Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/132

 108 YEARS OF DISCIPLINE. [1843,

knew that I had sent five or six letters to the town. It is very refreshing to hear from you, though it is not all good news. But I trust that Stearns Wheeler is not dead. I should be slow to believe it. He was made to work very well in this world. There need be no tragedy in his death.

The demon which is said to haunt the Jones family, hovering over their eyelids with wings steeped in juice of poppies, has commenced an other campaign against me. I am &quot; clear Jones &quot; in this respect at least. But he finds little encour agement in my atmosphere, I assure you, for I do not once fairly lose myself, except in those hours of truce allotted to rest by immemorial custom. However, this skirmishing interferes sadly with my literary projects, and I am apt to think it a good day s work if I maintain a sol dier s eye till nightfall. Very well, it does not matter much in what wars we serve, whether in the Highlands or the Lowlands. Everywhere we get soldiers pay still.

Give my love to Aunt Louisa, whose benig nant face I sometimes see right in the wall, as naturally and necessarily shining on my path as some star of unaccountably greater age and higher orbit than myself. Let it be inquired by her of George Minott, as from me, for she sees him, if he has seen any pigeons yet, and