Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/201

Rh the doctors urged a trip westward or to some warmer climate. With Horace Mann, Jr., a botanist friend, he started for Minnesota, there to remain three months. He returned, however, in a few weeks, with little benefit physically and a passionate longing for home-scenes. He took few notes and wrote few letters while on this journey, which he said he performed "in a very dead and alive manner," and his chief interest was in the letters from home. The only marked incidents were a few rare botanical and anatomical discoveries and a visit to the Sioux Indians at Redwood. Here he added to his personal knowledge of the Indians and their sentiments towards the white man, and incorporated some of these notes into his last literary work. From the time of his return, July 1861, until his death the following May, Thoreau experienced those alternates of hope and despair which accompany all bronchial diseases. His friend Edward Hoar, placed at his service a horse and carriage and, with Sophia or some friend, he took long drives while strength lasted. He made a brief visit to Mr. Ricketson in New Bedford in August, 1861; there he consented to sit for his last ambrotype from which Mr. Walton Ricketson has made his fine medallion.

If Thoreau showed a remarkable courage and