Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/357

 2BT.39.] TO BRONSON ALCOTT. 333

count ; yet from time to time I have some thoughts which would be the better for an air ing. I also wish to get some hints from Sep tember on the Connecticut to help me under stand that season on the Concord ; to snuff the musty fragrance of the decaying year in the primitive woods. There is considerable cellar- room in my nature for such stores ; a whole row of bins waiting to be filled, before I can cele brate my Thanksgiving. Mould is the richest of soils, yet / am not mould. It will always be found that one flourishing institution exists and battens on another mouldering one. The Pres ent itself is parasitic to this extent. Your fellow-traveler,

HENKY D. THOREAU.

As fortune would have it, Mr. Alcott was then making his arrangements for a conversa tional tour in the vicinity of New York ; but he renewed the invitation for himself, while repeat ing it in the name of Mrs. Alcott and his daugh ters. Thoreau made the visit, I believe, and some weeks later, at the suggestion of Mr. Al cott, he was asked by Marcus Spring of New York to read lectures and survey their estate for a community at Perth Amboy, N. J., in which Mr. Spring and his friends, the Birneys, Welds, Grimkes, etc., had united for social and educa-