Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/213

 ^T. 30.] TO R. W. EMERSON. 189

TO B. W. EMERSON. 1

CONCORD, March 23, 1848.

DEAR FRIEND, Lidian says I must write a sentence about the children. Eddy says he can not sing, &quot; not till mother is a-going to be well.&quot; We shall hear his voice very soon, in that case, I trust. Ellen is already thinking what will be done when you come home ; but then she thinks it will be some loss that I shall go away. Edith says that I shall come and see them, and always at tea-time, so that I can play with her. Ellen thinks she likes father best because he jumps her sometimes. This is the latest news from

Yours, etc., HENRY.

P. S. I have received three newspapers from you duly which I have not acknowledged. There is an anti-Sabbath convention held in Boston to-day, to which Alcott has gone.

That friend to whom Thoreau wrote most con stantly and fully, on all topics, was Mr. Harri son Blake of Worcester, a graduate of Harvard two years earlier than Thoreau, in the same

1 This letter was addressed, &quot; R. Waldo Emerson, care of Alexander Ireland, Esq., Manchester, England, via New York and Steamer Cambria, March 25.&quot; It was mailed in Boston, March 24, and received in Manchester, April 19.