CONCORD, December 15, 1847.
DEAR FRIEND,--You are not so far off but the affairs of _this_ world
still attract you. Perhaps it will be so when we are dead. Then look
out. Joshua R. Holman, of Harvard, who says he lived a month with
[Charles] Lane at Fruitlands, wishes to _hire_ said Lane's farm for
one or more years, and will pay $125 rent, taking out of the same a
half, if necessary, for repairs,--as for a new bank-wall to the barn
cellar, which he says is indispensable. Palmer is gone, Mrs. Palmer is
going. This is all that is known or that is worth knowing. Yes or no?
What to do?
Hugh's plot begins to thicken. He starts thus: eighty dollars on one
side; Walden, field and house, on the other. How to bring these
together so as to make a garden and a palace?
[Illustration]
$80 Field House
1st, let $10 go over to unite the two lots.
$70
$6 for Wetherbee's rocks to found your palace on.
$64
$64--so far, indeed, we have already got.
$4 to bring the rocks to the field.
$60
Save $20 by all means, to measure the field, and you have left
$40 to complete the palace, build cellar, and dig well.
Build the cellar yourself, and let _well_
alone,--and now how does it stand?
$40 to complete the palace somewhat like this.
For when one asks, "Why do you want twice as much room more?" the
reply is, "Parlor, kitchen, and bedroom,--these make the palace."
"Well, Hugh, what will you do? Here are forty dollars to buy a new
house, twelve feet by twenty-five, and add it to the old."
"Well, Mr. Thoreau, as I tell you, I know no more than a child about
it. It shall be just as you say."
"Then build it yourself, get it roofed, and get in.
"Commence at one end and leave it half done,
And let time finish what money's begun."
So you see we have forty dollars for a nest egg; sitting on which,
Hugh and I alternately and simultaneously, there may in course of time
be hatched a house that will long stand, and perchance even lay fresh
eggs one day for its owner; that is, if, when he returns, he gives the
young chick twenty dollars or more in addition, by way of "swichin,"
to give it a start in the world.
The _Massachusetts Quarterly Review_ came out the 1st of December, but
it does not seem to be making a sensation, at least not hereabouts. I
know of none in Concord who take or have seen it yet.
We wish to get by all possible means some notion of your success or
failure in England,--more than your two letters have furnished. Can't
you send a fair sample both of young and of old England's criticism,
if there is any printed? Alcott and [Ellery] Channing are equally
greedy with myself.