Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/403

 /ET.40.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 377

some doubt if they can see thence. Was it not Umbagog ?

Dr. Solger 1 has been lecturing in the vestry in this town on Geography, to Sanborn s schol ars, for several months past, at five P. M. Emer son and Alcott have been to hear him. I was surprised when the former asked me, the other day, if I was not going to hear Dr. Solger. What, to be sitting in a meeting-house cellar at that time of day, when you might possibly be out-doors ! I never thought of such a thing. What was the sun made for? If he does not prize day light, I do. Let him lecture to owls and dor-

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mice. He must be a wonderful lecturer indeed who can keep me indoors at such an hour, when the night is coming in which no man can walk.

Are you in want of amusement nowadays ? Then play a little at the game of getting a living. There never was anything equal to it. Do it temperately, though, and don t sweat. Don t let this secret out, for I have a design against the

1 Reinhold Solger, Ph. D., a very intellectual and well- taught Prussian, who was one of the lecturers for a year or two at nay &quot; Concord School,&quot; the successor of the Concord &quot; Acad emy,&quot; in which the children of the Emerson, Alcott, Haw thorne, Hoar, and Ripley families were taught. At this date the lectures were given in the vestry of the parish church, which Thoreau playfully termed &quot; a meeting-house cellar.&quot; It was there that Louisa Alcott acted plays.