AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LETTERS OF ORVILLE DEWEY, D. D. 

Edited by his Daughter Mary Dewey

INTRODUCTORY. 

IT is about twenty-five years since, at my earnest desire, my fatherbegan to write some of the memories of his own life, of the friends whomhe loved, and of the noteworthy people he had known; and it is bythe help of these autobiographical papers, and of selections from hisletters, that I am enabled to attempt a memoir of him. I should like toremind the elder generation and inform the younger of some things in thelife of a man who was once a foremost figure in the world from whichhe had been so long withdrawn that his death was hardly felt beyond thecircle of his personal friends. It was like the fall of an aged tree inthe vast forests of his native hills, when the deep thunder of the crashis heard afar, and a new opening is made towards heaven for those whostand near, but when to the general eye there is no change in the richwoodland that clothes the mountain side. 

But forty years ago, when his church in New York was crowded morning andevening, and [8] eager multitudes hung upon his lips for the very breadof life, and when he entered also with spirit and power into the social, philanthropic, and artistic life of that great city; or nearly sixtyyears ago, when he carried to the beautiful town and exquisite societyof New Bedford an influx of spiritual life and a depth of religiousthought which worked like new yeast in the well-prepared Quakermind, --then, had he been taken away, men would have felt that a tower ofstrength had fallen, and those especially, who in his parish visits hadfelt the sustaining comfort of his singular tenderness and sympathy inaffliction, and of his counsel in distress, would have mourned for himnot only as for a brother, but also a chief. Now, almost all of his owngeneration have passed away. Here and there one remains, to listen withinterest to a fresh account of persons and things once familiar; whilethe story will find its chief audience among those who remember Mr. Dewey [FN My father always preferred this simple title to the moreformal "Dr. " and in his own family and among his most intimate friendshe was Mr. Dewey to the last. He was, of course, gratified by thecomplimentary intention of Harvard University in bestowing the degreeof D. D. Upon him in 1839, but he never felt that his acquisitions inlearning entitled him to it. ] as among the lights of their own youth. Those also who love the study of [9] human nature may follow withpleasure the development of a New England boy, with a character of greatstrength, simplicity, reverence, and honesty, with scanty opportunitiesfor culture, and heavily handicapped in his earlier running by bothpoverty and Calvinism, but possessed from the first by the love of truthand knowledge, and by a generous sympathy which made him long to impartwhatever treasures he obtained. To trace the growth of such a life toa high point of usefulness and power, to see it unspoiled by honor andadmiration, and to watch its retirement, under the pressure of nervousdisease, from active service, while never losing its concern for thepublic good, its quickness of personal sympathy, nor its interest in thesolution of the mightiest problems of humanity, cannot be an altogetherunprofitable use of time to the reader, while to the writer it is a workof consecration. He who was at once like a son and brother to my father, he who should have crowned a forty-years' friendship by the fulfilmentof this pious task, and who would have done it with a stronger anda steadier hand than mine, BELLOWS, was called first from that "faircompanionship, " while still in the unbroken exercise of the variedand remarkable powers which made his life one of such [10] large use, blessing, and pleasure to the world. None could make his place good tohis elder friend, whose approaching death was visibly hastened by grieffor the loss of the constant sympathy and devotion which had faithfullycheered his declining years. Many and beautiful tributes were laid uponmy father's tomb by those whom he left here. Why should we not hope thatthat of Bellows was in the form of greeting?

ST. DAVID'S, July, 1883. 

[11]I WAS born in Sheffield, Mass. , on the 28th of March, 1794. Mygrandparents, Stephen Dewey and Aaron Root, were among the earlysettlers of the town, and the houses they built the one of brick, andthe other of wood--still stand. They came from Westfield, about fortymiles distant from Sheffield, on horseback, through the woods; therewere no roads then. We have always had a tradition in our family thatthe male branch is of Welsh origin. When I visited Wales in 1832, Iremember being struck with the resemblance I saw in the girls and youngwomen about me to my sisters, and I mentioned it when writing home. Ongoing up to London, I became acquainted with a gentleman, who, writing anote one day to a friend of mine and speaking of me, said: "I spell thename after the Welsh fashion, Devi; I don't know how he spells it. " Oninquiring of this gentleman, and he referred me also to biographicaldictionaries, --I found that our name had an origin of unsuspecteddignity, not to say sanctity, being no other than that of Saint David, the patron saint [12] of Wales, which is shortened and changed in thespeech of the common people into Dewi. '

Everyone tries, I suppose, to penetrate as far back as he can into hischildhood, back towards his infancy, towards that mysterious and shadowyline behind which lies his unremembered existence. Besides the usuallife of a child in the country, --running foot-races with my brotherChandler, building brick ovens to bake apples in the side-hill oppositethe house, and the steeds of willow sticks cut there, and beyond theunvarying gentleness of my mother and the peremptory decision andplayfulness at the same time of my father, --his slightest word wasenough to hush the wildest tumult among us children, and yet he wasusually gay and humorous in his family, --besides and beyond this, Iremember nothing till the first event in my early childhood, and thatwas acting in a play. It was performed in the church, as part of aschool exhibition. The stage was laid upon the pews, and the audienceseated in the gallery. I must have been about five years old then, and Iacted the part of a little son. I remember feeling, then and afterwards, very queer and shamefaced about my histrionic papa and mamma. It isstriking to observe, not only how early, but how powerfully, imagination[13] is developed in our childhood. For some time after, I regardedthose imaginary parents as sustaining a peculiar relation, not onlyto me, but to one another; I thought they were in love, if not to bemarried. But they never were married, nor ever thought of it, I suppose. All that drama was wrought out in the bosom of a child. It isworth noticing, too, the freedom with sacred things, of those days, approaching to the old fetes and mysteries in the church. We are apt tothink of the Puritan times as all rigor and strictness. And yet here, nearly sixty years ago, was a play acted in the meeting-house: thechurch turned into a theatre. And I remember my mother's telling me thatwhen she was a girl her father carried her on a pillion to the raisingof a church in Pittsfield; and the occasion was celebrated by a ballin the evening. Now, all dancing is proscribed by the church there as asinful amusement. 

[FN This was the reason why Mr. Dewey gave to the country home whichhe inherited from his father the name of "St. David's, " by which it isknown to his family and friends. --M. E. D. ]

The next thing that I remember, as an event in my childhood, was thefuneral of General Ashley, one of our townsmen, who had served ascolonel, I think, in the War of the Revolution. I was then in mysixth year. It was a military funeral; and the procession, for a longdistance, filled the wide street. The music, the solemn march, the bierborne in the midst, the crowd! It seemed to me as if the whole world wasat a funeral. The remains of Bonaparte borne to the Invalides amidst thecrowds of Paris could not, [14] I suppose, at a later day, have affectedme like that spectacle. I do not certainly know whether I heard thesermon on the occasion by the pastor, the Rev. Ephraim Judson; but atany rate it was so represented to me that it always seems as if I hadheard it, especially the apostrophe to the remains that rested beneaththat dark pall in the aisle. "General Ashley!" he said, and repeated, "General Ashley!--he hears not. "

To the recollections of my childhood this old pastor presents a verydistinct, and I may say somewhat portentous, figure, tall, large-limbed, pale, ghostly almost, with slow movement and hollow tone, with eyesdreamy, and kindly, I believe, but spectral to me, coming into the housewith a heavy, deliberate, and solemn step, making me feel as if the verychairs and tables were conscious of his presence and did him reverence;and when he stretched out his long, bony arm and said, "Come here, child!" I felt something as if a spiritualized ogre had invited me. Nevertheless, he was a man, I believe, of a very affectionate and tendernature; indeed, I afterwards came to think so; but at that time, andup to the age of twelve, it is a strict truth that I did not regard Mr. Judson as properly a human being, --as a man at all. If he had descendedfrom the planet Jupiter, he could not have been a bit more preternaturaland strange to me. Indeed, I well remember the occasion when the idea ofhis proper humanity first flashed upon [15] my mind. It was when I sawhim, one day, beat the old black horse he always rode, apparently ina passion like any other man. The old black horse--large, fat, heavy, lazy--figures in my mind almost as distinctly as its master; and if, as it came down the street, its head were turned aside towards theschool-house, as indicating the rider's intent to visit us, I rememberthat the school was thrown into as much commotion as if an armed spectrewere coming down the road. Our awe of him was extreme; yet he loved tobe pleasant with us. He would say, --examining the school was always apart of his object, "How much is five times seven?" "Thirty-five, " wasthe ready answer. "Well, " replied the old man, "saying so don't make itso"; a very significant challenge, which we were ill able to meet. Atthe close of his visit he always gave an exact and minute account ofthe Crucifixion, --I think always, and in the same terms. It was a mereappeal to physical sympathy, awful, but not winning. When he stoodbefore us, and, lifting his hands almost to the ceiling, said, "And sothey reared him up!" it seemed as if he described the catastrophe ofthe world, not its redemption. Indeed, Mr. Judson appeared to thinkthat anything drawn from the Bible was good, whether he made any moralapplication of it or not. I have heard him preach a whole sermon, giving the most precise and detailed description of the building of theTabernacle, without one word of comment, [16] inference, or instruction. But he was a good and kindly man; and when, as I was going to collegeat the age of eighteen, he laid his hand upon my head, and gave me, withsolemn form and tender accent, his blessing, I felt awed and impressed, as I imagine the Hebrew youth may have felt under a patriarch'sbenediction. 

With such an example and teacher of religion before me, whose goodnessI did not know, and whose strangeness and preternatural character onlyI felt; and indeed with all the ideas I got of religion, whether fromSunday-keeping or catechising, my early impressions on that subjectcould not be happy or winning. I remember the time when I really fearedthat if I went out into the fields to walk on Sunday, bears would comedown from the mountain and catch me. At a later day, but still in mychildhood, I recollect a book-pedler's coming to our house, and when heopened his pack, that I selected from a pile of story-books, Bunyan's"Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. " Religion had a sort ofhorrible attraction for me, but nothing could exceed its gloominess. Iremember looking down from the gallery at church upon the celebration ofthe Lord's Supper, and pitying the persons engaged in it more than anypeople in the world, --I thought they were so unhappy. I had heard of"the unpardonable sin, " and well do I recollect lying in my bed a merechild--and having thoughts and words injected into my mind, which I[17]imagined were that sin, and shuddering, and trembling, and sayingaloud, "No, no, no; I do not, --I will not. " It is the grand mystery ofProvidence that what is divinest and most beautiful should be sufferedto be so painfully, and, as it must seem at first view, so injuriouslymisconstrued. But what is universal, must be a law; and what is law, must be right, --must have good reasons for it. And certainly so it is. Varying as the ages vary, yet the experience of the individual is but apicture of the universal mind, --of the world's mind. The steps arethe same, ignorance, fear, superstition, implicit faith; then doubt, questioning, struggling, long and anxious reasoning; then, at theend, light, more or less, as the case may be. Can it, in the natureof things, be otherwise? The fear of death, for instance, which I had, which all children have, can childhood escape it? Far onward and upwardmust be the victory over that fear. And the fear of God, and, indeed, the whole idea of religion, --must it not, in like manner, necessarilybe imperfect? And are imperfection and error peculiar to our religiousconceptions? What mistaken ideas has the child of a man, of his parentwhen correcting him, or of some distinguished stranger! They arescarcely less erroneous than his ideas of God. What mistaken notionsof life, of the world, the great, gay, garish world, all full ofcloud-castles, ships laden with gold, pleasures endless and entrancing!What mistaken impressions [18]about nature; about the material worldupon which childhood has alighted, and of which it must necessarilybe ignorant; about clouds and storms and tempests; and of the heavensabove, sun and moon and stars! I remember well when the fable of theHappy Valley in Rasselas was a reality to me; when I thought the sunrose and set for us alone, and how I pitied the glorious orb, as it sunkbehind the western mountain, to think that it must pass through a sortof Hades, through a dark underworld, to come up in the east again. It isa curious fact, that the Egyptians in the morning of the world had thesame ideas. Shall I blame Providence for this? Could it be otherwise? Ifearthly things are so mistaken, is it strange that heavenly things are?And especially shall I call in question this order of things, --thisorder, whether of men's or of the world's progress, when I see that itis not only inevitable, the necessary allotment for an experimenting andimproving nature, which is human nature, but when I see too that eachstage of progress has its own special advantages; that "everythingis beautiful in its time;" that fears, superstitions, errors, quickenimagination and restrain passion as truly as doubts, reasonings, strugglings, strengthen the judgment, mature the moral nature, and leadto light?

