Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/190

 166 GOLDEN AGE OF ACHIEVEMENT. [1847,

I have had a tragic correspondence, for the

most part all on one side, with Miss. She

did really wish to I hesitate to write marry me. That is the way they spell it. Of course I did not write a deliberate answer. How could I deliberate upon it ? I sent back as distinct a no as I have learned to pronounce after consid erable practice, and I trust that this no has suc ceeded. Indeed, I wished that it might burst, like hollow shot, after it had struck and buried itself and made itself felt there. There was no other way. I really had anticipated no such foe as this in my career.

I suppose you will like to hear of my book, though I have nothing worth writing about it. Indeed, for the last month or two I have forgot ten it, but shall certainly remember it again. Wiley & Putnam, Muiiroe, the Harpers, and Crosby & Nichols have all declined printing it with the least risk to themselves ; but Wiley & Putnam will print it in their series, and any of them, anywhere, at my risk. If I liked the book well enough, I should not delay; but for the present I am indifferent. I believe this is, after all, the course you advised, to let it lie.

I do not know what to say of myself. I sit before my green desk, in the chamber at the head of the stairs, and attend to my thinking, sometimes more, sometimes less distinctly. I