return from Minnesota he wrote again to Daniel Ricketson, and the letters, along with much other interesting matter, are printed in the volume, Daniel Ricketson and His Friends, published in 1902 by Anna and Walton Ricketson, to whom the editor is indebted for permission to use the portrait taken at New Bedford on Thoreau’s last visit. In announcing this visit, from Concord (August 15), he wrote:
When your last letter was written I was away in the far Northwest, in search of health. My cold turned to bronchitis, which made me a close prisoner almost up to the moment of my starting on that journey, early in May. As I had an incessant cough, my doctor told me that I must "clear out,"—to the West Indies or elsewhere,—so I selected Minnesota. I returned a few weeks ago, after a good deal of steady travelling, considerably, yet not essentially better; my cough still continuing. If I don’t mend very quickly, I shall be obliged to go to another climate again very soon. My ordinary pursuits, both indoor and out, have been for the most part omitted
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