V (continued 2)

I have had a tragic correspondence, for the most part all on one side, with Miss—. She did really wish to—I hesitate to write—marry me. That is the way they spell it. Of course I did not write a deliberate answer. How could I deliberate upon it? I sent back as distinct a no as I have learned to pronounce after considerable practice, and I trust that this no has succeeded. Indeed, I wished that it might burst, like hollow shot, after it had struck and buried itself and made itself felt there. There was no other way. I really had anticipated no such foe as this in my career.

I suppose you will like to hear of my book, though I have nothing worth writing about it. Indeed for the last month or two I have forgotten it, but shall certainly remember it again. Wiley & Putnam, Munroe, the Harpers, and Crosby & Nichols have all declined printing it with the least risk to themselves; but Wiley & Putnam will print it in their series, and any of them anywhere, at my risk. If I liked the book well enough, I should not delay; but for the present I am indifferent. I believe this is, after all, the course you advised,—to let it lie.

I do not know what to say of myself. I sit before my green desk, in the chamber at the head of the stairs, and attend to my thinking, sometimes more, sometimes less distinctly.

I trust a common man will be the most uncommon to you before you return to these parts. I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we “mingle with the herd of common men”....

Oh, yes, he must also send him the news about Hugh, the gardener, who has been intending to buy Henry’s cabin and the old bean-field. The fruit-trees he promised to plant there are not set out yet. Hugh is busy elsewhere: on the day after the Cattle-show he was among the missing. The same old story, too much beer.... The field at Walden is in good hands.

They have had a peace meeting here.... Some men, Deacon Brown at the head, have signed a long pledge, swearing that they will “treat all mankind as brothers henceforth.” I think I shall wait and see how they treat me first. I think that Nature meant kindly when she made our brothers few. However, my voice is still for peace. So good-bye, and a truce to all joking, my dear friend.