Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/194

 170 GOLDEN AGE OF ACHIEVEMENT. [1847,

To these letters Emerson replied from Eng land :

DEAR HENRY, Very welcome in the parcel was your letter, very precious your thoughts and tidings. It is one of the best things connected with my coming hither that you could and would keep the homestead ; that fireplace shines all the brighter, and has a certain permanent glimmer therefor. Thanks, ever more thanks for the kindness which I well discern to the youth of the house : to my darling little horseman of pewter, wooden, rocking, and what other breeds, destined, I hope, to ride Pegasus yet, and, I hope, not destined to be thrown ; to Edith, who long ago drew from you verses which I carefully preserve ; and to Ellen, whom by speech, and now by letter, I find old enough to be compan ionable, and to choose and reward her own friends in her own fashions. She sends me a poem to-day, which I have read three times !

TO R. W. EMERSON (iN ENGLAND).

CONCORD, December 15, 1847.

DEAR FRIEND, You are not so far off but the affairs of this world still attract you. Per haps it will be so when we are dead. Then look out. Joshua K. Holman, of Harvard, who says he lived a month with [Charles] Lane at