Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/338

 314 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1855,

There will be no trouble about the chamber in the old house, though, as I told you, Mr. Hos- mer may expect some compensation for it. He says, &quot; Give my respects to Mr. Ricketson, and tell him that I cannot be at a large expense to preserve an antiquity or curiosity. Nature must do its work.&quot; &quot; But,&quot; say I, &quot; he asks you only not to assist nature.&quot;

TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

CONCORD, October 16, 1855.

FRIEND RICKETSON, I have got both your letters at once. You must not think Concord so barren a place when Channing 1 is away. There are the river and fields left yet ; and I, though ordinarily a man of business, should have some afternoons and evenings to spend with you, I trust, that is, if you could stand so much of me. If you can spend your time profitably here, or without ennui, having an oc casional ramble or tete-a-tete with one of the na tives, it will give me pleasure to have you in the neighborhood. You see I am preparing you for our awful unsocial ways, keeping in our dens a good part of the day, sucking our claws per haps. But then we make a religion of it, and that you cannot but respect.

1 Mr. Channing- had gone, October, 1855, to live in New Bed ford, and help edit the Mercury there.