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  Still a very strong wind from northerly, and hazy and rather cool for season. The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June . . .

  My three kinds of birch sap have now become more acid, especially the white and canoe birch. The black birch is milder and more agreeable. With sugar it is an agreeable drink. I prefer it to cream-o’-tartar water. This is the real birch wine.

  I return herewith the following books to the Library—viz—“Columella of Husbandry” 1. v. “Pennsylvania, Ohio, & Delaware” 1. v. Jesuit Relations for 1639 & 1642 & 3 2. vols.

Yrs

Henry D. Thoreau

  Ed. Emerson shows me the egg of a bittern (Ardea minor) form a nest in the midst of the Great Meadows, which four boys found, scaring up the bird, last Monday, the 24th . . .

  Melvin and Skinner tell me of three wild geese, to their surprise seen within a week down the river,—a gander and two geese,—which must be breeding here . . .

  Went by Temple’s. For rural interest, give me the houses of the poor, with simply a cool spring, a good deal of weather-stained wood, and a natural door-stone: a house standing somewhere in nature, and not merely in an atmosphere of art . . .

  The Sylvia striata are the commonest bird in the street, as I go to the post-office, for several days past. I see six (four males, two females) on one of our little fir trees; are apparently as many more on another close by . . .

  J. Farmer found a marsh hawk’s nest on the 16th,—near the Cooper’s hawk nest,—with three fresh eggs.

  Hear and see red-headed woodpecker on a telegraph post within stone’s throw of post office . . .

  Dry cra-a-ck of hyla in sloughs on prairie… The Minnesota University here is set in the midst of such an oak opening & it looks quite artificial, & unlike our pines left standing will probably thrive as if nothing had happened.

  I feel rebuked as I draw your most interesting letter from my file and sit down to answer it—that I have so long delayed so grateful a task—For though I surely get away from the world & Law long enough to enter within myself and inquire how I am—how I feel and what sentiments and what response my heart gives out in answer to you voice whose notes of sweetest music comes from that “Land of every land the pride Beloved of Heaven o’er all the World beside” “That spot of earth divinely blest—That dearer sweeter spot than all the rest” Yet—when weary and heart sick—when disgusted with the present—and memory, as if to give relief, retires to wander in the ‘Graveyard of the past’—she passes not unmindful nor lingers briefly around that spot where more than in any other I feel I first tasted of that bread I hope will yet nourish my youth strengthen my manhood cheer and solace “whe[n] the daughters of music are brought low.”

  Time’s devastating hand is beginning already to obliterate the traces of my youthful feelings—and I am becoming more & more contented with my present situation and feel less and less a desire inexorable to return and be a child once more.

  This I suppose to be the natural tendency of the circumstances in which I am placed. Man’s ends are shaped for him and he must abide his destiny. This seems a little like futility—yet, how can we avoid the conclusion that the soul is shaped by circumstances and many of those circumstances beyond man’s control? I think that could I always be “true to the dream of Childhood” I should always be happy—I can imagine circumstances in which I think I might be so—but they are not my present circumstances—these are my fate—I would not complain of them did they not war against what I feel to be my highest interest and indeed I will not as it is, for I know not what is my highest good—I know not the goal whither I am bound, and as I do not know but all is well as far as the external is concerned I will trust to the author of my being—the author and creator of those beautiful fields and woods I so much enjoy in my morning and evening walks—the author of the glorious lake sunsets—that all is well. I have already answered your interrogating in relation to my hopes and feelings as I enter upon the study of Law—With so little knowledge—so a-stranger in its walks—with my face only set toward the temple just spying its tapering finger pointing to the heavens as the throne of its justice—its golden dome glittering as though it were the light of that city which “has no need of a candle neither the light of the Sun”—not yet passed under its gateway—or wandered among the trees and flowers of its paradisean garden—viewed the stones of its foundation or laid hold of its massy pillars. I hardly know what to hope or how to feel at all—I must say, if I would speak truly, that I do not “burn with high hopes” Tis not that “the way seems steep and difficult” but that “the event is feared”; tis the prospect of a life in “daily contact with the things I loath” I love the profession It presents a boundless field—a shoreless ocean where my bark may drift—and bound & leap from wave to wave in wild but splendid rays—without the fear of rock or strand. Yet I chose it not so much for the love I bore it for I knew that in it my intercourse must be with the worst specimens of humanity—as knowing that by it I might get more knowledge, dis[c]ipline and intellectual culture than in any other which I could choose simply as a means of livelihood—have more time to devote to literature and philosophy—and, as I have said, be better prepared intellectually for progress in these pursuits than in any other branch of business followed simply to provide for the bodily wants—So—you see—this profession I chose simply as a means to enable me to pursue what I most delight in—and for that end I think it the wisest selection I could make I know this motive will not lead me to any eminence in the profession—yet I do not know as I wish to be great in that respect even if I could—My books tell me that on entering the profession I must bid adieu to literature—everything and give up myself wholy to Law—I thought I would do so for a time—and I sat down to Blackstone with a heavy heart. Adieu ye Classic halls. My Muse adieu! I wept—as I took perhaps my last look of her—her form lessening in the distance—she cast her eye over her shoulder to rest once more on me. O, it was all pity, love and tenderness—I called aloud for her—but she hastened on—grieved, she heeded not my call—It was too much—What ever might by standing as a Lawyer—I would not turn my back to literature—philosophy theology or poetry—Would give them their place & Law its place—A thousand thanks for the pamphlets you forwarded me. I have read them with great pleasure — and shall read them many times more. The Oration at Waterville I very much admire—it is circulating among Mr. E’s admirers in this place who all express great admiration of it—Human Culture I admire more and more as I read it over. I loaned it to a young man who told me on returning it that he had almost committed it to memory—and wished the loan of it again as soon as the other friends had read it.

  I have read some of your poetry in the Dial—I want to see more of it—it transports me to my childhood and makes everything look as playful as when first I looked upon them in my earliest morning. I only wish it were more liquid-smooth I should admire Pope’s Homer if it were for nothing but that it flows so smoothly.

Remember me affectionately to the friends in Concord and believe me

ever yours
I. T. Williams

  Like many of my contemporaries I had rarely for many years used animal food, or tea or coffee, etc., etc., not so much because of any ill effects which I had traced to them in my own case, though I could theorize extensively in that direction, as because it was not agreeable to my imagination . . . The repugnance to animal food and the rest is not the result of experience, but is an instinct.