I am dilating upon all this too much, perhaps. I let my pen run. Sitting down here in the blessed [19]country home, with nothing else inparticular just now to do, at the age of sixty-three, I have time andam disposed to look back into my early life and to reason upon it; andalthough I have nothing uncommon to relate, yet what pertains to me hasits own interest and significance, just as if no other being had everexisted, and therefore I set down my experience and my reflectionssimply as they present themselves to me. 

In casting back my eyes upon this earliest period of my life, there aresome things which I recall, which may amuse my grandchildren, if theyshould ever be inclined to look over these pages, and some of which theymay find curious, as things of a bygone time. 

Children now know nothing of what "'Lection" was in those days, theannual period, that is, when the newly elected State government came in. It was in the last week in May. How eager were we boys to have the cornplanted before that time! The playing could not be had till the work wasdone. The sports and the entertainments were very simple. Running aboutthe village street, hither and thither, without much aim; stands erectedfor the sale of gingerbread and beer, --home-made beer, concoctedof sassafras roots and wintergreen leaves, etc. ; games of ball, notbase-ball, as now is the fashion, yet with wickets, --this was about all, except that at the end there was always horse-racing. 

Having witnessed this exciting sport in my [20] boyhood, without anysuspicion of its being wrong, and seen it abroad in later days, inrespectable company, I was led, very innocently, when I was a clergymanin New York, into what was thought a great misdemeanor. I was invited bysome gentlemen, and went with them, to the races on Long Island. I meton the boat, as we were returning, a parishioner of mine, who expressedgreat surprise, and even a kind of horror, when I told him what I hadbeen to see. He could not conceal that he thought it very bad that Ishould have been there; and I suppose it was. But that was not the worstof it. Some person had then recently heard me preach a sermon in which Isaid, that, in thesis, I had rather undertake to defend Infidelitythan Calvinism. In extreme anger thereat, he wrote a letter to somenewspaper, in which, after stating what I had said, he added, "And thisclergyman was lately seen at the races!" It went far and wide, you maybe sure. I saw it in newspapers from all parts of the country; yet someof my friends, while laughing at me, held it to be only a proof of mysimplicity. 

There were worse things than sports in our public gatherings; evenstreet fights, --pugilistic fights, hand to hand. I have seen men thusengage, and that in bloody encounter, knocking one another down, and thefallen man stamped upon by his adversary. The people gathered round, notto interfere, but to see them fight it out. [21] Such a spectacle hasnot been witnessed in Sheffield, I think, for half a century. But as tosports and entertainments in general, there were more of them in thosedays than now. We had more holidays, more games in the street, ofball-playing, of quoits, of running, leaping, and wrestling. The militiamusters, now done away with, gave many occasions for them. Every year wehad one or two great squirrel-hunts, ended by a supper, paid for bythe losing side, that is, by the side shooting the fewest. Almost everyseason we had a dancing-school. Singing-schools, too, there wereevery winter. There was also a small band of music in the village, andserenades were not uncommon. We, boys used to give them on the fluteto our favorites. But when the band came to serenade us, I shall neverforget the commotion it made in the house, and the delight we had init. We children were immediately up in a wild hurry of pleasure, and myfather always went out to welcome the performers, and to bring them intothe house and give them such entertainment as he could provide. 

The school-days of my childhood I remember with nothing but pleasure. Imust have been a dull boy, I suppose, in some respects, for I never gotinto scrapes, never played truant, and was never, that I can remember, punished for anything. The instruction was simple enough. Special stresswas laid upon spelling, and I am inclined to think that every one of myfellow-pupils [22] learned to spell more correctly than some gentlemenand ladies do in our days. 

Our teachers were always men in winter and women in summer. I remembersome of the men very well, but one of them especially. What pupil of hiscould ever forget Asa Day, --the most extraordinary figure that ever Isaw, a perfect chunk of a man? He could not have been five feet high, but with thews and sinews to make up for the defect in height, anda head big enough for a giant. He might have sat for Scott's "BlackDwarf;" yet he was not ill-looking, rather handsome in the face. And Ithink I never saw a face that could express such energy, passion, andwrath, as his. Indeed, his whole frame was instinct with energy. I seehim now, as he marched by our house in the early morning, with quick, short step, to make the school-room fire; and a roaring one it was, ina large open fireplace; for he did everything about the school. In fact, he took possession of school, schoolhouse, and district too, for thatmatter, as if it were a military post; with the difference, that hewas to fight, not enemies without, but within, --to beat downinsubordination and enforce obedience. And his anger, when roused, wasthe most remarkable thing. It stands before me now, through all my life, as the one picture of a man in a fury. But if he frightened us children, he taught us too, and that thoroughly. 

In general our teachers were held in great [23] reverence and affection. I remember especially the pride with which I once went in a chaise, when I was about ten, to New Marlborough, to fetch the schoolma'am. No courtier, waiting upon a princess, could have been prouder or morerespectful than I was. 

To turn, for a moment, to a different scene, and to much humblerpersons, that pass and repass in the camera obscura of my earlyrecollections. The only Irishman that was in Sheffield, I think, inthose days, lived in my father's family for several years as a hiredman, --Richard; I knew him by no other name then, and recall him by noother now, --the tallest and best-formed "exile of Erin" that I have everseen; prodigiously strong, yet always gentle in manner and speech to uschildren; with the full brogue, and every way marked in my view, and setapart from every one around him, --"a stranger in a strange land. " Theonly thing besides, that I distinctly remember of him, was the point hemade every Christmas of getting in the "Yule-log, " a huge log which hehad doubtless been saving out in chopping the wood-pile, big enough fora yoke of oxen to draw, and which he placed with a kind of ceremonyand respect in the great kitchen fireplace. With our absurd New EnglandPuritan ways, yet naturally derived from the times of the EnglishCommonwealth, when any observance of Christmas was made penal andpunished with [24] imprisonment, I am not sure that we should have knownanything of Christmas, but for Richard's Yule-log. 

There was another class of persons who were frequently engaged to doday's work on the farm, --that of the colored people. Some of them hadbeen slaves here in Sheffield. They were virtually emancipated by ourState Bill of Rights, passed in 1783. The first of them that soughtfreedom under it, and the first, it is said, that obtained it in NewEngland, was a female slave of General Ashley, and her advocate in thecase was Mr. Sedgwick, afterwards Judge Sedgwick, who was then a lawyerin Sheffield. 

There were several of the men that stand out as pretty markedindividualities in my memory, Peter and Caesar and Will and Darby; merryold fellows they seemed to be, --I see no laborers so cheerful and gaynow, --and very faithful and efficient workers. Peter and his wife, Toah(so was she called), had belonged to my maternal grandfather, and weremuch about us, helping, or being helped, as the case might be. They bothlived and died in their own cottage, pleasantly situated on the bank ofSkenob Brook. They tilled their own garden, raised their own "sarse, "kept their own cow; and I have heard one say that "Toah's garden had thefinest damask roses in the world, and her house, and all around it, wasthe pink of neatness. "

In taking leave of my childhood, I must say [25] that, so far as myexperience goes, the ordinary poetic representations of the happiness ofthat period, as compared with after life, are not true, and I mustdoubt whether they ought to be true. I was as happy, I suppose, as mostchildren. I had good health; I had companions and sports; the schoolwas not a hardship to me, --I was always eager for it; I was never hardlydealt with by anybody; I was never once whipped in my life, that Ican remember; but instead of looking back to childhood as the blissfulperiod of my life, I find that I have been growing happier every year, up to this very time. I recollect in my youth times of moodiness andmelancholy; but since I entered on the threshold of manly life, ofmarried and parental life, all these have disappeared. I have hadinward struggles enough, certainly, --struggles with doubt, withtemptation, --sorrows and fears and strifes enough; but I think I havebeen gradually, though too slowly, gaining the victory over them. Truth, art, religion, --the true, the beautiful, the divine, --have constantlyrisen clearer and brighter before me; my family bonds have grownstronger, friends dearer, the world and nature fuller of goodness andbeauty, and I have every day grown a happier man. 

To take up again the thread of my story, I pass from childhood to myyouth. My winters, up to the age of about sixteen, were given to [26]school, --the common district-school, --and my summers, to assisting myfather on the farm; after that, for a year or two, my whole time wasdevoted to preparing for college. For this purpose I went first, forone year, to a school taught in Sheffield by Mr. William H. Maynard, afterwards an eminent lawyer and senator in the State of New York. Hecame among us with the reputation of being a prodigy in knowledge; hewas regarded as a kind of walking library; and this reputation, togetherwith his ceaseless assiduity as a teacher, awakened among us boys anextraordinary ambition. What we learned, and how we learned it, and howwe lost it, might well be a caution to all other masters and pupils. Besides going through Virgil and Cicero's Orations that year, andfrequent composition and declamation, we were prepared, at the end ofit, for the most thorough and minute examination in grammar, in Blair'sRhetoric, in the two large octavo volumes of Morse's Geography, everyfact committed to memory, every name of country, city, mountain, river, every boundary, population, length, breadth, degree of latitude, --and wecould repeat, word for word, the Constitution of the United States. Theconsequence was, that we dropped all that load of knowledge, or ratherburden upon the memory, at the very threshold of the school. GrammarI did study to some purpose that year, though never before. I lost twoyears of my childhood, I think, upon that study, absurdly [27] regardedas teaching children to speak the English language, instead of beingconsidered as what it properly is, the philosophy of language, a sciencealtogether beyond the reach of childhood. 

Of the persons and circumstances that influenced my culture andcharacter in youth, there are some that stand out very prominently in myrecollection, and require mention in this account of myself. 

My father, first of all, did all that he could for me. He sent me tocollege when he could ill afford it. But, what was more important asan influence, all along from my childhood it was evidently his highestdesire and ambition for me that I should succeed in some professionalcareer, I think that of a lawyer. I was fond of reading, --indeed, spentmost of the evenings of my boyhood in that way, --and I soon observedthat he was disposed to indulge me in my favorite pursuit. He wouldoften send out my brothers, instead of me, upon errands or chores, "tosave me from interruption. " What he admired most, was eloquence; and Ithink he did more than Cicero's De Oratore to inspire me with a similarfeeling. I well remember his having been to Albany once, and havingheard Hamilton, and the unbounded admiration with which he spoke of him. I was but ten years old when Hamilton was stricken down; yet such was myinterest in [28] him, and such my grief, that my schoolmates asked me, "What is the matter?" I said, "General Hamilton is dead. " "But what isit? Who is it?" they asked. I replied that he was a great orator; but Ibelieve that it was to them much as if I had said that the elephant in amenagerie had been killed. This early enthusiasm I owed to my father. Itinfluenced all my after thoughts and aims, and was an impulse, though itmay have borne but little appropriate fruit. 

