Log Search Results

  P.M.—To Gowing’s Swamp and Copan . . .

  Seeing house-leek on several rocks in the fields and by roadside in the neighborhood of Brooks Clark’s, Farmer [Jacob Farmer] told me that it was the work of Joe Dudley, a simple fellow who lives at one of the Clarks; that, though half-witted, he knew more medicinal plants than almost anybody in the neighborhood . . .

  A painted turtle beginning her hole for eggs at 4 P.M. . . .

  River at 6 P.M., twelve and five eighths inches above summer level. To-night the toads ring loudly and generally, as do hylodes also, the thermometer being at 62 at 9 P.M. . . .

  You see by the date of this letter that we are staying at a house on the edge of Lake Calhoun. It is a beautiful sheet of water, perhaps a mile and a half or three quarters the longest way a nearly a mile the other way in breadth; it has an outlet by which it MTT itself into Lake Harriet, which lies a little ways to the SE of here, and that again MTT into the Minnehaha and goes over the falls. We are staying at the house of a Mrs. Hamilton, a widow, and one of the first settlers near this lake. The house is surrounded with very thick woods which is full of great big musquitoes, so when you walk in them, particularly near nightfall, they swarm around you in such a cloud that you can hardly see through them. There are also a great many pigeons in the woods back of the house, (though I should hardly know them from a musquito here by size) which are breeding, and I found the nest of one this afternoon which had but one egg in it which I took. The lake is full of fishes and we have them at every meal almost. I went into St. Anthony this morning where I put some birds and clams in alcohol and got some blotting paper to press flowers with and I have just been putting some away to press under the bed post . . . You want me to tell you how things make me feel but I will not do so about the musquitoes. It is pretty warm weather here all the time now. We had a thunder storm last night but I did not know it till I got up this morning. Mr. Thoreau and I went in swimming this afternoon and then we went to walk and we came to a pond hole near some woods which was full of shells and frogs . . . Mr. Thoreau continues to get better and I am very well of course. We drink lake water here. I will write more before I send this letter, so Good Night,

Your loving son

Horace Mann

I wish you would leave the “Esq” off when you direct my letters because that is not any part of my name.

  It is proposed that a meeting of the Class of 1837 be held at the Revere House, on Wednesday, at 5 P.M., on the 19th of March next.

  There are reasons for a deviation from the usual custom of the Class in assembling during the week of the annual Commencement.

  In Boston and its vicinity are now collected a larger number of the Class than at any time since we left the University. A general desire has been expressed to take advantage of this circumstance, and to endeavor to re-awaken the interest natural to those who have been pleasantly associated together at an early period of life. Nearly fourteen years have elapsed since we left Cambridge, and but few have been in situations to bring them much into contact with any considerable number of their Class.

  There is a manifest advantage in holding a meeting at this season of the year. Upon Commencement week, other engagements are liable to interfere, and the usual heat and fatigue of the days preclude any long duration of the meeting either in the afternoon or evening.

  On the present occasion a dinner is proposed of which the expense will not exceed one dollar to each person.

  It is desirable that a definite answer to this letter should be returned to the Committee previous to the 17th inst. If circumstances should compel the absence of any member, it is expected that he will contribute to the interest of the occasion by writing some account of himself since he left College.

  Very truly,

  Your friends and Classmates,

  William W[hitwell]. Greenough ⎫

  William J[ohnson]. Dale, ⎬ Class Committee

  David Greene Haskins, ⎪

  J[oseph]. H[enry]. Adams, Jr. ⎭

  Annexed is a list of the members of the Class supposed to be in this vicinity.

  [William] Allen, Greenough, [James] Richardson,

  [John] Bacon, Haskins, [Charles Theodore] Russell,

  [Clifford] Belcher, [William] Hawes, Thoreau,

  [Henry Jacob] Bigelow, [Christopher Columbus] Holmes, 2d. [John Francis] Tuckerman,

  [Harvey Erastus] Clap, [Henry] Hubbard, [Henry] Vose,

  [Manlius Stimson] Clarke, [Benjamin Gage] Kimball, [John] Weiss,

  Dale, [John F. W.] Lane, [Giles Henry] Whitney,

  [Charles Henry] Dall, [Charles Wainwright] March, [Daniel] Wight,

  [William] Davis, 1st. [August Goddard] Peabody, Williams, 1st.

  [William Augustus] Davis, 2d. [Amos] Perry, Williams, 3d.

  [Richard Henry] Dana, [Francis] Phelps

  At 9 o’clock P. M. to the woods by the full moon . . .

  Going through the high field beyond the lone graveyard, I see the track of a boy’s sled before me, and his footsteps shining like silver between me and the moon . . .

