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war matter on hand, as no doubt you did some months ago; but public sentiment is moving fast if events are not, and it is a shame that life should come from the “Knickerbocker” and not from the “Atlantic.”
You always get frank criticisms from me, at least, you know.
P. S. I see the papers treat the number well — but so they always do. At the lowest point ever reached by the magazine, just before your return from England, the newspaper praises kept regularly on.
January 29, 1862
. . “Snow” [an essay of Higginson's in the “Atlantic” ] seems quite popular and Thoreau likes it, the only critic whom I should regard as really formidable on such a subject.
By the way, he is fatally ill with hereditary consumption and may not live to another summer.
It is probably aggravated by neglect and exposure.February 6, 1862
. . . Always after writing anything I immediately come upon something which ought to have gone into it. Last Sunday I came in with a bird's nest all full of ice and snow and showed it to Charlotte Hawes, who was here, saying something about its having the wrong thing in it. “Oh,” said she quickly, “snow is eggs, you know — in cookery.” . . . Then she also told me of a little girl who said snow was popped rain, which I think inimitable.