Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/139

 JET. 26.] TO HELEN THOREAU. 115

the river to rusticate for six weeks, and issues a new periodical called &quot; The Present &quot; in Sep tember.) Also Horace Greeley, editor of the &quot; Tribune,&quot; who is cheerfully in earnest, at his office of all work, a hearty New Hampshire boy as one would wish to meet, and says, &quot; Now be neighborly,&quot; and believes only, or mainly, first, in the Sylvania Association, somewhere in Penn sylvania ; and, secondly, and most of all, in a new association to go into operation soon in New Jersey, with which he is connected. Edward Palmer came down to see me Sunday before last. As for Waldo and Tappan, we have strangely dodged one another, and have not met for some weeks.

I believe I have not told you anything about Lucretia Mott. It was a good while ago that I heard her at the Quaker Church in Hester Street. She is a preacher, and it was adver tised that she would be present on that day. I liked all the proceedings very well, their plainly greater harmony and sincerity than elsewhere. They do nothing in a hurry. Every one that walks up the aisle in his square coat and ex pansive hat has a history, and comes from a house to a house. The women come in one after another in their Quaker bonnets and handker chiefs, looking all like sisters or so many chick adees. At length, after a long silence wait-