Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/209

 J5T.30.] TO R. W. EMERSON. 185

brought me a poem the other day, for me, on Walden Hermitage : not remarkable. 1

Lectures begin to multiply on my desk. I have one on Friendship which is new, and the materials of some others. I read one last week to the Lyceum, on The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Government, much to Mr. Alcott s satisfaction.

Joel Britton has failed and gone into chan cery, but the woods continue to fall before the axes of other men. Neighbor Coombs 2 was lately found dead in the woods near Goose Pond, with his half-empty jug, after he had been riot ing a week. Hugh, by the last accounts, was still in Worcester County. Mr. Hosmer, who is himself again, and living in Concord, has just hauled the rest of your wood, amounting to about ten and a half cords.

The newspapers say that they have printed a pirated edition of your Essays in England. Is it as bad as they say, and undisguised and un mitigated piracy ? I thought that the printed scrap would entertain Carlyle, notwithstanding its history. If this generation will see out of its hind-head, why then you may turn your back

1 See Sanborn s Thoreau, p. 214, and Channing s Thoreau, pp. 19(5-199, for this poem.

2 This is the political neighbor mentioned in a former let ter.