For books to read, the old Sheffield Library was my main resource. Itconsisted of about two hundred volumes, --books of the good old fashion, well printed, well bound in calf, and well thumbed too. What a treasurewas there for me! I thought the mine could never be exhausted. At least, it contained all that I wanted then, and better reading, I think, thanthat which generally engages our youth nowadays, --the great Englishclassics in prose and verse, Addison and Johnson and Milton andShakespeare, histories, travels, and a few novels. The most of thesebooks I read, some of them over and over, often by torchlight, sittingon the floor (for we had a rich bed of old pine-knots on the farm);and to this library I owe more than to anything that helped me in myboyhood. Why is it that all its volumes are scattered now? What isit that is coming over our New England villages, that looks likedeterioration and running down? Is our life going out of us to enrichthe great West? [29]I remember the time when there were eminent men inSheffield. Judge Sedgwick commenced the practice of the law here; andthere were Esquire Lee, and John W. Hurlbut, and later, Charles Dewey, and a number of professional men besides, and several others who werenot professional, but readers, and could quote Johnson and Pope andShakespeare; my father himself could repeat the "Essay on Man, " andwhole books of the "Paradise Lost. "

My model man was Charles Dewey, ten or twelve years older thanmyself. What attracted me to him was a singular union of strength andtenderness. Not that the last was readily or easily to be seen. Therewas not a bit of sunshine in it, --no commonplace amiableness. He wore nosmiles upon his face. His complexion, his brow, were dark; his person, tall and spare; his bow had no suppleness in it, it even lackedsomething of graceful courtesy, rather stiff and stately; his walk wasa kind of stride, very lofty, and did not say "By your leave, " to theworld. I remember that I very absurdly, though unconsciously, tried toimitate it. His character I do not think was a very well disciplined oneat that time; he was, I believe, "a good hater, " a dangerous opponent, yet withal he had immense self-command. On the whole, he was generallyregarded chiefly as a man of penetrative intellect and sarcastic wit;but under all this I discerned a spirit so true, so delicate andtender, so touched [30] with a profound and exquisite, though concealed, sensibility, that he won my admiration, respect, and affection in anequal degree. He removed early in life to practise the law in Indiana. We seldom meet; but though twenty years intervene, we meet as though wehad parted but yesterday. He has been a Judge of the Supreme Court, and, I believe, the most eminent law authority in his adopted State; and hewould doubtless have been sent to take part in the National Councils, but for an uncompromising sincerity and manliness in the expression ofhis political opinions, little calculated to win votes. 

And now came the time for a distinct step forward, --a step leading intofuture life. 

It was for some time a question in our family whether I should enterCharles Dewey's office in Sheffield as a student at law, or go tocollege. It was at length decided that I should go; and as WilliamsCollege was near us, and my cousin, Chester Dewey, was a professorthere, that was the place chosen for me. I entered the Sophomore classin the third term, and graduated in 1814, in my twenty-first year. 

Two events in my college life were of great moment to me, --the loss ofsight, and the gain, if I may say so, of insight. 

In my Junior year, my eyes, after an attack of measles, became so weakthat I could not use them more than an hour in a day, and I was [31]obliged to rely mainly upon others for the prosecution of my studiesduring the remainder of the college course. I hardly know now whether tobe glad or sorry for this deprivation. But for this, I might have been aman of learning. I was certainly very fond of my studies, especiallyof the mathematics and chemistry. I mention it the rather, because thewhole course and tendency of my mind has been in other directions. ButEuclid's Geometry was the most interesting book to me in the collegecourse; and next, Mrs. B. 's Chemistry: the first, because the intensestthinking is doubtless always the greatest possible intellectualenjoyment; and the second, because it opened to me my first glance intothe wonders of nature. I remember the trembling pride with which, oneday in the Junior year, I took the head of the class, while all therest shrunk from it, to demonstrate some proposition in the last book ofEuclid. At Commencement, when my class graduated, the highest part wasassigned to me. "Pretty well for a blind boy, " my father said, when Itold him of it; it was all he said, though I knew that nothing in theworld could have given him more pleasure. But if it was vanity then, orif it seem such now to mention it, I may be pardoned, perhaps, for itwas the end of all vanity, effort, or pretension to be a learned man. I remember when I once told Channing of this, and said that but for theloss of sight I thought I should have devoted myself to the pursuits oflearning, his [32] reply was, "You were made for something better. " I donot know how that may be; but I think that my deprivation, which lastedfor some years, was not altogether without benefit to myself. I wasthrown back upon my own mind, upon my own resources, as I should neverotherwise have been. I was compelled to think--in such measure as I amable--as I should not otherwise have done. I was astonished to find howdependent I had been upon books, not only for facts, but for the verycourses of reasoning. To sit down solitary and silent for hours, and topursue a subject through all the logical steps for myself, --to mould thematter in my own mind without any foreign aid, --was a new task for me. Ravignan, the celebrated French preacher, has written a little book onthe Jesuit discipline and course of studies, in which he says that theone or two years of silence appointed to the pupil absolute seclusionfrom society and from books too were the most delightful and profitableyears of his novitiate. I think I can understand how that might be truein more ways than one. Madame Guyon's direction for prayer to pause uponeach petition till it is thoroughly understood and felt had great wisdomin it. We read too much. For the last thirty years I have read as muchas I pleased, and probably more than was good for me. 

The disease in my eyes was in the optic nerve; there was no externalinflammation. Under the [33] best surgical advice I tried differentmethods of cure, --cupping, leeches, a thimbleful of lunar caustic onthe back of the neck, applied by Dr. Warren, of Boston; and I rememberspending that very evening at a party, while the caustic was burning. So hopeful was I of a cure, that the very pain was a pleasure. I said, "Bite, and welcome!" But it was all in vain. At length I met with aperson whose eyes had been cured of the same disease, and who gave methis advice: "Every evening, immediately before going to bed, dash onwater with your hands, from your wash-bowl, upon your closed eyes; letthe water be of about the temperature of spring-water; apply it tillthere is some, but not severe, pain, say for half a minute; then, with atowel at hand, wipe the eyes dry before opening them, and rub the partsaround smartly; after that do not read, or use your eyes in any way, orhave a light in the room. " I faithfully tried it, and in eight months Ibegan to experience relief; in a year and a half I could read all day;in two years, all night. Let any one lose the use of his eyes for fiveyears, to know what that means. Afterwards I neglected the practice, andmy eyes grew weaker; resumed it, and they grew stronger. 

The other event to which I have referred as occurring in my collegelife was of a far different character, and compared to which all this isnothing. It is lamentable that it ever should be an event in any humanlife. The sense of religion [34] should be breathed into our childhood, into our youth, along with all its earliest and freshest inspirations;but it was not so with me. Religion had never been a delight to mebefore; now it became the highest. Doubtless the change in its formpartook of the popular character usually attendant upon such changes atthe time, but the form was not material. A new day rose upon me. It wasas if another sun had risen into the sky; the heavens were indescribablybrighter, and the earth fairer; and that day has gone on brighteningto the present hour. I have known the other joys of life, I suppose, as much as most men; I have known art and beauty, music and gladness; Ihave known friendship and love and family ties; but it is certain thattill we see GOD in the world--GOD in the bright and boundless universewe never know the highest joy. It is far more than if one weretranslated to a world a thousand times fairer than this; for thatsupreme and central Light of Infinite Love and Wisdom, shining over thisworld and all worlds, alone can show us how noble and beautiful, howfair and glorious, they are. In saying this, I do not arrogate to myselfany unusual virtue, nor forget my defects; these are not the mattersnow in question. Nor, least of all, do I forget the great Christianministration of light and wisdom, of hope and help to us. But theone thing that is especially signalized in my experience is this, theInfinite Goodness and Loveliness began to be [35] revealed to me, andthis made for me "a new heaven and a new earth. "

The sense of religion comes to men under different aspects; that is, where it may be said to come; where it is not imbibed, as it ought tobe, in early and unconscious childhood, like knowledge, like socialaffection, like the common wisdom of life. To some, it comes as theconsoler of grief; to others, as the deliverer from terror and wrathTo me it came as filling an infinite void, as the supply of a boundlesswant, and ultimately as the enhancement of all joy. I had been somewhatsad and sombre in the secret moods of my mind, read Kirke White and knewhim by heart; communed with Young's "Night Thoughts, " and with his prosewritings also; and with all their bad taste and false ideas of religion, I think they awaken in the soul the sense of its greatness and its need. I nursed all this, something like a moody secret in my heart, with akind of pride and sadness; I had indeed the full measure of the NewEngland boy's reserve in my early experience, and did not care whetherothers understood me or not. And for a time something of all this flowedinto my religion. I was among the strictest of my religious companions. I was constant to all our religious exercises, and endeavored to carrya sort of Carthusian silence into my Sundays. I even tried, absurdlyenough, to pass that day without a smile upon my countenance. It wason the ascetic side only that I [36] had any Calvinism in my religiousviews, for in doctrine I immediately took other ground. I maintained, among my companions, that whatever God commanded us to do or to be, thatwe had power to do and be. And I remember one day rather impertinentlysaying to a somewhat distinguished Calvinistic Doctor of Divinity: "Youhold that sin is an infinite evil?" "Yes. " "And that the atonement isinfinite?" "Yes. " "Suppose, then, that the first sinner comes to havehis sins cancelled; will he not require the whole, and nothing willbe left?" "Infinites! infinites!" he exclaimed; "we can't reason aboutinfinites!"

In connection with the religious ideas and impressions of which I havebeen speaking, comes before me one of the most remarkable persons thatI knew in my youth, Paul Dewey, Uncle Paul, we always called him. He wasmy father's cousin, and married my mother's half-sister. His religionwas marked by strong dissent from the prevailing views; indeed, hewas commonly regarded as an infidel. But I never heard him express anydisbelief of Christianity. It was against the Church construction of it, against the Orthodox creed, and the ways and methods of the religiouspeople about him, that he was accustomed to speak, and that in nodoubtful language. I was a good deal with him during the year before Iwent to college, for he taught me the mathematics; and one day hesaid to me, "Orville, you are going to college, and you will [37] beconverted there. " I said, "Uncle, how can you speak in that way to me?""Nay, " he replied, "I am perfectly serious; you will be converted, andwhen you are, write to me about it, for I shall believe what you say. "When that happened which he predicted, --when something had taken placein my experience, of which neither he, nor I then, had any definiteidea, I wrote to him a long letter, in which I frankly and fullyexpressed all my feelings, and told him that what he had thus spoken of, whether idly or sincerely, had become to me the most serious reality. Ilearned from his family afterwards that my letter seemed to make a gooddeal of impression on him. He was true to what he had said; he did takemy testimony into account, and from that time after, spoke with lesswarmth and bitterness upon such subjects. Doubtless his large sagacitysaw an explanation of my experience, different from that which I thenput upon it. But he saw that it was at least sincere, and respectedit accordingly. Certainly it did not change his views of the religiousministrations of the Church. He declined them when they were offered tohim upon his death-bed, saying plainly that he did not wish for them. He was cross with Church people even then, and said to one of them whocalled, as he thought obtrusively, to talk and pray with him, "Sir, Idesire neither your conversation nor your prayers. " All this while, itis to be remembered that he was a man, not only of [38] great sense, but of incorruptible integrity, of irreproachable habits, and ofgreat tenderness in his domestic relations. Whatever be the religiousjudgments formed of such men, mine is one of mingled respect and regret. It reminds me of an anecdote related of old Dr. Bellamy, of Connecticut, the celebrated Hopkinsian divine, who was called into court to testifyconcerning one of his parishioners, against whom it was sought to beproved that he was a very irascible, violent, and profane man; and asthis man was, in regard to religion, what was called in those days "agreat opposer, " it was expected that the Doctor's testimony would bevery convincing and overwhelming. "Well, " said Bellamy, "Mr. X isa rough, passionate, swearing man, --I am sorry to say it; but I dobelieve, " he said, hardly repressing the tears that started, "that thereis more of the milk of human kindness in his heart than in all my parishput together!"

