Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/256

 232 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1852,

TO SOPHIA THOREAU (AT BANGOR).

CONCORD, July 13, 1852.

DEAR SOPHIA, I am a miserable letter- writer, but perhaps if I should say this at length and with sufficient emphasis and regret it would make a letter. I am sorry that nothing tran spires here of much moment ; or, I should rather say, that I am so slackened and rusty, like the telegraph wire this season, that no wind that blows can extract music from me.

I am not on the trail of any elephants or mas todons, but have succeeded in trapping only a few ridiculous mice, which cannot feed my im agination. I have become sadly scientific. I would rather come upon the vast valley-like &quot; spoor &quot; only of some celestial beast which this world s woods can no longer sustain, than spring my net over a bushel of moles. You must do better in those woods where you are. You must have some adventures to relate and repeat for years to come, which will eclipse even mother s voyage to Goldsborough and Sissiboo.

They say that Mr. Pierce, the presidential candidate, was in town last 5th of July, visiting Hawthorne, whose college chum he was ; and that Hawthorne is writing a life of him, for electioneering purposes.

Concord is just as idiotic as ever in relation