CONCORD, April 10, 1861.
FRIEND PILLSBURY,--I am sorry to say that I have not a copy of
"Walden" which I can spare; and know of none, unless possibly Ticknor
& Fields may have one. I send, nevertheless, a copy of "The Week," the
price of which is one dollar and twenty-five cents, which you can pay
at your convenience.
As for your friend, my prospective reader, I hope he ignores Fort
Sumter, and "Old Abe," and all that; for that is just the most fatal,
and, indeed, the only fatal weapon you can direct against evil, ever;
for, as long as you _know of it_, you are _particeps criminis_. What
business have you, if you are an "angel of light," to be pondering
over the deeds of darkness, reading the _New York Herald_, and the
like?
I do not so much regret the present condition of things in this
country (provided I regret it at all), as I do that I ever heard of
it. I know one or two, who have this year, for the first time, read a
President's Message; but they do not see that this implies a _fall_
in themselves, rather than a _rise_ in the President. Blessed were the
days before you read a President's Message. Blessed are the young, for
they do not read the President's Message. Blessed are they who never
read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and, through her, God.
But, alas! _I_ have heard of Sumter and Pickens, and even of Buchanan
(though I did not read his Message). I also read the _New York
Tribune_; but then, I am reading Herodotus and Strabo, and Blodget's
"Climatology," and "Six Years in the Desert of North America," as hard
as I can, to counterbalance it.
By the way, Alcott is at present our most popular and successful man,
and has just published a volume in size, in the shape of the Annual
School Report, which I presume he has sent to you.
Yours, for remembering all good things,