138 YEARS OF DISCIPLINE. [1843,
recent, especially when you get fairly round the end of the line, and are not thrown back upon the rocks. To read the lecture on "The Comic" is as good as to be in our town meeting or Ly ceum once more.
I am glad that the Concord farmers ploughed well this year ; it promises that something will be done these summers. But I am suspicious of that Brittonner, who advertises so many cords of good oak, chestnut, and maple wood for sale. Good ! ay, good for what ? And there shall not be left a stone upon a stone. 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 wash ing-day with the inkstand Elizabeth Hoar gave me ; l though it is not redolent of corn-
1 This inkstand was presented by Miss Hoar, with a note dated " Boston, May 2, 1843," which deserves to be copied :
DEAR HENRY, The rain prevented me from seeing 1 you the night before I came away, to leave with you a parting" as surance of good will and good hope. We have become better acquainted within the .two past years than in our whole life as schoolmates and neighbors before ; and I am unwilling to let you go away without telling you that I, among your other