I may observe, in passing, that I heard, in those days, a great deal ofdissent expressed from the popular theology, beside my uncle's. I heardit often from my father and his friends. It was a frequent topic in ourhouse, especially after a sermon on the decrees, or election, orthe sinner's total inability to comply with the conditions on whichsalvation was offered to him. The dislike of these doctrines increasedand spread here, till it became a revolt of nearly half the town, Ithink, against them; and thirty years ago a Liberal [39] society mighthave been built up in Sheffield, and ought to have been. I verywell remember my father's coming home from the General Court [TheMassachusetts Legislative Assembly is so called. --M. E. D. ], of which hewas a member, and expressing the warmest admiration of the preaching ofChanning. The feeling, however, of hostility to the Orthodox faith, in his time, was limited to a few; but somebody in New York, who wasacquainted with it, --I don't know who, --sent up some infidel books. Oneof them was lying about in our house, and I remember seeing my motherone day take it and put it into the fire. It was a pretty resolute actfor one of the gentlest beings that I ever knew, and decisively showedwhere she stood. She did not sympathize with my father in his views ofreligion, but meekly, and I well remember how earnestly, she sought andhumbly found the blessed way, such as was open to her mind. 

As my whole view of religion was changed from indifference or aversionto a profound interest in it, a change very naturally followed in myplan for future life, that is, in my choice of a profession, --verynaturally, at least then; I do not say that it would be so now. Iexpected to be a lawyer; and I have sometimes been inclined to regretthat I was not; for courts of law always have had, and have still, astrange fascination for me, and I see now that a lawyer's or physician'slife may be [40] actuated by as lofty principles, and may be as nobleand holy, as a clergyman's. But I did not think so then. Then, I feltas if the life of a minister of religion were the only sacred, the onlyreligious life; as, in regard to the special objects with which itis engaged, it is. But what especially moved me to embrace it, I willconfess, was a desire to vindicate for religion its rightful claim andplace in the world, to roll off the cloud and darkness that lay upon it, and to show it in its true light. It had been dark to me; it had beensomething strange and repulsive, and even unreal, --something conjuredup by fear and superstition. I came to see it as the divinest, thesublimest, and the loveliest reality, and I burned with a desire thatothers should see it. 

This "divine call" I had, whether or not it answers to what is commonlymeant by that phrase, and I am glad that I obeyed it. 

But now, how was I to prosecute this design? how carry on thepreparatory studies, when my eyes did not permit me to read more thanhalf an hour a day? I hesitated and turned aside, first to teach aschool in Sheffield for a year, and next, for another year, to trya life of business in New York. At length, however, my desire for mychosen profession became so irrepressible, that I determined to enterthe Theological Seminary at Andover, and to pursue my studies as well asI could without my eyes, expecting afterwards to preach without notes. [41] At Andover I passed three years, attending to the course of studiesas well as I was able. I gave to Hebrew the half-hour a day that I wasable to study; with the Greek Testament I was familiar enough to go onwith my room-mate, Cyrus Byington, [FN] who since has spent his life asa missionary among the Choctaws; and for reading I was indebted to hisunvarying kindness and that of my classmates and friends. Still, I wasleft, some hours of every day, to my own meditations. But the beingobliged to think for myself upon the theological questions that dailycame before [42] the class, instead of reading what others had saidabout them, seemed to me not without its advantages. 

[FN Byington was a young lawyer, here in Sheffield, of good abilitiesand prospects, but under a strong religious impression he determinedto quit the law and study theology. He was a man of ardent temperament, whose thoughts were all feelings as well, which, though less reliableas thought, were strong impulses, always directed, consecrated togood ends. A being more unselfish, more ready to sacrifice himself forothers, could not easily be found. This spirit made him a missionary. When our class was about leaving Andover, the question was solemnlypropounded to us by our teachers, who of us would go to the heathen--Iwell remember the pain and distress with which Byington examinedit, --for no person could be more fondly attached to his friends andkindred, --his final decision to go, and the perfect joy he had in itafter his mind was made up. He went to the Choctaw and CherokeeIndians in Florida, and, on their removal to the Arkansas reservation, accompanied them, and spent his life among them. He left, as the fruitof one part of his work, a Choctaw grammar and dictionary, and a yetbetter result in the improved condition of those people. Late in life, on a visit here, he told me that the converted Indians in Arkansas ownedfarms around him, laboring, and living as respectably as white peopledo. Here was that very civilization said to be impossible to theIndian. ]

Andover had its attractions, and not many distractions. I liked it, andI disliked it. I liked it for its opportunities for thorough study, --ourteachers were earnest and thorough men, --and for the associates instudy that it gave me. I could say, "For my companions' sake, peace bewithin thy walls. " I disliked it for its monastic seclusion. Not thatthis was any fault of the institution, but for the first time in my lifeI boarded in commons; the domestic element dropped out of it, and Iwas persuaded, as I never had been before, of the beneficence of thatordinance that "sets the solitary in families. " It was a fine situationin which to get morbid and dispirited and dyspeptic. On the last point Ihad some experiences that were somewhat notable to me. We were directed, of course, to take a great deal of exercise. We were very zealous aboutit, and sometimes walked five miles before breakfast, and that in wintermornings. It did not avail me, however; and I got leave to go out andboard in a family, half a mile distant. I found that the three miles aday in going back and forth, that regular exercise, was worth more to methan all my previous and more violent efforts in that way. But I imaginethat was not all. I had the misfortune to scald my foot, and was obligedfor three weeks to sit perfectly still. [43] When I came back, ProfessorStuart said to me, "Well, how is it with your dyspepsia?" "All gone, "was the reply. "But how have you lived?" for his dietetics were verystrict. "Why, I have eaten pies and pickles, --and pot-hooks and trammelsI might, for any harm in the matter. " Here was a wonder, ----no exerciseand no regimen, and I was well! The conclusion I came to, was, on thewhole, that cheerfulness first, and next regularity, are the best guardsagainst the monster dyspepsia. And another conclusion was, that exercisecan no more profitably be condensed than food can. 

As to morbid habits of mind, to which isolated seminaries are exposed, I had also some experience. What complaints of our spiritual dulnessconstantly arose among us! And there was other dulness, too, --physical, moral, social. I remember, at one time, the whole college fell into astrange and unaccountable depression. The occasion was so serious thatthe professors called us together in the chapel to remonstrate with us;and, after talking it all over, and giving us their advice, one of themsaid: "The evil is so great, and relief so indispensable, that Iwill venture to recommend to you a particular plan. Go to your rooms;assemble some dozen or twenty in a room; form a circle, and let thefirst in it say 'Haw!' and the second 'Haw!' and so let it go round; andif that does n't avail, let the first again say 'Haw! haw!' and so on. "We tried it, [44] and the result may be imagined. Very astonishing itmust have been to the people without, but the spell was broken. 

But more serious matters claim attention in connection with Andover. Iwas to form some judgment upon questions in theology. I certainly wasdesirous of finding the Orthodox system true. But the more I studied it, the more I doubted. My doubts sprung, first, from a more critical studyof the New Testament. In Professor Stuart's crucible, many a solid textevaporated, and left no residuum of proof. I was startled at the smallnumber of texts, for instance, which his criticism left to support thedoctrine of "the personality of the Holy Spirit. " I remember saying tohim in the class one day, when he had removed another prop, --anotherproof-text: "But this is one of the two or three passages that are leftto establish the doctrine. " His answer was: "Is not one declaration ofGod enough? Is it not as strong as a thousand?" It silenced, but it didnot satisfy me. In the next place, I found difficulties in our theologyfrom looking at it in a point of view which I had not before considered, and that was the difference between words and ideas, between the termswe used and the actual conceptions we entertained, or between theabstract thesis and the living sense of the matter. Thus with regard tothe latter point, I found that the more I believed in the doctrine ofliterally eternal punishments, the more [45] I doubted it. As the livingsense of it pressed more and more upon my mind, it became too awful tobe endured; it darkened the day and the very world around me. At lengthI could not see a happy company or a gay multitude without falling intoa sadness that marred and blighted everything. All joyous life, seen inthe light of this doctrine, seemed to me but a horrible mockery. It isevident that John Forster's doubts sprung from the same cause. And then, I had been accustomed to use the terms "Unity" and "Trinity" as insome vague sense compatible; but when I came to consider what my actualconceptions were, I found that the Three were as distinct as anythree personalities of which I could conceive. The service whichDr. Channing's celebrated sermon at the ordination of Mr. Sparks inBaltimore did me, was to make that clear to me. With such doubts, demanding further examination, I left the Seminary at Andover. 

We parted, we classmates, many of us in this world never to meet again. Some went to the Sandwich Islands, one to Ceylon, one to the ChoctawIndians; most remained at home, some to hold high positions in ourchurches and colleges, Wheeler, President of the Vermont University, aliberal-minded and accomplished man; Torrey, Professor in the same, a man of rare scholarship and culture; Wayland, President of BrownUniversity, in Rhode Island, well and widely [46] known; and Haddock, Professor in Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and recently our charged'affaires in Portugal. Haddock, I thought, had the clearest head amongus. Our relations were very friendly, though I was a little afraid ofhim, and with him I first visited his uncle, Daniel Webster, in Boston. I was struck with what Mr. Webster said of him, many years after, considering that the great statesman was speaking of a comparativelyretired and studious man: "Haddock I should like to have always withme; he is full of knowledge, of the knowledge that I want, pure-minded, agreeable, pious, " I use his very words, "and if I could afford it, and he would consent, I would take him to myself, to be my constantcompanion. "

I left Andover, then, in the summer of 1819, and in a state of mindthat did not permit me to be a candidate for settlement in any of thechurches. I therefore accepted an invitation from the American EducationSociety to preach in behalf of its objects, in the churches generally, through the State, and was thus occupied for about eight months. 

Some time in the spring, I think, of 1820, I went down to Gloucester topreach in the old Congregational Church, and was invited to become itspastor. I replied that I was too unsettled in my opinions to be settledanywhere. The congregation then proposed to me to come and preach [47]a year to them, postponing the decision, both on their part and mine, tothe end of it. I was very glad to accept this proposition, for a year ofretired and quiet study was precisely what I wanted. I spent that yearin examining the questions that had arisen in my mind, especiallywith regard to the Trinity. I read Emlyn's "Humble Inquiry, " Yates andWardlaw, Channing and Worcester, besides other books; but especially Imade the most thorough examination I was able, of all the texts in bothTestaments that appeared to bear upon the subject. The result was anundoubting rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity. The grounds forthis, and other modifications of theological opinion, I need not givehere; they are sufficiently stated in what I have written and published. 

And here let me say that, although I had my anxieties, I had none aboutmy personal hold upon heart-sustaining truth. It was emphatically a yearof prayer, if I may without presumption or indelicacy say so. Humblyand earnestly I sought to the God of wisdom and light to guide me; andI never felt for a moment that I was perilling my salvation. I had afoundation of repose, stronger than mere theology can give, deep andsure beneath me. I had indeed my anxieties. I felt as if I were puttingin peril all my worldly welfare. All the props which a man builds uparound him in his early studies, all the props of church relationshipand religious friendship, seemed to be suddenly falling away, and Iwas [48] about to take my stand on the threshold of life, alone, unsupported, and unfriended. 

I soon had practical demonstration of this, not only in the coldnessand the withdrawal of friends, all natural enough, I suppose, andconscientious, no doubt, but in the summons of the Presbytery of thecity of New York, from which I had taken out my license to preach, toappear before it and answer to the charge of heresy. The summons wasmade in terms at war, I thought, with Christian liberty, and I refusedto obey it. The terms may have been in consonance with the Presbyteriandiscipline, and perhaps I ought not to have refused. What I felt was, and this, substantially, I believe, was what I said, that, if "thePresbytery propose to examine me simply to ascertain whether my opinionsadmit of my standing in the Presbyterian Church, I have no objection;I neither expect nor wish to remain with it; but it appears to me toassume a right and authority over my opinions to which I cannot submit. "

At the end of the year passed in Gloucester, it appeared that thecongregation was about equally divided on the question of retaining meas pastor; at any rate, the circumstances did not permit me to thinkof it, and I went up to Boston to assist Dr. Channing in his duties aspastor of the Federal Street Church. 

But I must not pass over, yet cannot comment upon, the great event ofmy year at Gloucester, the greatest and happiest of my life, my [49]marriage. [FN 1] It took place in Boston, on the 26th day of December, 1820, the Rev. Dr. Jarvis officiating as clergyman, my wife's familybeing then in attendance upon his church. As in the annals of nationsit is commonly said that, while calamities and disasters crowd the page, the happy seasons are passed over in silence and have no record, so letit be here. 

