Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/433

 asT.41.] TO DANIEL RICKETSON. 407

reau survived all her children except Sophia, and died in 1872. In a letter to Mr. Ricketson, Thoreau gave a just sketch of his father s char acter.

TO DANIEL RICKETSON (AT NEW BEDFORD).

CONCORD, 12th February, 1859.

FRIEND RICKETSON, I thank you for your kind letter. I sent you the notice of my father s death as much because you knew him as because you knew me. I can hardly realize that he is dead. He had been sick about two years, and at last declined rather rapidly, though steadily. Till within a week or ten days before he died he was hoping to see another spring, but he then discovered that this was a vain expectation, and, thinking that he was dying, he took his leave of us several times within a week before his depar ture. Once or twice he expressed a slight impa tience at the delay. He was quite conscious to the last, and his death was so easy that, though we had all been sitting around the bed for an hour or more expecting that event (as we had sat before), he was gone at last, almost before we were aware of it.

I am glad to read what you say of his social nature. I think I may say that he was wholly unpretending ; and there was this peculiarity in his aim, that though he had pecuniary difficul-