  As I look down the railroad, standing on the west brink of the Deep Cut, I seem to see in the manner in which the moon is reflected from the west slope covered with snow, in the sort of misty light as if a fine vapor were rising from it, a promise or sign of spring . . .

  I did not mention the drifts yesterday. Most of the snow left on bare, dry level ground consists of the remains of drifts, particularly along fences,—most on the south side. Also much that looks like snow is softened ice in the lower parts of fields. Looking from Annursnack, there is no perceptible difference as to snow between the north and south prospects, though the north one is not extensive; but the snowiest view is westward. Has this anything to do with there being most snow inland? All the sides of steep hills are likely to be bare . . .

  We were walking along the sunny hillside on the south of Fair Haven Pond (on the 4th), which the choppers had just laid bare, when, in a sheltered and warmer place, we heard a rustling amid the dry leaves on the hillside and saw a striped squirrel eying us from its resting-place on the bare ground. It sat still till we were within a rod, then suddenly dived into its hole, which was at its feet, and disappeared. The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again.

  Who like the one of old that appeared to Daniel, Zachariah, &c. hath in these latter days appeared unto the least of all Daniels,—Greetings,—

  I have just received and read your genuine epistle of the 5th Inst. You satisfy me fully in regards to C and I trust we shall draw with an even yoke in future. I had though of attempting something by way of reviving his poems. A new public has grown up since their appearance, and their assasinator Poe, lies in the Potter’s Field at Baltimore, without a stone to mark his grave, as somebody in the Home Houral of this week, says: and thus hath Nemesis overtaken him.

  Mrs Ricketson as well as myself have felt a good deal of sympathy for Mrs. C. but of course the matter cannot be spoken of to C.

  I think however, that he is now working for his family. His courage and endurance under the circumstances are wonderful. Unless he has a very strong physical as well as mental constitution, I fear he will suffer, & perhaps break down. I conclude you received my newspaper notice of Mr. Emerson’s explosion before the N.B. Lyceum, although you make no mention of it. You may be surprised at my sudden regard for his genius, but not more so than myself. It came by revelation. I had never, I believe, read a page of his writing when I heard his lecture. How I came to go to hear him I hardly know, and must conclude that my good Gabriel led me there.
Don’t despair of me yet, I am getting along bravely in my shanty & hope to crown in due time. Somehow too, I am getting wonderfully interested in ancient lore, and am delighted to find that there were odd fellows like you & I & C. some hundred years before our data.

  How wonderfully daylight shines upon us at times.

  I no longer wonder that you had Homer, Valmiki, Vyasa &c in your Walden Shanty. They have already peeped into my windows & I shall not be surprised to have them seated within as my guests ere long. You need not be astonished if you hear of my swearing in Sanscrit or at least in Pan scrit!

  I have just got a taste of these old fellows, and what a glorious feast awaits me. What a lucky mortal are you to be the possessor of these priceless treasures, sent you from England. I am about starting upon a pilgrimage into the country of those ancient Hindus, and already in fancy at least see the “gigantic peaks of the Himalayas” and sit beneath “the tremendous heights of the Dhawalagiri range”—so far as the rail way of books can convey me there. Give me your hand Gabriel, and lead the way.

  Now for the present time. We are beginning to have spring here—and I have already heard the warbling of the blue-bird near the Shanty—but did not get a sight of one. The bluebird once appeared here as early as the middle of February, but disappeared as the weather proved colder & did not return until about the middle of March. I am sorry you talk so discouragingly about coming this way this spring. Dont be afraid of me my dear Gabriel—I will do you no harm. I have my fears also. I conclude that I am too social for you, although this is a sin I have never been accused of. Think of it again, about coming here; but dont come unless you get a clear ‘response from your oracle’ I quote Gabriel himself. I am quite humbled at your halting—the cords of love do not draw you and I have none stronger to bring into requisition, but I shall not release you without a struggle.—May I not then expect you in May—things may be done in that month which none other in the calendar admit of. It is the month of May bees—so some fine morning may you alight here a thoro’ maybee fresh from Musketquid. Then you and Channing & I can sit in the little hermitage like the Gymnsophists of old, and you may do the stamping on the ground to any Alexander that may offer himself as intruder.

  I copy from my Journal of this day the following for your edification!

  “Orphics” by a Modern Hundu.

  The ancient Hindus of course wrote no “orphics.” -the gentleman is a Modern.

  In proportion as we see the merits of others we add to our own.

  Mind is every in the Spring—one eternal May morning—the same in its original freshness whether in the Sanscrit, the Greek and other languages or the English as a Medium of expression.

  Mind has an eternal youth.

  “Haunted forever by the eternal mind” is a fine thought of Wordsworth, himself a philosopher and priest of Nature. Man must ever mind this to be true—the thoughtful man.

  Yours warmly
  D. the least