My going up to Boston, to be acquainted with Channing, and to preach inhis church, excited in me no small expectation and anxiety. I approachedboth the church and the man with something of trembling. Of Channing, of his character, of his conversation, and the great impression it madeupon me, as upon everybody that approached him, I have already publiclyspoken, in a sermon [FN 2] which I delivered on my return from Europeafter his death, and in a letter to be inserted in Dr. Sprague's "Annalsof the American Pulpit. " In entering the pulpit of Dr. Channing, ashis assistant for a season, I felt that I was committing myself to analtogether new ordeal, I had been educated in the Orthodox Church;I knew little or nothing about the style and way of preaching in theUnitarian churches; I knew only the pre-eminent place which Dr. 

[FN 1: To Louisa Farnham, daughter of William Farnham, of Boston. M. E. D. ]

[FN 2: This sermon, a noble, tender, and discriminating tribute toDr. Channing, was reprinted in 1831, on the occasion of the ChanningCentennial Celebration at Newport, R. I. --M. E. D. ]

[50] Channing occupied, both as writer and preacher, and I naturallyfelt some anxiety about my reception. I will only say that it was kindbeyond my expectation. After some months Dr. Channing went abroad, and Ioccupied his pulpit till he returned. In all, I was in his pulpit abouttwo years. On my taking leave of it, the congregation presented me witha thousand dollars to buy a library. It was a most timely and welcomegift. 

During my residence in Boston, I made my first appearance, butanonymously, in print, in an essay entitled "Hints to Unitarians. " Howready this body of Christians has always been to accept sincere andhonest criticism, was evinced by the reception of my adventurous essay. My gratification, it may be believed, was not small on learning that ithad been quoted with approbation in the English Unitarian pulpits; andMiss Martineau told me, when she was in this country, then learning thatI was the author, that she, with a friend of hers, had caused it to beprinted as a tract for circulation. She would say now that it was in hernonage that she did it. 

The most remarkable man, next to Channing, that I became acquainted withduring this residence of two years in Boston, was Jonathan Phillips. He was a merchant by profession, but inherited a large fortune, and wasnever, that I know, engaged much in active business. He led, when Iknew him, a contemplative life, was an assiduous reader, and a deeperthinker. He had [51] a splendid library, and spent much of his timeamong his books. If he had had the proper training for it, I alwaysthought he would have made a great metaphysician. His conversation wasoften profound, and always original, always drawn from the workingsof his own mind, and was always occupied with great philosophical andreligious themes. It was born of struggle, more, I think, than anyman's I ever talked with. For he had a great moral nature, and greatdifficulties within, arising partly from his religious education, but yet more from the contact with actual life of a very sensitivetemperament and much ill health. He had worked his way out independentlyfrom the former, and stood on firm ground; and when some of his familyfriends charged Channing with having drawn him away from Orthodoxy, Channing replied, "No; he has influenced me more than I have influencedhim. "

In London, in 1833, I met Mr. Phillips with Dr. Tuckerman, well known asthe pioneer in the "Ministry to the Poor in Cities, " about to take thetour on the Continent. He invited me to join them, and we travelledtogether on the Rhine and in Switzerland. It was on this journey thatI became acquainted with the sad effect produced upon him by greatand depressing indisposition. His case was very singular, and explainsthings in him that surprised his acquaintances very much, and, in fact, did him much wrong with them. It was a scrofulous condition of thestomach, and [52] when developed by taking cold, it was somethingdreadful to hear him describe. The effect was to make entirely anotherman of him. He who was affluent in means and disposition became suddenlynot only depressed and melancholy, but anxious about expenses, sharpwith the courier upon that point, and not at all agreeable as atravelling companion. But when the fit passed off, which seemed forthe time to be a kind of insanity, his spirits rose, and his releasedfaculties burst out in actual splendor. He became gay; he enjoyedeverything, and especially the scenery around him. I never knew beforethat his aesthetic nature was so fine. He said so many admirable thingswhile we were going over Switzerland, that I was sorry afterwards thatI had not noted them down at the time, and written a sheet or two ofPhillipsiana. His countenance changed as much as his conversation, andits expression became actually beautiful. There was a miniature likenesstaken of him in London. I went to see it; and when I expressed to theartist my warm approval of it, he said: "I am glad to have you say that;for I wanted to draw out all the sweetness of that man's face. " [FN]

One of the most distinguished persons in Dr. Channing's congregationwas Josiah Quincy, who, during his life, occupied high positions in thecountry, and of a very dissimilar character, --

[FN: the point in this is that Mr. Phillips' features were of singularand almost repellent homeliness till irradiated by thought or emotion. M. E. D. ]

[53] Member of Congress, Mayor of Boston, and President of HarvardUniversity, all of which posts he filled with credit and ability;always conscientious, energetic, devoted to his office, high-toned, and disinterested. He was a model of pure and unselfish citizenship, anddeserves for that a statue in Boston. 

When Mr. Quincy was a very old man, I asked him one day how he had cometo live so long, and in such health and vigor. He answered: "For fortyyears I have taken no wine; and every morning, before dressing myself, I have spent a quarter of an hour in gymnastic exercises. " I adoptedthe practice, and have found it of great benefit, both as exercise, andinuring against colds. It is really as much exercise as a mile or twoof walking. President Felton said: "After that, I can let the dailyexercise take care of itself, without going doggedly about it. " I findthat a good many studious men are doing the same thing. I asked Bryanthow much time he gave, and he said, "Three quarters of an hour. " Afterthat, at least in his summer home, he is upon his feet almost as muchas a cat, and about as nimbly. With his thin and wiry frame, and simplehabits, he is likely to live to a greater age than anybody I know. [Mr. Bryant and my father were about of an age. They had known each otheralmost from boyhood, and their friendship had matured with time. The sudden death of the poet in 1878, from causes that seemed almostaccidental, was a great and unexpected blow to the survivor, thenhimself in feeble health. M. E. D. ]

[54] I shall add a word about the healthfulness of these exercises, since it is partly my design in this sketch to give the fruits of myexperience. It is true one cannot argue for everybody from his own case. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that this morning exercise and the inuringwould greatly promote the general health. "Catching cold" is a seriousitem in the lives of many people. One, two, or three months of everyyear they have a cold. For thirty years I have bathed in cold water andtaken the air-bath every morning; and in all that time, I think, I havehad but three colds, and I know where and how I got these, and that theymight have been avoided. 

But I have wandered far from my ground, Boston, and my first residencethere. I was Dr. Channing's guest for the first month or two, and thenand afterwards knew all his family, consisting of three brothers andtwo sisters. They were not people of wealth or show, but something muchbetter. Henry lived in retirement in the country, not having an aptitudefor business, but a sensible person in other respects. George wasan auctioneer, but left business and became a very ardent missionarypreacher; and Walter was a respectable physician. William was placed ineasy circumstances by his marriage. Their sister Lucy, Mrs. Russel ofNew York, told me that she was very much amused one day by somethingthat her brother William said to Walter. "Walter, " he said, "I thinkwe are a very [55] prosperous family. There is Henry, he is a veryexcellent man. And George, why, George has come out a great spiritualman. And you, you know how you are getting along. And as for me, I dowhat I can. I think we are a very prosperous family. "

Mrs. Russel was a person of great sense, of strong, quiet thoughtand feeling; and some of her friends used to say that, with the sameadvantages and opportunities her brother had, she would have been hisequal. 

On a day's visit which Henry once made me in New Bedford, I remember wehad a long conversation on hunting and fishing, in which he condemnedthem, and I defended. Pushed by his arguments, at length I said, "forI went a-fishing myself sometimes with a boat on the Acushnet; yes, andbarely escaped once being carried out to sea by the ebb tide, " I said, "My fishing is not a reckless destruction of life; somebody must takefish, and bring them to us for food, and those I catch come to mytable. " "Now, " said he, "that is as if you said to your butcher, Youhave to slay a certain number of cattle, calves, and sheep, and turkeys, and fowls for my table; let me have the pleasure of coming and killingthem myself. "

Of Dr. Channing himself, I should, of course, have much to say here, if, as I have just said, I had not already expressed my thoughts of him inprint. His conversation struck me most; more [56] even than any of hiswritings ever did. He was an invalid, and kept much at home and indoors, and he talked hour after hour, day after day, and sometimes for a week, upon the same subject, without ever letting it grow distasteful orwearisome. Edward Everett said, he had just returned from Europe, wheredoubtless he had seen eminent persons, "I have never met with anybody towhom it was so interesting to listen, and so hard to talk when myturn came. " There was, indeed, a grand and surprising superiority inChanning's talk, both in the topics and the treatment of them. Therewas no repartee in it, and not much of give and take, in any way. Peopleused to come to him, his clerical brethren, I remember Henry Wareand others speaking of it, they came, listened to him, said nothingthemselves, and went away. In fact, Channing talked for his own sake, generally. His topic was often that on which he was preparing to write. It was curious to see him, from time to time, as he talked, dash downa note or two on a bit of paper, and throw it into a pigeon-hole, whicheventually became quite full. 

It would appear from all this that Channing was not a genial person, andhe was not. He was too intent upon the subjects that occupied hismind for that varied and sportive talk, that abandon, that sympatheticadjustment of his thoughts to the moods of people around him, whichmakes the agreeable person. His thoughts [57] moved in solid battalions, but they carried keen weapons. It would have been better for him if hehad had more variety, ease, and joyousness in society, and he felt ithimself. He was not genial either in his conversation or letters. Idoubt if one gay or sportive letter can be found among them all. Hishabitual style of address, out of his own family, was "My dear Sir, "never "My dear Tom, " or "My dear Phillips, " scarcely, "My dear Friend. "Once he says, "Dear Eliza, " to Miss Cabot, who married that noble-mindedman, Dr. Follen, and in them both he always felt the strongest interest. Let any one compare Channing's letters with those of Lord Jeffrey, forinstance. The ease and freedom of Jeffrey's letters, their mingledsense and playfulness, but especially the hearty grasp of affection andfamiliarity in them, make one feel as if he were introduced into somenew and more charming society. Jeffrey begins one of his letters to TomMoore thus: "My dear Sir damn Sir My dear Moore. " Whether there is not, among us, a certain democratic reserve in this matter, I do not know;but I suspect it. Reserve is the natural defence set up against theclaims of universal equality. 

In the autumn of 1823, on Dr. Channing's return to his pulpit, I wentto New Bedford to preach in the Congregational Church, formerly Dr. (commonly called Pater) West's, was invited to be its pastor, and wasordained to that charge [58] on the 17th of December, Dr. Tuckermangiving the sermon. An incident occurred at the ordination which showedme that I had fallen into a new latitude of religious thought andfeeling. After the sermon, and in the silence that followed, suddenly weheard the voice of prayer from the midst of the congregation. At firstwe were not a little disturbed by the irregularity, and the clergymenwho leaned over the pulpit to listen looked as if they would have said, "This must be put a stop to"; but the prayer, which was short, went on, so simple, so sincere, so evidently unostentatious and indeed beautiful, so in hearty sympathy with the occasion, and in desire for a blessingon it, that when it closed, all said, "Amen! Amen!" It was a prettyremarkable conquest over prejudice and usage, achieved by simple andself-forgetting earnestness. Indeed, it seemed to have a certain beforeunthought-of fitness, as a response from the congregation, which is notgiven in our usual ordination services. The ten years' happy, and, Ihope, not unprofitable ministration on my part that followed, and offidelity on the part of the people, were perhaps some humble fulfilmentand answer to the good petitions that it offered, and to all thebrotherly exhortations and supplications of that hour. 

The congregation was small when I became its pastor, but it grew; aconsiderable number of families from the Society of Friends connected[59] themselves with it, and it soon rose, as it continues still, to beone of the wealthiest and most liberal societies in the country. 

