Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/445

 MT. 42.] TO SOPHIA THOREAU. 419

Known and of the Unknown. What is the use of going right over the old track again ? There is an adder in the path which your own feet have worn. You must make tracks into the Un known. That is what you have your board and clothes for. Why do you ever mend your clothes, unless that, wearing them, you may mend your ways ? Let us sing.

TO SOPHIA THOREAU (AT CAMPTON, N. H.).

CONCORD, July 8, 1860.

DEAR SOPHIA, Mother reminds me that I must write to you, if only a few lines, though I have sprained my thumb, so that it is ques tionable whether I can write legibly, if at all. I can t &quot; bear on &quot; much. What is worse, I believe that I have sprained my brain too that is, it sympathizes with my thumb. But that is no excuse, I suppose, for writing a letter in such a case, is like sending a newspaper, only a hint to let you know that &quot; all is well,&quot; - - but my thumb.

I hope that you begin to derive some benefit from that more mountainous air which you are breathing. Have you had a distinct view of the Franconia Notch Mountains (blue peaks in the northern horizon) ? which I told you you could get from the road in Campton, probably from some other points nearer. Such a view of the