Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/157

 2ET.26.] TO MRS. EMERSON. 133

even here. Tell her and Sophia (if she is not gone) to write to me. Father will know that this letter is to him as well as to you. I send him a paper which usually contains the news, if not all that is stirring, all that has stirred, and even draws a little 011 the future. I wish he would send me, by and by, the paper which contains the results of the Cattle Show. You must get Helen s eyes to read this, though she is a scoffer at honest penmanship.

TO MRS. EMERSON (AT CONCORD).

STATEN ISLAND, October 16, 1843.

MY DEAR FRIEND, I promised you some thoughts long ago, but it would be hard to tell whether these are the ones. I suppose that the great questions f &quot; Fate, Freewill, Foreknow ledge absolute,&quot; which used to be discussed at Concord, are still unsettled. And here comes [W. H.] Channing, with his &quot; Present,&quot; to vex the world again, a rather galvanic movement, I think. However, I like the man all the better, though his schemes the less. I am sorry for his confessions. Faith never makes a confession.

Have you had the annual berrying party, or sat on the Cliffs a whole day this summer ? I suppose the flowers have fared quite as well since I was not there to scoff at them ; and the hens, without doubt, keep up their reputation.