Note 54 — III FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS

Mr. Ricketson's immediate reply was received by Thoreau before he wrote to Blake on the 22d. He set out from Concord for Cambridge on Christmas Day, and reached Brooklawn, the country-house of his friend, towards evening of that short day, on foot, with his umbrella and traveling-bag, and he made so striking a figure in the eyes of Ricketson that he sketched it roughly in his shanty-book. His children have engraved it in their pleasing volume Daniel Ricketson and his Friends, from the pages of which several of these letters are taken. It is by no means a bad likeness of the plain and upright Thoreau.