My duties were very arduous. There was no clergyman with whom I couldexchange within thirty miles; [FN] relief from this quarter, therefore, was rare, not more than four or five Sundays in the year. I was most ofthe time in my own pulpit, sometimes for ten months in succession. Inaddition to this, I became a constant contributor to the "ChristianExaminer, " for some years, I think as often as to every other number. Itwas not wise. The duties of the young clergyman are enough for him. The lawyer, the physician, advances slowly to full practice; the wholeweight falls upon the clergyman's young strength at once. Mine sunkunder it. I brought on a certain nervous disorder of the brain, fromwhich I have never since been free. Of course it interfered seriouslywith my mental work. How many days hundreds and hundreds did one hour'sstudy in the morning paralyze and prostrate me as completely as if I hadbeen knocked on the head, and lay me, for hours after, helpless on mysofa! After the Sunday's preaching, the effect of which upon me wasperhaps singular, making my back and bones ache, and my sinews as ifthey had been stretched on the rack, making me [60] feel as if I wantedto lie on the floor or on a hard board, if any one knows what thatmeans, after all this, it would be sometimes the middle of the week, sometimes Thursday or Friday, before I could begin to work again, andprepare for the next Sunday. My professional life was a constantstruggle; and yet I look back upon it, not with pain, but with pleasure. 

[FN: This distance, which now seems so trifling, then involved the hireof a horse and chaise for three days, and two long days' driving throughdeep, sandy roads. M. E. D. ]

Besides all this, subjects of great religious interest to me constantlypressed themselves upon my attention. I remember Dr. Lamson, of Dedham, a very learned and able man, asking me one day how I "found subjects towrite upon;" and my answering, "I don't find subjects; they find me. "I may say they pursued me. It may be owing to this that my sermonshave possibly a somewhat peculiar character; what, I do not know, butI remember William Ware's saying, when my first volume of Discoursesappeared, "that they were written as if nobody ever wrote sermonsbefore, " and something so they were written. I do not suppose thereis much originality of thought in them, nor any curiosa felicitas oflanguage, I could not attend to it; it was as much as I could do todisburden myself, but original in this they are, that they were wroughtout in the bosom of my own meditation and experience. The pen was dippedin my heart, I do know that. With burning brain and bursting tears Iwrote. Little fruit, perhaps, for so much struggle; be it so, though itcould not be so [61] to me. But so we work, each one in his own way; andaltogether something comes of it. 

Early in my professional life, too, I met certain questions, which everythinking man meets sooner or later, and which were pressed upon my mindby the new element that came into our religious society. The Friends aretrained up to reverence the inward light, and have the less respect forhistorical Christianity. The revelation in our nature, then, and therevelation in the Scriptures; the proper place of each in any justsystem of thought and theology; what importance is to be assigned tothe primitive intuitions of right and wrong, and what to thesupernaturalism, to the miracles of the New Testament, these were thequestions, and I discussed them a good deal in the pulpit, as mattersvery practical to many of the minds with which I was dealing. I admittedthe full, nay, the supreme value of the original intuitions, of theinward light, of the teachings of the Infinite Spirit in the humansoul; without them we could have no religion; without them we could notunderstand the New Testament at all, and Christianity would be but aslight to the blind; but I maintained that Christ's teaching and livingand dying were the most powerful appeal and help and guidance to theinward nature, to the original religion of the soul, that it had everreceived. And I believed and maintained that this help, at once mostdivine and most human, was commended to the world by miraculous[62] attestations. Not that the miracle, or the miracle-sanctionedChristianity, was intended to supersede or disparage the inward light;not that it made clearer the truth that benevolence is right, any morethan it could make clearer the proposition that two and two make four;not that it lent a sanction to any intuitive truth, but that it was theseal of a mission, this was what I insisted on. And certainly a beingwho appeared before me, living a divine life, and assuring me of God'spaternal care for me and of my own immortality, would impress me farmore, if there were "works done by him" which no other man could do, which bore witness of him. And although it should appear, as in a latework on "The Progress of Religious Ideas" it has been made to appear, that in the old systems there were foreshadowings of that which Ireceive as the most true and divine; that the light had been shining onbrighter and brighter through all ages, that would not make it anythe less credible or interesting to me, that Jesus should be theconsummation of all, the "true Light" that lighteth the steps of men;and that this Light should have come from God's especial illumination, and should be far above the common and natural light of this world'sday. Nay, it would be more grateful to me to believe that all religionshave had in them something supernaturally and directly from above, thanthat none have. 

[63] But time went on, and work went on, reason as I might; though timewould have lost its light and life, and work all cheer and comfort, if Ihad not believed. But work grew harder. I was obliged to take longer andlonger vacations, one of them five months long at the home in Sheffield. After this I went back to my work, preaching almost exclusively inmy own pulpit, seldom going away, unless it was now and then for anoccasional sermon. 

I went over to Providence in 1832, to preach the sermon at Dr. Hall'sinstallation as pastor of the First Church. Arrived on the eveningbefore, some of us of the council went to a caucus, preparatory toa Presidential election, General Jackson being candidate for thePresidency and Martin Van Buren for Vice-President. Finding thespeaking rather dull, after an hour or more we rose to leave, when agentleman touched my arm and said, "Now, if you will stay, you will hearsomething worth waiting for. " We took our seats, and saw John Whipplerising to speak. I was exceedingly grateful for the interruption of ourpurpose, for I never heard an address to a popular assembly so powerful;close, compact, cogent, Demosthenic in simplicity and force, not a wordmisplaced, not a word too many, and fraught with that strange power overthe feelings, lent by sadness and despondency, a state of mind, I think, most favorable to real eloquence, in which all verbiage is eschewed, and the burden [64] upon the heart is too heavy to allow the speaker tothink of himself. 

Mr. Whipple was in the opposition, and his main charge against Van Burenespecially, was, that it was he who had introduced into our politics thefatal principle of "the spoils to the victors, " a principle which, asthe orator maintained, with prophetic sagacity, threatened ruin to theRepublic. Still there was no extravagance in his way of bringing thecharge. I remember his saying, "Does Mr. Van Buren, then, wish for theruin of his country? No; Caesar never wished for the glory of Rome morethan when he desired her to be laid, as a bound victim, at his feet. "

We have learned since more than we knew then of the direful influence ofthat party cry, "The spoils to the victors. " It has made our electionsscrambles for office, and our parties "rings. " Mr. Whipple portrayedthe consequences which we are now feeling, and powerfully urged that hisState, small though it was, should do its utmost to ward them off. Ashe went on, and carried us higher and higher, I began to consider how hewas to let us down. But the skilful orator is apt to have some clinchinginstance or anecdote in reserve, and Mr. Whipple's close was this:

"There sleep now, within the sound of my voice, the bones of a man whoonce stood up in the revolutionary battles for his country. In one ofthem, he told me, [65] when the little American army, ill armed, illclad, and with bleeding feet, was drawn up in front of the disciplinedtroops of England, General Washington passed along our lines, and whenhe came before us, he stopped, and said, 'I place great confidence inthis Rhode Island regiment. ' And when I heard that, " said he, "I claspedmy musket to my breast, and said, Damn 'em; let 'em come!" "The immortalChieftain" [said the orator] "is looking down upon us now; and he says, 'I place great confidence in this Rhode Island regiment. '"

And now, on the whole, what shall I say of my life in New Bedford?It was, in the main, very happy. I thought I was doing good there;I certainly was thoroughly interested in what I was doing. I foundcultivated and interesting society there. I made friends, who aresuch to me still. In the pastoral relation, New Bedford was, and longcontinued to be, the very home of my heart; it was my first love. 

In 1827 I was invited to go to New York. I did not wish to go, soI expressly told the church in New York (the Second Church); but Iconsented, in order to accomplish what they thought a great good, provided my congregation in New Bedford would give their consent. Theywould not give it; and I remained. I believe that I should have livedand died among them, if my health had not failed. 

But it failed to that degree that I could no longer do the work, and Idetermined to go abroad and recruit, and recover it, if possible. [66]This was in 1833. The Messrs. Grinnell & Co. , of New York, offered mea passage back and forth in their ships, one of the thousand kind andgenerous things that they were always doing, and I sailed from New Yorkin the "George Washington" on the 8th of June. It was like death tome to go. I can compare it to nothing else, going, as I did, alone. InLondon I consulted Sir James Clarke, who told me that the disease wasin the brain, and that I must pass three or four years abroad if I wouldrecover from it. I believe I stared at his proposition, it seemed to meso monstrous, for he said, in fine: "Well, you may go home in a year, and think yourself well; but if you go about your studies, you willprobably bring on the same trouble again; and if you do, in allprobability you will never get rid of it. " Alas! it all proved true. I came home in the spring of 1834, thinking myself well. I had had noconsciousness of a brain for three months before I left Europe. I wentto work as usual; in one month the whole trouble was upon me again, andit became evident that I must leave New Bedford. I could write no moresermons; I had preached every sermon I had, that was worth preaching, five times over, and I could not face another repetition. I retired withmy family to the home in Sheffield, and expected to pass some years atleast in the quiet of my native village. [67] I should like to recordsome New Bedford names here, so precious are they to me. Miss Mary Rotchis one, called by everybody "Aunt Mary, " from mingled veneration andaffection. It might seem a liberty to call her so; but it was not, inher case. She had so much dignity and strength in her character andbearing that it was impossible for any one to speak of her lightly. Onour going to New Bedford, she immediately called upon us, and when shewent out I could not help exclaiming, "Wife, were ever hearts taken bystorm like that!" Storm, the word would be, according to the usageof the phrase; but it was the very contrary, a perfect simplicity andkindliness. But she was capable, too, of righteous wrath, as I had morethan one occasion afterwards to see. Indeed, I was once the object ofit myself. It was sometime after I left New Bedford, that, in writing areview of the admirable Life of Blanco White by the Rev. J. H. Thom, of Liverpool, while I spoke with warm appreciation of his character, I commented with regret upon his saying, toward the close of his life, that he did not care whether he should live hereafter; and I happenedto use the phrase, "He died and made no sign, " without thinking of themiserable Cardinal Beaufort, to whom Shakespeare applies it. Aunt Maryimmediately came down upon me with a letter of towering indignation formy intolerance. I replied to her, saying that if ever I should be so[68] happy as to arrive at the blessed world where I believed that sheand Blanco White would be, and they were not too far beyond me for me tohave any communion with them, she would see that I was guilty of no suchexclusiveness as she had ascribed to me. She was pacified, I think, andwe went on, as good friends as ever. Her religious opinions were of themost catholic stamp, and in one respect they were peculiar. The Friends'idea of the "inward light" seemed to have become with her coincidentwith the idea of the Author of all light; and when speaking of theSupreme Being, she would never say "God, " but "that Influence. " ThatInfluence was constantly with her; and she carried the idea so far asto believe that it prompted her daily action, and decided for her everyquestion of duty. 

Miss Eliza Rotch had come from her English home shortly before my goingto New Bedford, and had brought, with her English education and sense, more than the ordinary English powers of conversation. She, like all herfamily, had been bred in the Friends' Society; and she came with manyof them to my church. She was a most remarkable hearer. With her brightface, and her full, speaking eye, and interested especially, no doubt, in the new kind of ministration to which she was listening, she gave meher whole attention, often slightly nodding her assent, unconsciously toherself and unobserved by others. She married Professor John Farrar ofHarvard, and [69] able mathematician, and one of the most genial andlovable men that ever lived. 

Life, in our quiet little town, was more leisurely than it is in cities, and the consequence was an unusual development of amusing qualities. There was more fun, and I ventured sometimes to say, there was morewit, in New Bedford than there was in Boston. To be sure, we couldnot pretend to compare with Boston in culture and in high and fineconversation, least of all in music, which was at a very low ebb withus. I remember being at an Oratorio in one of our churches, where thetrump of Judgment was represented by a horn not much louder than apenny-whistle, blown in an obscure corner of the building!

