Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/162

 138 YEARS OF DISCIPLINE. [1843,

recent, especially when you get fairly round the end of the line, and are not thrown back upon the rocks. To read the lecture on &quot;The Comic&quot; is as good as to be in our town meeting or Ly ceum once more.

I am glad that the Concord farmers ploughed well this year ; it promises that something will be done these summers. But I am suspicious of that Brittonner, who advertises so many cords of good oak, chestnut, and maple wood for sale. Good ! ay, good for what ? And there shall not be left a stone upon a stone. But no matter, let them hack away. The sturdy Irish arms that do the work are of more worth than oak or maple. Methinks I could look with equanimity upon a long street of Irish cabins, and pigs and children reveling in the genial Concord dirt ; and I should still find my Walden wood and Fair Haven in their tanned and happy faces.

I write this in the cornfield it being wash ing-day with the inkstand Elizabeth Hoar gave me ; l though it is not redolent of corn-

1 This inkstand was presented by Miss Hoar, with a note dated &quot; Boston, May 2, 1843,&quot; which deserves to be copied :

DEAR HENRY, The rain prevented me from seeing 1 you the night before I came away, to leave with you a parting&quot; as surance of good will and good hope. We have become better acquainted within the .two past years than in our whole life as schoolmates and neighbors before ; and I am unwilling to let you go away without telling you that I, among your other