Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/111

 MT. 25.] TO HELEN THOREAU. 87

of every man of business of the country. Of course it is not popular at the South and West. It is an extensive business and will employ a great many clerks.

Love to all not forgetting aunt and aunts and Miss and Mrs. Ward.

On the 23d of May he wrote from Castleton to his sister Helen thus :

DEAR HELEN, In place of something fresher, I send you the following verses from my Journal, written some time ago :

Brother, where dost thou dwell ?

What sun shines for thee now ? Dost thou indeed fare well

As we wished here below ?

What season didst thou find ?

T was winter here. Are not the Fates more kind

Than they appear ?

Is thy brow clear again,

As in thy youthful years ? And was that ugly pain

The summit of thy fears ? l

1 An allusion to the strange and painful death of John Thoreau, by lockjaw. He had- slightly wounded himself in shaving, and the cut became inflamed and brought on that hideous and deforming malady, of which, by sympathy, Henry also partook, though he recovered.