CONCORD, December 31, 1856.
MR. BLAKE,--I think it will not be worth the while for me to come to
Worcester to lecture at all this year. It will be better to wait till
I am--perhaps unfortunately--more in that line. My writing has not
taken the shape of lectures, and therefore I should be obliged to read
one of three or four old lectures, the best of which I have read to
some of your auditors before. I carried that one which I call
"Walking, or the Wild," to Amherst, N. H., the evening of that cold
Thursday,[77] and I am to read another at Fitchburg, February 3. I am
simply their hired man. This will probably be the extent of my
lecturing hereabouts.