cuts. She should sit in the great chair,--perhaps with a dressing-glass
before her,--and arrayed in all manner of fantastic finery, and with an
outre French air, while the old Governor is leaning fondly over her, and.
a puritanic councillor or two are manifesting their disgust in the
background. A negro footman and a French waiting-maid might be in
attendance.

In Liberty Tree might be a vignette, representing the chair in a very
shattered, battered, and forlorn condition, after it had been ejected
from Hutchinson's house. This would serve to impress the reader with the
woful vicissitudes of sublunary things. . . . .

Did you ever behold such a vile scribble as I write since I became a
farmer? My chirography always was abominable, but now it is outrageous.


Brook Farm, September 22d, 1841.--. . . . Here I am again, slowly
adapting myself to the life of this queer community, whence I seem to
have been absent half a lifetime, so utterly have I grown apart from the
spirit, and manners of the place. . . . . I was most kindly received; and
the fields and woods looked very pleasant in the bright sunshine of the
day before yesterday. I have a friendlier disposition towards the farm,
now that I am no longer obliged to toil in its stubborn furrows.
Yesterday and to-day, however, the weather has been intolerable,--cold,
chill, sullen, so that it is impossible to be on kindly terms with Mother
Nature. . . . .

I doubt whether I shall succeed in writing another volume of
Grandfather's Library while I remain here. I have not the sense of
perfect seclusion which has always been essential to my power of