Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/205

 2ET.30.] TO R. W. EMERSON. 181

I had a good talk with Alcott this afternoon. He is certainly the youngest man of his age we have seen, just on the threshold of life. When I looked at his gray hairs, his conversation sounded pathetic ; but I looked again, and they reminded me of the gray dawn. He is getting better acquainted with Channing, though he says that, if they were to live in the same house, they would soon sit with their backs to each other. 1

You must excuse me if I do not write with sufficient directness to yourself, who are a far- off traveler. It is a little like shooting on the wing, I confess.

Farewell. HENRY THOREAU.

TO R. W. EMERSON (iN ENGLAND).

CONCORD, February 23, 1848.

DEAR WALDO, For I think I have heard that that is your name, my letter which was put last into the leathern bag arrived first. Whatever I may call you, I know you better than I know your name, and what becomes of the fittest name if in any sense you are here

1 At this date Aleott had passed his forty-eighth year, while Charming 1 and Thoreau were still in the latitude of thirty. Hawthorne had left Concord, and was in the Salem Custom-house ; the Old Manse having gone hack into the occu pancy of Emerson s cousins, the Ripleys, who owned it.