You were very kind to send me a copy of your Book, "Science and Health"Editorial Note: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy— now as well knownCorrected:well-known almost the world over, I may say, as the "Pilgrim's Progress,"Editorial Note: The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come is a Christian allegorical novel written by John Bunyan (1628-1688) in 1678. and perhaps destined to achieve equal immortality — for which, as for the former volume I received from you, whose advent [?] Unclear or illegible from some cause I failed to acknowledge at the time — you have my sincere thanks.

I have never seen the BookEditorial Note: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy before, but have read extracts from it, and doubtless shall peruse it with increased interest, not to say admiration, now that I have it entire.

As for interest in mundane things, I cannot say that I take quite the same I used to [?] Unclear or illegible do 60 years ago, when my camp was pitched at Sanbornton BridgeEditorial Note: Sanbornton Bridge (later Tilton), New Hampshire., and I drew inspriration Corrected: inspiration from Kearsarge and Bean Hill, and took long solitary walks, dropping in sometimes to see the Colby ladies, & those, not least, at the Baker homestead, where Shakespeare perchance was the theme of conversation, or checker-playing was the order of the day (or rather evening, as I happen to remember it, though I was myself but "a looker on in Venice"); then anon taking a snap-shopCorrected:snapshot (figuratively) of the scene where Dyer H. Sanborn "taught the young idea how to shoot", or making one of a party at the Holmes habitation, or spouting on wine-bibbingCorrected:winebibbing at the White Church, or trading books with Lucian Hunt (and cheating him, as he afterwards averred, though I deny the soft impeachment ) !) – but I must get out of this, if I mean to reach the end of this letter.

Sixty years ago! With what swift wings the time has sped! I have been 53 years in in this place 53 years. Am now in my 84th year. My parentsEditorial Note: Enoch Corser and Sally Orrish Corser and sisters have passed away – the last, my sister Jane, 13 years ago, since when my menage Corrected: ménage has been well cared for by Mrs. Adeline Pillsbury, formerly of WebsterEditorial Note: Webster, New Hampshire, whose mother also lives with us. — — I am not quite so robust as I once was, but – am still a student, as of yore. That seems to be my mission – my fate certainly, if you will. A farmer, indeed, technically, and so practically, while I could wield the shovel and the hoe, but now a bookmonger in toto. Have just ground out a book myself, by the way, viz., The Corser GenealogyEditorial Note: This was published in 1902. Its full title is Genealogy of the Corser Family in America embracing many of the descendants of the early settlers of the name in Massachusetts and New Hampshire with some reminiscences of their trans-Atlantic cousins., which ought to immortalize me, if what has been "the plague of my life" for a year or two past can do so!

As for visiting, or getting far from home, age and growing infirmity would seem to lay an embargo upon indulging much in that luxury. If I can get to Old Orchard or to HamptonEditorial Note: Hampton, New Hampshire sometimes, or I may say, to ConcordEditorial Note: Concord, New Hampshire even, I feel to say with the wood-chopping poet –"And I was proud that I could do so much"Editorial Note: This is a line from a poem titled Wood-choping – An Idyl by “the Farmer Boy.” The poem is quoted on pages 198 and 199 of the Corser Genealogy.. But visitors I always welcome – or ought to, at least, the excuse, "Not at home", being so rarely available in my case. I have room only to add,