Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/104

 80 YEARS OF DISCIPLINE. [1843,

his sisters, and Mrs. Emerson. To Sophia and Mrs. E. he wrote May 22, to Helen, with a few touching verses on his brother John, the next day ; and then he resumed the correspond ence with Emerson. It seems that one of his errands near New York was to make the ac quaintance of literary men and journalists in the city, in order to find a vehicle for publica tion, such as his neighbor Hawthorne had finally found in the pages of the &quot;Democratic Keview.&quot; For this purpose Thoreau made himself known to Henry James, and other friends of Emerson, and to Horace Greeley, then in the first fresh ness of his success with the &quot; Tribune,&quot; - a newspaper hardly more than two years old then, but destined to a great career, in which several of the early Transcendentalists took some part.

TO HIS FATHER AND MOTHER (AT CONCORD). CASTLETON, STATEN ISLAND, May 11, 1843.

DEAR MOTHER AND FRIENDS AT HOME, We arrived here safely at ten o clock on Sun day morning, having had as good a passage as usual, though we ran aground and were de tained a couple of hours in the Thames River, till the tide came to our relief. At length we curtseyed up to a wharf just the other side of their Castle Garden, very incurious about them and their city. I believe my vacant looks,