Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/325

 asT.37.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 301

opposite Thoreau s, he made an evening call on me and my sister (April 11, 1855), but I had already met him more than once at Mr. Emer son s, and was even beginning to take walks with him, as frequently happened in the next six years. In the following summer I began to dine daily at his mother s table, and thus saw him almost every day for three years.

TO HARBISON BLAKE (AT WORCESTER).

CONCORD, June 27, 1855.

MR. BLAKE, I have been sick and good for nothing but to lie on my back and wait for something to turn up, for two or three months. This has compelled me to postpone several things, among them writing to you, to whom I am so deeply in debt, and inviting you and Brown to Concord, not having brains ade quate to such an exertion. I should feel a little less ashamed if I could give any name to my disorder, but I cannot, and our doctor cannot help me to it, and I will not take the name of any disease in vain. However, there is one con solation in being sick ; and that is the possibil ity that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before. I expected in the win ter to be deep in the woods of Maine in my canoe, long before this ; but I am so far from this that I can only take a languid walk in Con cord streets.