438 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1861,
I do not so much regret the present condition of things in this country (provided I regret it at all), as I do that I ever heard of it. I know one or two, who have this year, for the first time, read a President s Message ; but they do not see that this implies a fall in themselves, rather than a rise in the President. Blessed were the days before you read a President s Message. Blessed are the young, for they do not read the President s Message. Blessed are they who never read a newspaper, for they shall see Nature, and, through her, God.
But, alas ! / have heard of Sumter and Pick- ens, and even of Buchanan (though I did not read his Message). I also read the " New York Tribune ; " but then, I am reading Herodotus and Strabo, and Blodget s " Climatology," and "Six Years in the Desert of North America," as hard as I can, to counterbalance it.
By the way, Alcott is at present our most popular and successful man, and has just pub lished a volume in size, in the shape of the An nual School Report, which I presume he has sent to you.
Yours, for remembering all good things,
HENKY D. THOKEAU.
Parker Pillsbury, to whom this letter went, was an old friend of the Thoreau family, with
