Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/143

 2ET.26.] TO MRS. THOREAU. 119

pedestrian tour round the world, and sometimes think it would perhaps be better to do at once the things I ccm, rather than be trying to do what at present I cannot do well. However, I shall awake sooner or later.

I have been translating some Greek, and reading English poetry, and a month ago sent a paper to the &quot; Democratic Review,&quot; which, at length, they were sorry they could not accept ; but they could not adopt the sentiments. How ever, they were very polite, and earnest that I should send them something else, or reform that.

I go moping about the fields and woods here as I did in Concord, and, it seems, am thought to be a surveyor, an Eastern man inquiring narrowly into the condition and value of land, etc., here, preparatory to an extensive specula tion. One neighbor observed to me, in a mys terious and half inquisitive way, that he sup posed I must be pretty well acquainted with the state of things ; that I kept pretty close ; he did n t see any surveying instruments, but per haps I had them in my pocket.

I have received Helen s note, but have not heard of Frisbie Hoar yet. 1 She is a faint hearted writer, who could not take the responsi*

1 At present Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, but then in Harvard College.