EAGLESWOOD, N. J., November 19, 1856.
MR. BLAKE,--I have been here much longer than I expected, but have
deferred answering you, because I could not foresee when I should
return. I do not know yet within three or four days. This uncertainty
makes it impossible for me to appoint a day to meet you, until it
should be too late to hear from you again. I think, therefore, that I
must go straight home. I feel some objection to reading that "What
shall it profit" lecture again in Worcester; but if you are quite sure
that it will be worth the while (it is a grave consideration), I will
even make an independent journey from Concord for that purpose. I have
read three of my old lectures (that included) to the Eagleswood
people, and, unexpectedly, with rare success,--_i. e._, I was aware
that what I was saying was silently taken in by their ears.
You must excuse me if I write mainly a business letter now, for I am
sold for the time,--am merely Thoreau the surveyor here,--and
solitude is scarcely obtainable in these parts.
Alcott has been here three times, and, Saturday before last, I went
with him and Greeley, by invitation of the last, to G.'s farm,
thirty-six miles north of New York. The next day A. and I heard
Beecher preach; and what was more, we visited Whitman the next morning
(A. had already seen him), and were much interested and provoked. He
is apparently the greatest democrat the world has seen. Kings and
aristocracy go by the board at once, as they have long deserved to. A
remarkably strong though coarse nature, of a sweet disposition, and
much prized by his friends. Though peculiar and rough in his exterior,
his skin (all over (?)) red, he is essentially a gentleman. I am still
somewhat in a quandary about him,--feel that he is essentially strange
to me, at any rate; but I am surprised by the sight of him. He is very
broad, but, as I have said, not fine. He said that I misapprehended
him. I am not quite sure that I do. He told us that he loved to ride
up and down Broadway all day on an omnibus, sitting beside the driver,
listening to the roar of the carts, and sometimes gesticulating and
declaiming Homer at the top of his voice. He has long been an editor
and writer for the newspapers,--was editor of the _New Orleans
Crescent_ once; but now has no employment but to read and write in the
forenoon, and walk in the afternoon, like all the rest of the
scribbling gentry.
I shall probably be in Concord next week; so you can direct to me
there.