Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/310

 286 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1854,

roused by the delays and calamities of England in her Crimean war, resolved to go home and raise a company, as he did, first spending some weeks in lodgings at Boston (Orange Street) in order to hear Theodore Parker preach and visit Harvard College, of which I was then a student, in the senior class. He visited me and my class mate, Edwin Morton, and called on some of the Cambridge friends of Clough. In January, 1855, he sailed for England, and there received the letter of Thoreau printed on pages 295-298. The acquaintance with Mr. Ricketson began by letter before Cholmondeley reached Concord, but Thoreau did not visit him until December, 1854. Mr. Ricketson says, &quot; In the summer of 1854 I purchased, in New Bedford, a copy of 4 Walden. I had never heard of its author, but in this admirable and most original book I found so many observations on plants, birds, and natural objects generally in which I was also in terested, that I felt at once I had found a con genial spirit. During this season I was rebuild ing a house in the country, three miles from New Bedford, and had erected a small building which was called my shanty ; and my family being then in my city house, I made this build ing my temporary home. From it I addressed my first letter to the author of Walden. In reply he wrote, I had duly received your very