To this request, as before, there came a prompt negative, although Thoreau was then sadly in need of money. Mr. Greeley wrote, April 20:—
"I am rather sorry you will not do the 'Works and Ways,' but glad that you are able to employ your time to better purpose. But your Quebec notes haven't reached me yet, and I fear the 'good time' is passing. They ought to have appeared in the June number of the monthlies, but now cannot before July. If you choose to send them to me all in a lump, I will try to get them printed in that way. I don't care about them if you choose to reserve, or to print them elsewhere; but I can better make a use for them at this season than at any other."
They were sent, and offered to the "Whig Review," and to other magazines; but on the 25th of June, Mr. Greeley writes:—
"I have had only bad luck with your manuscript. Two magazines have refused it on the ground of its length, saying that articles 'To be continued' are always unpopular, however good. I will try again."
It seems that the author had relied upon money from this source, and a week or two later he asks his friend to lend him the expected seventy-five dollars, offering security, with mercantile scrupulosity. Promptly came this answer:—
"New York, July 8, 1852.
"Dear Thoreau,—Yours received. I was absent yesterday. I can lend you the seventy-five dollars, and am very glad to do it. Don't talk about security. I am sorry about your MSS., which I do not quite despair of using to your advantage.
Yours,
Horace Greeley."