Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/231

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

MT. 31.] TO HORACE GREELEY. 207

on the day it describes. Twenty-five dollars more for it will satisfy me ; I expected no more, and do not hold you to pay that, for you asked for something else, and there was delay in sending. So, if you use it, send me twenty- five dollars now or after you sell it, as is most convenient ; but take out the expenses that I see you must have had. In such cases carriers generally get the most ; but you, as carrier here, get no money, but risk losing some, besides much of your time ; while I go away, as I must, giving you unprofitable thanks. Yet trust me, my pleasure in your letter is not wholly a selfish one. May my good genius still watch over me and my added wealth !

P. S. My book grows in bulk as I work on it ; but soon I shall get leisure for those shorter articles you want, then look out.

The " book," of course, was the " Week," then about to go through the press ; the shorter articles were some that Greeley suggested for the Philadelphia magazines. Nothing came of this, but the correspondence was kept up until 1854, and led to the partial publication of " Cape Cod," and " The Yankee in Canada," in the newly-launched "Putnam s Magazine," of which Gr. W. Curtis was editor. But he dif fered with Thoreau on a matter of style or