Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/319

 JET. 37.] TO THOMAS CHOLMONDELEY. 295

Cholmondeley in a tiresome passage to England, whence he wrote (January 27) to say to Thoreau that he had reached Shropshire, and been com missioned captain in the local militia, in prepa ration for service at Sevastopol, but reminding his Concord friend of a half promise to visit England some day. To this Thoreau made answer thus :

TO THOMAS CHOLMONDELEY (AT HOD1STET).

CONCORD, Mass., February 7, 1855.

DEAR CHOLMONDELEY, I am glad* to hear that you have arrived safely at Hodnet, and that there is a solid piece of ground of that name which can support a man better than a floating plank, in that to me as yet purely historical England. But have I not seen you with my own eyes, a piece of England herself, and was not your letter come out to me thence ? I have now reason to believe that Salop is as real a place as Concord ; with at least as good an un derpinning of granite, floating on liquid fire. I congratulate you on having arrived safely at that floating isle, after your disagreeable pass age in the steamer America. So are we not all making a passage, agreeable or disagreeable, in the steamer Earth, trusting to arrive at last at some less undulating Salop and brother s house ?

I cannot say that I ani surprised to hear that