Note 58 — III FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS (continued 2)

I had been visiting Emerson occasionally for a year or two, and knew Alcott well at this time; was also intimate with Cholmondeley in the autumn of 1854, but had never seen Thoreau, a fact which shows how recluse were then his habits. The letter below, and the long one describing his trip to Minnesota, were the only ones I received from him in a friendship of seven years. See Sanborn's Thoreau, pp. 195-200. Edwin Morton was my classmate. See pp. 286, 353, 440.