Charles H. Warren was the prince of humorists among us, and would havebeen so anywhere. Channing said to me one day, "I want to see yourfriend Warren; I want to see him as you do. " I could not help replying, "That you never will; I should as soon expect to hear a man laugh in acathedral. " I never knew a man quite so full of the power to entertainothers in conversation as he was. Lemuel Williams, his brother lawyer, had perhaps a subtler wit. But the way Warren would go on, for a wholeevening, letting off bon-mots, repartees, and puns, made one think of amagazine of pyrotechnics. Yet he was a man of serious thought and fineintellectual powers. He was an able lawyer, and, placed upon the benchat an uncommonly, early [70] age, he sustained himself with honor. Iused to lament that he would not study more, that he gave himself upso much to desultory reading; but he had no ambition. Yet, after all, Ibelieve that the physical organization has more to do with every man'scareer than is commonly suspected. His was very delicate, his complexionfair, and his face, indeed, was fine and expressive in a rare degree. The sanguine-bilious, I think, is the temperament for deep intellectualpower, like Daniel Webster's. It lends not only strength, butprotection, to the workings of the mind within. It is not too sensitiveto surrounding impressions. Concentration is force. Long, deep, undisturbed thinking, alone can bring out great results. I have beenaccustomed to criticise my own temperament in this respect, too easilydrawn aside from study by circumstances, persons, or things around me, external interests or trifles, the wants and feelings of others, ortheir sports, a playing child or a crowing cock. My mind, such as itis, has had to struggle with this outward tendency, too much feeling andsentiment, and too little patient thinking, and I believe that I shouldhave accomplished a great deal more if I had had, not the sanguinealone, but the sanguine-bilious temperament. 

Manasseh Kempton had it. He was the deacon of my church. I used to thinkthat nobody knew, or at least fairly appreciated, him as I did. Underthat heavy brow, and phlegmatic aspect, [71] and reserved bearing, there was an amount of fire and passion and thought, and sometimes inconversation an eloquence, which showed me that, with proper advantages, he would have made a great man. 

James Arnold was a person too remarkable to be passed over in thisaccount of the New Bedford men. With great wealth, with the mostbeautiful situation in the town, and, yet more, with the aid of hiswife, never mentioned or remembered but to be admired, his house was theacceptable resort of strangers, more than any other among us. Mr. Arnoldwas not only a man of unshaken integrity, but of strong thought; andif a liberal education had given him powers of utterance, the habit ofmarshalling his thoughts, equal to the powers of his mind, he would havebeen known as one of the remarkable men in the State. 

One other figure rises to my recollection, which seems hardly to belongto the modern world, and that is Dr. Whittredge of Tiverton. In hisreligious faith he belonged to us, and occasionally came over to attendour church. I used, from time to time, to pay him visits of a day ortwo, always made pleasant by the placid and gentle presence of his wife, and by the brisk and eager conversation of the old gentleman. He wasacquainted in his earlier days with my predecessor, of twenty-five yearsprevious date, Dr. West, himself a remarkable man in his day, [72] andalmost equally so, both for his eccentricity and his sense. An eccentricclergyman, by the by, is rarely seen now; but in former times it was acharacter as common as now it is rare. The commanding position of theclergy the freedom they felt to say and do what they pleased broughtthat trait out in high relief. The great democratic pressure has passedlike a roller over society: everybody is afraid of everybody; everybodywants something, office, appointment, business, position, and he is toreceive it, not from a high patron, but from the common vote or opinion. 

Dr. West's eccentricity arose from absorption into his own thoughts, andforgetfulness of everything around him. He would pray in the family inthe evening till everybody went to sleep, and in the morning till thebreakfast was spoiled. He would preach upon some Scripture passage tillsome one went and moved his mark forward. He once paid a visit to theGovernor in Boston, and, having got drenched in the rain, was suppliedwith a suit of his host's, which unconsciously, he wore home, andarrayed in which, he appeared in his pulpit on Sunday morning. At thesame time he was a man of strong and independent thought. I have reada "Reply" of his to Edwards on the Will, in which the subject was ablydiscussed, but without the needful logical coherence, perhaps, to makeits mark in the debate. [73] The conversations of West with his friend, Dr. Whittredge, as the latter told me, ran constantly into theologicalquestions, upon which they differed. West was a frequent visitor atTiverton, and, when the debate drew on towards midnight, Whittredge wasobliged to say, "Well, I can't sit here talking with you all night;for I must sleep, that I may go and see my patients to-morrow. " Hewas vexed, he said, that he should thus seem to "cry quarter" in thecontroversy again and again, and he resolved that the next time he metWest, he would not stop, be they where they might. It so happened thattheir next meeting was at the head of Acushnet River, three miles aboveNew Bedford, where Whittredge was visiting his patients, and West hisparishioners. This done, they set out towards evening to walk to NewBedford. Whittredge throwing the bridle-rein over his arm, they walkedon slowly, every now and then turning aside into some crook of thefence, the horse meantime getting his advantage in a bit of green grass, and thus they talked and walked, and walked and talked, till the daybroke!

But the most remarkable thing about my venerable parishioner remains tobe mentioned. Dr. Whittredge was an alchemist. He had a furnace, in alittle building separate from his house, where he kept a fire for fortyyears, till he was more than eighty, visiting it every night, of summerand winter alike, to be sure of keeping it alive; [74] and meltingdown, as his family said, many a good guinea, and all to find thephilosopher's stone, the mysterious metal that should turn all to gold. From delicacy I never alluded to the subject with him, I am sorry nowthat I did not. And he never adverted to it with me but once, and thatwas in a way which showed that he had no mean or selfish aims in hispatient and mysterious search; and, indeed, no one could doubt that hewas a most benevolent and kind-hearted man. The occasion was this: Hehad been to our church one day, indeed, it was his last attendance, andas we came down from the pulpit, where he always sat, the better to hearme, and as we were walking slowly through the broad aisle, he laid hishand upon my shoulder, and said, "Ah, sir, this is the true doctrine!But it wants money, it wants money, sir, to spread it, and I hope itwill have it before long. "

While in Europe I had kept a journal, and I low published it under thetitle of "The Old World and the New, " and about the same time, I forgetwhich was first, a volume of sermons entitled, "Discourses on VariousSubjects. " The idea of my book of travels, I think, was a good me, tosurvey the Old World from the experience of the New, and the New fromthe observation of the Old; but it was so ill carried out hat what Imainly proposed to myself on my second visit to Europe, ten years after, was to [75] fulfil, as far as I could, my original design. But my healthdid not allow of it. I made many notes, but brought nothing into shapefor publication. I still believe that America has much to teach toEurope, especially in the energy, development, and progress lent to apeople by the working of the free principle; and that Europe has much toteach to America, in the value of order, routine, thorough discipline, thorough education, division of labor, economy of means, adjustment ofthe means to living, etc. As to my first volume of sermons, if any onewould see his thoughts laid out in a winding-sheet, let them be laidbefore him in printer's proofs; that which had been to me alive andglowing, and had had at least the life of earnest utterance, now, through this weary looking over of proof-sheets, seemed dead andshrouded for the grave. It did not seem to me possible that anybodywould find it alive. I have hardly ever had a sadder feeling than thatwith which I dismissed this volume from my hands. 

At the time of my retirement to Sheffield, the Second CongregationalChurch in New York, which had formerly invited me to its pulpit, waswithout a pastor, and I was asked to go down there and preach. I couldpreach, though I could not write; my sermons, with their five earmarksupon them in New Bedford, would be new in another pulpit, and Iconsented. I was soon [76] invited to take charge of the church, butdeclined it. It was even proposed to me to be established simplyas preacher, and to be relieved from parochial visiting; but as thecongregation was small, and could not support a pastor beside me, Ideclined that also. But I went on preaching, and after about a year, feeling myself stronger, I consented to be settled in the church withfull charge, and was installed on the 8th November, 1835, Dr. Walkerpreaching the sermon. 

The church was on the corner of Mercer and Prince Streets; a badsituation, inasmuch as it was on a corner, that is, it was noisy, andthe annoyance became so great that I seriously thought more than onceof proposing to the congregation to sell and build elsewhere. On otheraccounts the church was always very pleasant to me. It was of moderatesize, holding seven or eight hundred people, and became in the courseof a year or two quite full. The stairs to the galleries went up on theinside, giving it, I know not what, a kind of comfortable and domesticair, very social and agreeable; and last, not least, it was easyto speak in. This last consideration, I am convinced, is of moreimportance, and is so in more ways, than is commonly supposed. A placehard to speak in is apt to create, especially in the young preacher justforming his habits, a hard and unnatural manner of speaking. More thanone young preacher have I known, who began with good natural tones, inthe course of a [77] year or two, to fall into a loud, pulpit monotone, or to bring out all his cadences with a jerk, or with a disagreeablestress of voice, to be heard. One must be heard, that is the firstrequisite, and to have one and another come out of church Sunday afterSunday, and touch your elbow, and say, "Sir, I could n't hear you; Iwas interested in what I could hear, but just at the point of greatestinterest, half of the time, I lost your cadence, " is more than any mancan bear for a long time, and so he resorts to loud tones and monotonouscadences, and he is obliged to think, much of the time, more of the meredry fact of being heard, than of the themes that should pour themselvesout in full unfolding ease and freedom. I have fought through my wholeprofessional life against this criticism, striving to keep some freedomand nature in my speech, though I have made every effort consistent withthat to be heard. I have not always succeeded; but I have tried, andhave always been grateful, a considerable virtue, especially when thehearer was himself a little deaf to every one who admonished me. Thisis really a matter that seriously concerns the very religion thatwe preach. Everybody knows what the preaching tone is; it canbe distinguished the moment it is heard, outside of any church, school-house, or barn where it is uplifted; but few consider, I believe, of what immense disservice it is to the great cause we have at heart. Preaching is the [78] principal ministration of religion, and if it behard and unnatural, the very idea of religion is likely to be hard andunnatural, far away from the every-day life and affections of men. Stampupon music a character as hard, technical, unnatural as most preachinghas, and would men be won by it? I do not say that what I have mentionedis the sole cause of the "preaching tone;" false ideas of religion have, doubtless, even more to do with it. But still it is of such importancethat I think no church interior should be built without especial nay, without sole reference to the end for which it is built, namely, tospeak in. Let what can be done for the architecture of the exteriorbuilding; but let not an interior be made with recesses and projectionsand pillars and domes, only to please the eye, while it is to hurt theedification of successive generations, for two or for ten centuries. Noornamentation can compensate for that injury. The science of acousticsis as yet but little understood; all that we seem to know thus far isthat the plain, unadorned parallelogram is the best form. And even ifwe must stick to that, I had rather have it than a church half ruinedby architectural devices. Our Protestant churches are built, not forceremonies and spectacles and processions, but for prayer and preaching. And the fitness of means to ends that first law of architecture issacrificed by a church interior made more to be looked at than to beheard in. [79] But to return: we were not long to occupy the pleasantlittle church in Mercer Street, pleasant memories I hope there are of itto others besides myself. On Sunday morning, the 26th November, 1837, it was burned to the ground. Nothing was saved but my library, which wasflung out of the vestry window, and the pulpit Bible, which I have, apresent from the trustees. 

The congregation immediately took a hall for temporary worship in theStuyvesant Institute, and directed its thoughts to the building of a newchurch. Much discussion there was as to the style and the localityof the new structure, and at length it was determined to build in asemi-Gothic style, on Broadway. I was not myself in favor of Broadway, it being the great city thoroughfare, and ground very expensive; but itwas thought best to build there. It was contended that a propagandistchurch should occupy a conspicuous situation, and perhaps that view hasbeen borne out by the result. One parishioner, I remember, had an odd, or at least an old-fashioned, idea about the matter. "Sir, " said he, "you don't understand our feeling about Broadway. Sir, there is but oneBroadway in the world. " It is now becoming a street of shops and hotels, and is fast losing its old fashionable prestige. 

