Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/136

 112 YEARS OF DISCIPLINE. [1843,

and inspire me, and they have my sympathy. I hear the sober and the earnest, the sad and the cheery voices of my friends, and to me it is a long letter of encouragement and reproof ; and no doubt so it is to many another in the land. So don t give up the ship. Methinks the verse is hardly enough better than the prose. I give my vote for the Notes from the Journal of a Scholar, and wonder you don t print them faster. I want, too, to read the rest of the &quot; Poet and the Painter.&quot; Miss Fuller s is a noble piece, rich, extempore writing, talking with pen in hand. It is too good not to be better, even. In writing, conversation should be folded many times thick. It is the height of art that, on the first perusal, plain common sense should appear ; on the second, severe truth; and on a third, beauty ; and, having these warrants for its depth and reality, we may then enjoy the beauty for evermore. The sea-piece is of the best that is going, if not of the best that is staying. You have spoken a good word for Carlyle. As for the &quot; Winter s Walk,&quot; I should be glad to have it printed in the &quot;Dial&quot; if you think it good enough, and will criticise it ; otherwise send it to me, and I will dispose of it.

I have not been to New York for a month, and so have not seen Waldo and Tappan. James has been at Albany meanwhile. You will know