Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/482

 456 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1861,

awaiting me ; among others, one from Cholmonde- ley, and one from yourself.

Of course I am sufficiently surprised to hear of your conversion ; 1 yet I scarcely know what to say about it, unless that, judging by your account, it appears to me a change which con cerns yourself peculiarly, and will not make you more valuable to mankind. However, perhaps I must see you before I can judge.

Kemembering your numerous invitations, I write this short note now, chiefly to say that, if you are to be at home, and it will be quite agree able to you, I will pay you a visit next week, and take such rides or sauntering walks with you as an invalid may.

The visit was made, and we owe to it the pres ervation of the latest portraiture of Thoreau, who, at his friend s urgency, sat to a photogra pher in New Bedford ; and thus we have the full- bearded likeness of August, 1861 ; from which, also, and from personal recollection, Mr. Walter Ricketson made the fine profile medallion en graved for this volume.

1 A return to religious Quakerism, of which his friend had written enthusiastically.