MY DEAR HAWTHORNE,--This is not a letter, or even a note, but only a
passing word said to you over your garden gate. I thank you for your
easy-flowing long letter (received yesterday), which flowed through
me, and refreshed all my meadows, as the Housatonic--opposite me--does
in reality. I am now busy with various things, not incessantly though;
but enough to require my frequent tinkerings; and this is the height
of the haying season, and my nag is dragging home his winter's dinners
all the time. And so, one way and another, I am not a disengaged man,
but shall be very soon. Meantime, the earliest good chance I get, I
shall roll down to you, my good fellow, seeing we--that is, you and
I--must hit upon some little bit of vagabondism before autumn comes.
Graylock--we must go and vagabondize there. But ere we start, we must
dig a deep hole, and bury all Blue Devils, there to abide till the
Last Day. . . . Good-by.
His X MARK.
And again:--
PITTSFIELD, Monday afternoon.
MY DEAR HAWTHORNE,--People think that if a man has undergone any
hardship, he should have a reward; but for my part, if I have done the
hardest possible day's work, and then come to sit down in a corner and
eat my supper comfortably--why, then I don't think I deserve any
reward for my hard day's work--for am I not now at peace? Is not my
supper good? My peace and my supper are my reward, my dear Hawthorne.
So your joy-giving and exultation-breeding letter is not my reward for
my ditcher's work with that book, but is the good goddess's bonus over
and above what was stipulated for--for not one man in five cycles, who
is wise, will expect appreciative recognition from his fellows, or any
one of them.
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