CONCORD, May 19, 1848.
MY FRIEND GREELEY,--I have to-day received from you fifty dollars. It
is five years that I have been maintaining myself entirely by manual
labor,--not getting a cent from any other quarter or employment. Now
this toil has occupied so few days,--perhaps a single month, spring
and fall each,--that I must have had more leisure than any of my
brethren for study and literature. I have done rude work of all kinds.
From July, 1845, to September, 1847, I lived by myself in the forest,
in a fairly good cabin, plastered and warmly covered, which I built
myself. There I earned all I needed, and kept to my own affairs.
During that time my weekly outlay was but seven and twenty cents; and
I had an abundance of all sorts. Unless the human race perspire more
than I do, there is no occasion to live by the sweat of their brow. If
men cannot get on without money (the smallest amount will suffice),
the truest method of earning it is by working as a laborer at one
dollar per day. You are least dependent so; I speak as an expert,
having used several kinds of labor.
Why should the scholar make a constant complaint that his fate is
specially hard? We are too often told of "the pursuit of knowledge
under difficulties,"--how poets depend on patrons and starve in
garrets, or at last go mad and die. Let us hear the other side of the
story. Why should not the scholar, if he is really wiser than the
multitude, do coarse work now and then? Why not let his greater wisdom
enable him to do without things? If you say the wise man is unlucky,
how could you distinguish him from the foolishly unfortunate?
My friend, how can I thank you for your kindness? Perhaps there is a
better way,--I will convince you that it is felt and appreciated. Here
have I been sitting idle, as it were, while you have been busy in my
cause, and have done so much for me. I wish you had had a better
subject; but good deeds are no less good because their object is
unworthy.
Yours was the best way to collect money,--but I should never have
thought of it; I might have waylaid the debtor perchance. Even a
business man might not have thought of it,--and I cannot be called
that, as business is understood usually,--not being familiar with the
routine. But your way has this to commend it also,--if you make the
draft, you decide how much to draw. You drew just the sum suitable.
The Ktaadn paper can be put in the guise of letters, if it runs best
so; dating each part on the day it describes. Twenty-five dollars more
for it will satisfy me; I expected no more, and do not hold you to pay
that,--for you asked for something else, and there was delay in
sending. So, if you use it, send me twenty-five dollars now or after
you sell it, as is most convenient; but take out the expenses that I
see you must have had. In such cases carriers generally get the most;
but you, as carrier here, get no money, but risk losing some, besides
much of your time; while I go away, as I must, giving you unprofitable
thanks. Yet trust me, my pleasure in your letter is not wholly a
selfish one. May my good genius still watch over me and my added
wealth!
P. S.--My book grows in bulk as I work on it; but soon I shall get
leisure for those shorter articles you want,--then look out.
* * * * *
The "book," of course, was the "Week," then about to go through the
press; the shorter articles were some that Greeley suggested for the
Philadelphia magazines. Nothing came of this, but the correspondence
was kept up until 1854, and led to the partial publication of "Cape
Cod" and "The Yankee in Canada" in the newly launched _Putnam's
Magazine_, of which G. W. Curtis was editor. But he differed with
Thoreau on a matter of style or opinion (the articles appearing as
anonymous, or editorial), and the author withdrew his MS. The letters
of Greeley in this entertaining series are all preserved; but Greeley
seems to have given Thoreau's away for autographs; and the only one
accessible as yet is that just paraphrased.