CONCORD, October 16, 1855.
FRIEND RICKETSON,--I have got both your letters at once. You must not
think Concord so barren a place when Channing[62] is away. There are
the river and fields left yet; and I, though ordinarily a man of
business, should have some afternoons and evenings to spend with you,
I trust,--that is, if you could stand so much of me. If you can spend
your time profitably here, or without _ennui_, having an occasional
ramble or _tête-à-tête_ with one of the natives, it will give me
pleasure to have you in the neighborhood. You see I am preparing you
for our awful unsocial ways,--keeping in our dens a good part of the
day,--sucking our claws perhaps. But then we make a religion of it,
and that you cannot but respect.
If you know the taste of your own heart, and like it, come to Concord,
and I'll warrant you enough here to season the dish with,--aye, even
though Channing and Emerson and I were all away. We might paddle
quietly up the river. Then there are one or two more ponds to be seen,
etc.
I should very much enjoy further rambling with you in your vicinity,
but must postpone it for the present. To tell the truth, I am planning
to get seriously to work after these long months of inefficiency and
idleness. I do not know whether you are haunted by any such demon
which puts you on the alert to pluck the fruit of each day as it
passes, and store it safely in your bin. True, it is well to live
abandonedly from time to time; but to our working hours that must be
as the spile to the bung. So for a long season I must enjoy only a low
slanting gleam in my mind's eye from the Middleborough ponds far away.
Methinks I am getting a little more strength into those knees of mine;
and, for my part, I believe that God _does_ delight in the strength of
a man's legs.