Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/432

 406 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1859,

swered you earlier. About a week before you wrote there was good skating ; there is now none. As for the lecture, I shall be glad to come. I cannot now say when, but I will let you know, I think within a week or ten days at most, and will then leave you a week clear to make the arrange ments in. I will bring something else than &quot; What shall it profit a Man ? &quot; My father is very sick, and has been for a long time, so that there is the more need of me at home. This occurs to me, even when contemplating so short an excur sion as to Worcester.

I want very much to see or hear your ac count of your adventures in the Ravine, 1 and I trust I shall do so when I come to Worcester. Cholmondeley has been here again, returning from Virginia (for he went no farther south) to Canada; and will go thence to Europe, he thinks, in the spring, and never ramble any more. (January 29.) I am expecting daily that my father will die, therefore I cannot leave home at present. I will write you again within ten days.

The death of John Thoreau (who was born October 8, 1787) occurred February 3d, and Thoreau gave his lecture on &quot; Autumnal Tints &quot; at Worcester, February 22, 1859. Mrs. Tho-

1 This was Tuckerman s Ravine at the White Mountains, where Thoreau met with his mishap in the preceding- July.