340 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [185(5,
fore, that I must go straight home. I feel some objection to reading that " What shall it profit " lecture again in Worcester ; but if you are quite sure that it will be worth the while (it is a grave consideration), I will even make an independent journey from Concord for that purpose. I have read three of my old lectures (that included) to the Eagleswood people, and, unexpectedly, with rare success, i. e., I was aware that what I was saying was silently taken in by their ears.
You must excuse me if I write mainly a busi ness letter now, for I am sold for the time, am merely Thoreau the surveyor here, and solitude is scarcely obtainable in these parts.
Alcott has been here three times, and, Satur day before last, I went with him and Greeley, by invitation of the last, to G. s farm, thirty-six miles north of New York. The next day A. and I heard Beecher preach ; and what was more, we visited Whitman the next morning (A. had already seen him), and were much inter ested and provoked. He is apparently the greatest democrat the world has seen. Kings and aristocracy go by the board at once, as they have long deserved to. A remarkably strong though coarse nature, of a sweet disposition, and much prized by his friends. Though peculiar and rough in his exterior, his skin (all over (?)) red,
