me too, as living more in the natural than the moral world, but I think that you mean the world of men and women rather and reformers generally. My objection to Channing and all that fraternity is that they need and deserve sympathy themselves rather than are able to render it to others. They want faith and mistake; their private ail for an infected atmosphere, but let any one of them recover hope for a moment, and right his particular grievance, and he will no longer train in that company. To speak or do any thing that shall concern mankind, one must speak and act as if well, or from that grain of health which he has left.—This Present book indeed is blue, but the line of its thoughts is yellow.—I say these things with the less hesitation because I have the jaundice myself, but I also know what it is to be well. But do not think that one can escape from mankind, who is one of them, and is so constantly dealing with them.

  I could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the development of infant minds, where none already existed—It would be too cruel, and then as if looking all this while one way with benevolence, to walk off another about ones own affairs suddenly!—Something of this kind is an unavoidable objections to that.

I am very sorry to hear such bad news about Aunt Maria, but I think that the worst is always the least to be apprehended—for nature is averse to it as well as we. I trust to hear that she is quite well soon I send love to her and to Aunt Jane.

  Mrs Emerson is not decidedly better yet, though she is not extremely sick. For three months I have not known whether to think of Sophia as in Bangor or Concord, and now you say that she is going directly. Tell her to write to me, and establish her whereabouts, and also to get well directly—And see that she has something worthy to do when she gets down there, for that’s the best remedy for disease. [Four fifths of pp. 3-4 are cut away; at the top of p. 4 these lines follow:] judge that the prospect was as good as anywhere in the west—and yet I think it very uncertain, though perhaps not for anything that I know [page cut] unless that she got [page cut; and the conclusion of the letter follows in the margin of p. 1:] Tell Father and mother I hope to see them before long—

yr affectionate brother
H. D. Thoreau.

  In behalf of its Managing Committee, I have the honor of inviting you to lecture before the “Portland Lyceum” on some Wednesday evening during the next winter. Your former animated and interesting discourse is fresh in the memory of its members, and they are very anxious to have their minds again invigorated, enlivened and instructed by you. If you consent to our request, will you be pleased to designate the time of the winter when you would prefer to come here?The Managers have been used to offer gentlemen who come here to lecture from a distance equivalent to your own, only the sum of twenty-five dollars, not under the name of pecuniary compensation for the lectures but for traveling expenses—

  An early and favorable reply will much oblige us.

  With great respect, Your obedient Servant,

  Josiah. Pierce, Jr

  A mild, still, but cloudy, or rather misty, afternoon. The water is at present perfectly smooth and calm, but covered with a kind of smoky or hazy film. Nevertheless, the reflections of distant woods, though less distinct, are softer, seen through this smoky and darkened atmosphere. I speak only of the reflections as seen in the broader bays and longer reaches of the river, as at the Willow End . . .