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  But to return to the day I left Brookline—Aunt Ann and Grandma and the rest were rather better [than] when I saw them before—I dined there, and cousin Joseph went to the stage office to secure my passage in the Concord stage. It came for me at twenty minutes of four—I was the first passenger taken up—soon after, Mr. and Mrs. Lowell, Aunt Maria’s friends, with their little boy got in, and Mr. Shattuck also. The ride to Concord was delightful. I never enjoyed a stage ride so much in my life. We had some gentle showers, but none to incommode us much. About noon there was a very violent shower, attended with a great deal of wind, which had laid the dust completely. You mention in your letter that the storm was very violent with you. Dear Aunt [Prudence Ward] and Grandmother [Prudence Bird Ward] I found well, and the rest of the family too.

  Giles Waldo shall not go back without a line to you if only to pay part of my debt in that kind long due. I am sorry to say that when I called on Bradbury & Soden nearly a month ago, their partner in their absence informed me that they could not pay you at present any part of their debt on account of the B. Miscellany. After much talking, all the promise he could offer, was, “that within a year it would probably be paid,” a probability which certainly looks very slender. The very worst thing he said was the proposition that you should take your payment in the form of B. Miscellanies! I shall not fail to refresh their memory at intervals. We were all very glad to have such cordial greetings from you as in your last letter on the Dial’s & on all personal accounts. Hawthorn & Channing are both in good health & spirits & the last always a good companion for me, who am hard to suit, I suppose. Giles Waldo has established himself with me by his good sense. I fancy from your notices that he is more than you have seen. I think that neither he nor W. A. T[appan] will be exhausted in one interview. My wife is at Plymouth to recruit her wasted strength but left word with me to acknowledge & heartily thank you for your last letter to her. Edith & Ellen are in high health, and as pussy has this afternoon nearly killed a young oriole, Edie tells all corners with great energy her one story, “Birdy-sick.” Mrs. Brown who just left the house desires kindest remembrances to you whom “sire misses,” & whom “she thinks of.” In this fine weather we look very bright & green in yard & garden though this sun without showers will perchance spoil our potatoes. Our clover grew well on your patch between the dikes & Reuben Brown adjudged that Cyrus Warren should pay 14.00 this year for my grass. Last year he paid 0. All your grafts of this year have lived & done well. The apple trees & plums speak of you in every wind. You will have read & heard the sad news to the little village of Lincoln of Stearns Wheeler’s death. Such an overthrow to the hopes of his parents made me think more of them than of the loss the community will suffer in his kindness diligence & ingenuous mind. The papers have contained ample notices of his life & death.—I saw Charles Newcomb the other day at Brook Farm, & he expressed his great gratification in your translations & said that he had been minded to write you & ask of you to translate in like manner—Pindar. I advised him by all means to do so. But he seemed to think he had discharged his conscience. But it was a very good request. It would be a fine thing to be done since Pindar has no adequate translation in English equal to his fame. Do look at the book with that in your mind, while Charles is mending his pen. I will soon send you word respecting The Winter Walk. Farewell.

R. W. Emerson.

  Perceived a small weed, coming up all over the fields, which leas an aromatic scent. Did not at first discover that it was blue-curls. It is a little affecting that the year should be thus solemn and regular, that this weed should have withheld itself so long, biding its appointed time, and now, without fail, be coming up all over the land, still extracting that well-known aroma out of the elements, to adorn its part of the year! . . .

  P.M.—To Hubbard Bath.

  That long, narrow sparganium, which is perhaps the smaller one, growing long in our river, stands thick, with the heart-leaf and potarnogeton, in the middle in shallow places. Methinks there begins to be a bluish scum on the water at this season, somewhat stagnant looking . . .

  Caught a middle-sized copper-colored devil’s-needle (with darker spots on wings), sluggish, on a grass stem, with many dark-colored elliptical eggs packed closely to outside, under its breast.

  At Natural History Library. Holbrook makes the Emys terrapin to be found from Rhode Island to Florida and South America . . .

  5 P.M.—Take cars for Portland. Very hot and dusty; as much need of a veil in the cars to exclude cinders as in the woods to keep off mosquitoes . . .

  P.M.—To Eddy Bridge.

  Abel Hosmer says that the Turnpike Company did not fulfill their engagement to build a new bridge over the Assabet in 1807; that the present stone bridge was not built till about the time the Orthodox meeting-house was built. (That was in 1826.) Benjamin says it was built soon after the meeting-house, or perhaps 1827, and was placed some fifty feet higher up-stream than the old wooden one . . .

  Jacob Farmer tells me that he remembers that when about twenty-one years old he and Hildreth were bathing in the Assabet at the mouth of the brook above Winn’s, and Hildreth swam or waded across to a sandbar (now the island there), but the water was so deep on that bar that he became frightened, and would have been drowned if he had not been dragged out and resuscitated by others . . .