But no matter, — let them hack away. The sturdy Irish arms that do the work are of more worth than oak or maple. Methinks I could look with equanimity upon a long street of Irish cabins, and pigs and children reveling in the genial Concord dirt; and I should still find my Walden wood and Fair Haven in their tanned and happy faces.

I write this in the cornfield — it being washing-day — with the inkstand Elizabeth Hoar gave me; though it is not redolent of cornstalks, I fear. Let me not be forgotten by Channing and Hawthorne, nor our grey - suited neighbor under the hill [Edmund Hosmer].

Your friend, H. D. THOREAU.

This letter and that of Emerson preceding it (No. XIII.) will be best explained by a reference to the Dial for October, 1843. The Ethnical Scriptures were selections from the Brahminical books, from Confucius, etc., such as we have since seen in great abundance. The Autumn verses are by Channing; Sweep Ho! by Ellen Sturgis, afterwards Mrs. Hooper; the Youth of the Poet and Painter also by Channing. The Letter to Contributors, which is headed simply A Letter, is by Emerson, and has been much overlooked by his later readers; his Ode to Beauty is very well known, and does not deserve the slashing censure of Thoreau, though, as it now stands, it is better than first printed. Instead of

“Love drinks at thy banquet
Remediless thirst,”

we now have the perfect phrase,

“Love drinks at thy fountain
False waters of thirst.”

The Comic is also Emerson’s. There is a poem, The Sail, by William Tappan, so often named in these letters, and a sonnet by Charles A. Dana, now of the New York Sun.

XVI. EMERSON TO THOREAU.

CONCORD, October 25, 1843.

DEAR HENRY, — I have your letter this evening by the advent of Mrs. Fuller to Ellery Channing’s, and am heartily glad of the robust greeting. Ellery brought it to me, and, as it was opened, wondered whether he had not some right to expect a letter. So I read him what belonged to him. He is usually in good spirits, and always in good wit, forms stricter ties with George Minott, and is always merry with the dullness of a world which will not support him. I am sorry you will dodge my hunters, T. and W. William Tappan is a very satisfactory person, only I could be very willing he should read a little more; he speaks seldom, but easily and strongly, and moves like a deer. H. James, too, has gone to England. I am the more sorry because you liked him so well.

In Concord no events. We have had the new Hazlitt’s Montaigne, which contained the Journey into Italy, — new to me, — and the narrative of the death of the renowned friend Étienne de la Boëtie. Then I have had Saadi’s Gulistân, Ross’s translation, and Marot, and Roman de la Rose, and Robert of Gloucester’s rhymed Chronicle.

Where are my translations of Pindar for the Dial? Fail not to send me something good and strong. They send us the Rivista Ligure, a respectable magazine, from Genoa; La Démocratie Pacifique, a bright daily paper, from Paris; the Deutsche Schnellpost, the German New York paper; and Phalanx from London; the New Englander from New Haven, which angrily affirms that the Dial is not as good as the Bible. By all these signs we infer that we make some figure in the literary world, though we are not yet encouraged by a swollen subscription list.