"Let me thank you for your very friendly letters. I trust we shall see you in Concord, Anniversary Week. It would give me pleasure to make the acquaintance of your family, of whom my brother has so often told me. If convenient, will you please bring the ambrotype of Henry which was taken last autumn in New Bedford. I am interested to see it. Mr. Channing will take the crayon likeness to Boston this week to secure some photographs. My intention was to apologize for not writing you at this time; but I must now trust to your generosity to pardon this hasty letter, written under a great pressure of cares and amidst frequent interruptions. My mother unites with me in very kind regards to your family.
"Yours truly,
"S. E. Thoreau."
To Parker Pillsbury, who would fain talk with Thoreau in this last winter concerning the next world, the reply was, "One world at a time." To a young friend (Myron Benton) he wrote a few weeks before death:—
"Concord, March 21, 1862.
"Dear Sir,—I thank you for your very kind letter, which, ever since I received it, I have intended to answer before I died, however briefly. I am encouraged to know, that, so far as you are concerned, I have not written my books in vain. I was particularly gratified, some years ago, when one of my friends and neighbors said, 'I wish you would write another book—write it for me.' He is actually more familiar with what I have written than I am myself. I am pleased when you say that in 'The Week' you like especially 'those little snatches of poetry interspersed through the book;' for these, I suppose, are the least attractive to most readers. I have not been engaged in any particular work on Botany, or the like, though, if I were to live, I should have much to report on Natural History generally.
"You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add, that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.
"Yours truly, Henry D. Thoreau,
"By Sophia E. Thoreau."
"With an unfaltering trust in God's mercies," wrote Ellery Channing, "and never deserted by his good genius, he most bravely and unsparingly passed down the inclined plane of a terrible malady—pulmonary consumption; working steadily at the completing of his papers to his last hours, or so long as he could hold the pencil in his trembling fingers. Yet if he did get a little sleep to comfort him in this year's campaign of sleepless affliction, he was sure to interest those about him in his singular dreams, more than usually fantastic. He said once, that having got a few moments of repose, 'sleep seemed to hang round his bed in festoons.' He declared uniformly that he preferred to endure with a clear mind the worst penalties of suffering rather than be plunged in a turbid dream by narcotics. His patience was unfailing; assuredly he knew not aught save resignation; he did mightily cheer and console those whose strength was less. His every instant now, his least thought and work, sacredly belonged to them, dearer than his rapidly perishing life, whom he should so quickly leave behind."
Once or twice he shed tears. Upon hearing a wandering musician in the street playing some tune of his childhood he might never hear again, he wept, and said to his mother, "Give him some money for me!"