Letter from Henry to Sophia

July 8, 1860:

Dear Sophia,

Mother reminds me that I must write to you, if only a few lines, though I have sprained my thumb so that it is questionable whether I can write legibly, if at all. I can’t bear on much. What is worse, I believe that I have sprained my brain too—i.e it sympathizes with my thumb. But there is no excuse, I suppose, for writing a letter in such a case, is, like sending a newspaper, only a hint to let you know that “all is well”—but my thumb.

I hope that you begin to derive some benefit from that more mountainous air which you are breathing. Have you had a distinct view of the Franconia Notch ruts (blue peaks in the N horizon)? which I told you that you could get from the road in Campton, & probably from some other points nearer. Such a view of the mts is more memorable than any other.

Have you been to Squam Lake, or overlooked it—I should think that you could easily make an excursion to some mt in that direction from which you could see the lake & the mts generally.

I hear that John Brown, jr. has just come to Boston for a few days. Mr. Sanborn’s case, it is said, will come on after some murder cases have been disposed of—here.

I have just been invited, formally, to be present at the annual picnic of Theodore Parker’s society (that was) at Waverly next Wednesday, & to make some remarks. But that is wholly out of my line—I do not go to picnics even in Concord you know.

I suppose that you have heard that Mr. Hawthorne has come home. I went to meet him the other evening & found that he has not altered except that he was looking pretty brown after his voyage. He is as simple & child-like as ever.

I believe that I have fairly scared the kittens away, at last, by my pretended fierceness—which was humane merely & now I will consider my thumb—& your eyes,

Henry