CONCORD, November 6, 1858.
FRIEND RICKETSON,--I was much pleased with your lively and lifelike
account of your voyage. You were more than repaid for your trouble
after all. The coast of Nova Scotia, which you sailed along from
Windsor westward, is particularly interesting to the historian of
this country, having been settled earlier than Plymouth. Your "Isle of
Haut" is properly "Isle Haute," or the High Island of Champlain's map.
There is another off the coast of Maine. By the way, the American elk
of _American authors_ (_Cervus Canadensis_) is a distinct animal from
the moose (_Cervus alces_), though the latter is called elk by many.
You drew a very vivid portrait of the Australian,--short and stout,
with a pipe in his mouth, and his book inspired by beer, Pot First,
Pot Second, etc. I suspect that he must be potbellied withal. Methinks
I see the smoke going up from him as from a cottage on the moor. If he
does not quench his genius with his beer, it may burst into a clear
flame at last. However, perhaps he intentionally adopts the low style.
What do you mean by that ado about smoking, and my "purer tastes"? I
should like his pipe as well as his beer at least. Neither of them is
so bad as to be "highly connected," which you say he is,
unfortunately. No! I expect nothing but pleasure in "smoke from _your_
pipe."
You and the Australian must have put your heads together when you
concocted those titles,--with pipes in your mouths over a pot of beer.
I suppose that your chapters are, Whiff the First, Whiff the Second,
etc. But of course it is a more modest expression for "Fire from my
Genius."
You must have been very busy since you came back, or before you
sailed, to have brought out your History, of whose publication I had
not heard. I suppose that I have read it in the _Mercury_. Yet I am
curious to see how it looks in a volume, with your name on the
title-page.
I am more curious still about the poems. Pray put some sketches into
the book: your shanty for frontispiece; Arthur and Walton's boat (if
you can) running for Cuttyhunk in a tremendous gale; not forgetting
"Be honest boys," etc., near by; the Middleborough ponds with a
certain island looming in the distance; the Quaker meeting-house, and
the Brady house, if you like; the villagers catching smelts with
dip-nets in the twilight, at the Head of the River, etc., etc. Let it
be a local and villageous book as much as possible. Let some one make
a characteristic selection of mottoes from your shanty walls, and
sprinkle them in an irregular manner, at all angles, over the
fly-leaves and margins, as a man stamps his name in a hurry; and also
canes, pipes, and jackknives, of all your patterns, about the
frontispiece. I can think of plenty of devices for tail-pieces.
Indeed, I should like to see a hair pillow, accurately drawn, for one;
a cat, with a bell on, for another; the old horse, with his age
printed in the hollow of his back; half a cocoanut-shell by a spring;
a sheet of blotted paper; a settle occupied by a settler at full
length, etc., etc., etc. Call all the arts to your aid.
Don't wait for the Indian summer, but bring it with you.
P. S.--Let me ask a favor. I am trying to write something about the
autumnal tints, and I wish to know how much our trees differ from
English and European ones in this respect. Will you observe, or learn
for me, what English or European trees, if any, still retain their
leaves in Mr. Arnold's garden (the gardener will supply the true
names); and also if the foliage of any (and what) European or foreign
trees there have been brilliant the past month. If you will do this
you will greatly oblige me. I return the newspaper with this.