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  I have long intended to write you, to thank you for that noble expression of yourself you were good enough to send to me. I know not why I have not done so; except from a foolish sense that I should not write till I had thought of something to say which it would be worth your while to read.

  What can I say to you except express the honour & the love I feel for you. An honour and a love which Emerson taught me long ago to feel, but which I feel now “not on account of his word, but because I myself have read & know you.”

  When I think of what you are—of what you have done as well as of what you have written, I have a right to tell you that there is no man living upon this earth at present, whose friendship or whose notice I value more than yours; What are these words? Yet I wished to say something—and I must use words though they serve but seldom in these days for much but lies.

  In your book and in one other also from your side of the Atlantic “Margaret” I see hope for the coming world. all else which I have found true in any of our thinkers, (or even of yours) is their flat denial of what is false in the modern popular jargon—but for their positive affirming side they do but fling us back upon our human nature, stoically to bold on by that with our own strength—A few men here & there may do this as the later Romans did—but mankind cannot and I have gone near to despair—I am growing not to despair, and I thank you for a helping hand.

  Well I must see you sometime or other. It is not such a great matter with these steam bridges. I wish to shake hands with you, and look a brave honest man in the face. In the mean time I will but congratulate you on the age in which your work is cast, the world has never seen one more pregnant.

  God bless you

  Your friend (if you will let’him call you so)

  J A Froude

  A warm night. A thin coat sufficient. I hear an apple fall, as I go along the road. Meet a man going to market thus early. There are no mists to diversify the night. Its features are very simple . . .

  The soapwort gentian out abundantly in Flint’s Bridge Lane . . .

  Saw at the floral show this afternoon some splendid specimens of the sunflower, king of asters, with the disk filled with ligulate flowers.

  P.M.—With Minot Pratt into Carlisle . . .

  The river smooth, though full, with the autumn sheen on it, as on the leaves. I see painted tortoises with their entire backs covered with perfectly fresh clean black scales, such as no rubbing nor varnishing can produce, contrasting advantageously with brown arid muddy ones. One little one floats past on a drifting pad which he partly sinks . . .

  Gathered four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime, attracted more by the beauty of the cynics than the flavor of the fruit. The berries, which are of various sizes and forms,—elliptical, oblong, or globular,—are in different stages of maturity on the same cynic, and so of different colors,—green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black,—i.e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. If gathered when rose-colored, they soon turn dark purple and are soft and edible, though before bitter. They add a new and variegated wildness to the swampy sprout-lands . . .

The Polygonum Pennsylvanicum there. One Chimaphila maculate on the hill. Tufts of Woodsia Hvensis . . . (Journal, 10:24).

  The hazelnut bushes up this way are chiefly confined to the drier river-bank. At least they do not extend into the lower, somewhat meadowy land further inland. They appear to be mostly stripped. The most I get are left hanging over the water at the swimming-ford . . .