The building was completed in something more than a year, and on the2d May, 1839, it was dedicated, under the name of the Church ofthe Messiah. The burning of our sanctuary had [80] proved to be ourupbuilding; the position of the Stuyvesant Institute on Broadway, andthe plan of free seats, had increased our numbers, and we entered thenew church with a congregation one third larger than that with which weleft the old. The building had cost about $90, 000, and it was a criticalmoment to us all, but to me especially, when the pews came to be sold. It may be judged what was my relief from anxiety when word was broughtme, two hours after the auction was opened, that $70, 000 worth of pewswere taken. 

It was a strong desire with me that the church should have somepermanent name. I did not want that it should be called Dewey 's church, and then by the name of my successor, and so on; but that it should beknown by some fixed designation, and so pass down, gathering about itthe sacred associations of years and ages to come. I believe that it wasthe first instance in our Unitarian body of solemnly dedicating a churchby some sacred name. 

Another wish of mine was to enter the new church with the Liturgyof King's Chapel in Boston for our form of service. The subject wasrepeatedly discussed in meetings of the congregation; but although itbecame evident that there would be a majority in favor of it, yet asthese did not demand it, and there was a considerable minority stronglyopposed to it, we judged that there was not a state of feeling among usthat would justify the introduction of what so essentially [81] requiredunanimity and heartiness as a new form of worship. And I am now gladthat it was not introduced. For while I am as much satisfied as everof the great utility of a Liturgy, I have become equally convinced thatoriginal, spontaneous prayer is likely to open the preacher's heart, or to stir up the gift in him in a way very important to his ownministration and to the edification of his people. The best service, Ithink, should consist of both. 

And I cannot help believing that a church service will yet be arrangedwhich will be an improvement upon all existing ones, Roman Catholic, Church of England, or any other. If in the highest ranges of humanattainment there is to be an advancement of age beyond age, surely thereis to be a progress in the spirit and language of prayer. From someforming hand and heart, by the united aid of consecrated genius, wisdom, and piety, something is to come greater than we have yet seen. NoHomeric poem or vision of Dante is so grand as that will be. What is thehighest idea of God, excluding superstition, anthropomorphism, and vagueimpersonality alike, what is the fit and true utterance of the deepestand divinest heart to God, this, I must think, may well occupy thesublimest meditations of human intellect and devotion. Not that theentire Liturgy, however, should be the product of any one man's thought. I would have in a Liturgy some of the time-hallowed prayers, some ofthe Litanies [82] that have echoed in the ear of all the ages from theearly Christian time. The churches of Rome and England and Germany havesome of these; and in a service-book, supposed to be compiled by theChevalier Bunsen, there are others, prayers of Basil and of Jerome andAugustine, and of the old German time. There are beautiful things inthem, especially in the old German prayers there is something veryfilial, free, and touching; but they would want a great deal ofexpurgation, and I believe that better prayers are uttered today thanwere ever heard before; and it is from uttered, not written prayers, ifI could do so by the aid of a stenographer or of a perfect memory, thatI would draw contributions to a book of devotion. What would I not givefor some prayers of Channing or of Henry Ware! some that I have heardby their own firesides, or of Dr. Gardiner Spring, or of Dr. Payson ofPortland, that I heard in church many years ago, for the very words thatfell from their lips! I do not believe that the right prayers were evercomposed, Dr ever will be. 

After the dedication of our church I went on with my duties for threeyears, and then again broke down in health, able indeed, that is, with physical strength, to preach, but not able to write sermons. Thecongregation increased; many of is members became communicants; in thelast Tear before I went abroad once more, the church [83] was crowded;in the evening especially, the aisles as well as pews were sometimesfilled. 

It was this fulness of the attendance in the evening that reconciled meto a second service; especially it was that many strangers came, to whomI had no other opportunity to declare my views of religion. For Ijudge that, for any given congregation, one service of worship, and ofmeditation such as the sermon is designed to awaken, is enough for oneday. In the "Christian Examiner, " two or three years after this, I thinkit was; I published an article on this subject, in which I maintainedthat there was too much preaching, too much preaching for the preacher, and too much preaching for the people. It was received with greatsurprise and little favor, I believe, at the time; but since then nota few persons, both of the clergy and laity, have expressed to me theirentire agreement with it. What I said, and say, is that one sermon, onediscourse of solemn meditation, designed to make a distinct and abidingimpression upon the heart and life, is all that anybody should preachor hear in one day, and that the other part of Sunday should be used forconference or Sunday-school, or instructive lecture, or something witha character and purpose different from the morning meditation, somethingto instruct the people in the history, or evidences, or theory, orscriptural exposition of our religion. Indeed, I did this myself asoften as I was able, though it tried the [84] religious prejudices ofsome of my people, and my own too, about what a sermon should be. Idiscussed the morals of trade, political morality, civic duty, that ofvoters, jurymen, etc. , social questions, peace and war, and the problemof the human life and condition. Some portions of these last wereincorporated into the course of Lowell Lectures on this subject, whichI afterwards published. And it is high time to take this matter intoserious consideration; for in all churches where the hearing of two orthree sermons on Sunday is not held to be a positive religious duty, thesecond service is falling away into a thin and spectral shadow of publicworship, discouraging to the attendants upon it, and dishonoring toreligion itself. 

The pastor of a large congregation in the city of New York has nosinecure. The sermons to be written, the parochial visiting, once ayear, at least, to each family, and weekly or daily to the sick andafflicted, my walks commonly extended to from four to seven miles aday, the calls of the poor and distressed, laboring under every kind ofdifficulty, the charities to be distributed, I was in part the almonerof the congregation, the public meetings, the committees to be attended, the constantly widening circle of social relations and engagements, thepressure, in fine, of all sorts of claims upon time and thought, allthis made a very laborious life for me. Yet it was pleasant, and veryinteresting. I thought when I [85]first went to the great city, whenI first found myself among those busy throngs, none of whom knew me, beside those ranges of houses, none of which had any association forme, that I should never feel at home in New York. But it became veryhome-like to me. The walls became familiar to my eye; the pavement grewsoft to my foot. I built me a house, that first requisite for feeling athome. I chanced to see a spot that I fancied: it was in Mercer Street, between Waverley Place and Eighth Street, just in the centre ofeverything, a step from Broadway and my church, just out of the noise ofeverything; there we passed many happy days. I have been quite a builderof houses in my life. I built one in New Bedford. My study had theloveliest outlook upon Buzzard's Bay and the Elizabeth Islands, I shallnever have such a study again. Oh, the joy of that sea view! When I cameto it again, after a vacation's absence, it moved me like the sight ofan old friend. And I have built about the old home in Sheffield, till itis almost a new erection. 

But to return to New York: I was very happy there. I had a congregation, I believe, that was interested in me. I made friends that were and aredear to me. When I first went to New York, I was elected a member of theArtists' Club, or Club of the Twenty-one, as it was called; by what goodfortune or favor I know not, for I was the first clergyman that had everbeen a member of it. It consisted of artists and other gentlemen, [86] an equal number of each. Cole and Durand and Ingham and Inman andChapman and Bryant and Verplanck and Charles Hoffman were in it when Ifirst became acquainted with it; and younger artists have been broughtinto it since, Gray and' Huntingdon and Kensett, and othernon-professional gentlemen interested in art, and the meetings have beenalways pleasant. It was a kind of heart's home to me while I lived inNew York, and I always resort to it now when I go there, sure of welcomeand kindly greeting. '

Then, again, I had in William Ware, the pastor of the First Church, afriend and fellow-laborer, than whom, if I were to seek the world over, I could not find one more to my liking. Our friendship was as intimateas I ever had with any man, and our constant intercourse, to enterhis house as freely as my own, his coming to mine was as a sunbeam, ascheering and undisturbing, I thought I could not get along withoutit. But I was obliged to do so. He had often talked of resigning hissituation, and I had obtained from him a promise that he would never doit without consulting me. Great was my surprise, then, to learn, one daywhile in the country, that he had sent in his resignation. My firstword to him on going to town was, "What is this? You have broken yourpromise. " "I did not consult even [87] my father or my brothers, " washis reply. I could say nothing. The truth was, that things had come tothat pass in his mind that the case was beyond consultation. Heconsidered himself as having made a fatal mistake in his choice of aprofession. I have some very touching letters from him, in which hedwells upon it as his "mistake for a life. " His nature was essentiallyartistic; he would have made a fine painter. He could have workedbetween silent walls. He could write admirably, as all the world knows;I need only mention "Zenobia" and "Aurelian" and "Probus. " But there wasa certain delicacy and shrinking in his nature that made it difficultfor him to pour himself out freely in the presence of an audience. Andyet a congregation, consisting in part of some of the most cultivatedpersons in New York, held him, as preacher and pastor, in an esteem andaffection that any man might have envied. 

[FN: The well-known Century Club of New York is the modern developmentof what was first known as the Sketch Club, or the XXI. M. E. D. ]

And to repair the circle of my happy social relations, broken by Ware'sdeparture, came Bellows to fill his place. I gave him the right hand offellowship at his ordination; and I remember saying in it, that I wouldnot have believed it possible for me to welcome anybody to the place ofhis predecessor with the pleasure with which I welcomed him. The auguryof that hour has been fulfilled in most delightful intercourse withone of the noblest and most generous men I ever knew. With a singularlyclear insight and penetration [88] into the deepest things of ourspiritual nature, with an earnestness and fearlessness breaking throughall technical rules and theories, with a buoyancy and cheerfulness thatnothing can dampen, with a fitness and readiness for all occasions, hispower as a preacher and his pleasantness as a companion have made himone of the most marked men of his day. 

As to my general intercourse with society, whether in New York orelsewhere, I have always felt that its freedom lay under disagreeablerestrictions, if not under a lay-interdict; and when travelling asa stranger I have always chosen not to be known as a clergyman, andcommonly was not. I once had a curious and striking illustration of thefeeling about clergymen to which I am alluding. I was invited by Mr. Prescott Hall, the eminent lawyer, to meet the Kent Club at his house, a law club then just formed. As I arrived a little before the company, Isaid to him: "Mr. Hall, I am sorry you have formed this kind of club, aclub exclusively of lawyers. In Boston they have one of long standing, consisting of our professions, and four members of each, that is oflawyers, doctors, clergymen, and merchants. " "To tell you the truth, "he answered, "I don't like the clergy. " I said that I could conceiveof reasons, but I should like to hear him state them. "Why, " said, he, "they come over me; they don't put themselves on a level with me; theytalk [89] ex cathedra. " I was obliged to bow my head in acquiescence;but I did say, "I think I know a class of clergymen of whom that is nottrue; and, besides, if I could bring all the clergy of this city intoclubs of the Boston description, I believe those habits would be brokenup in a single year. "

There were two men who came to our church whose coming seemed to be bychance, but was of great interest to me, for I valued them greatly. Theywere Peter Cooper and Joseph Curtis. Neither of them, then, belongedto any religious society, or regularly attended upon any church. They happened to be walking down Broadway one Sunday evening as thecongregation were altering Stuyvesant Hall, where we then temporarilyworshipped, and they said, "Let us go in were, and see what this is. "When they came out, is they both told me, they said to one another, "This is the place for us" And they immediately connected themselveswith the congregation, to be among its most valued members. 

Peter Cooper was even then meditating that plan of a grand EducationalInstitute which he afterwards carried out. He was engaged in a large andsuccessful business, and his one idea which he often discussed withme was to obtain the means of building that Institute. A man of thegentlest nature and the simplest habits; yet his religious nature washis most remarkable quality. It seemed to breathe through his life as[90] fresh and tender as if it were in some holy retreat, instead ofa life of business. Mr. Cooper has become a distinguished man, muchengaged in public affairs, and much in society. I have seen him butlittle of late years; but I trust he has not lost that which is worthmore than all the distinctions and riches in the world. 

Joseph Curtis was a man much less known generally, and yet, in onerespect, much more, and that was in the sphere of the public schools. Hedid more, I think, than any man to bring up the free schools of New Yorkto such a point as compelled our Boston visitors to confess that theywere not a whit inferior to their own. And his were voluntary and unpaidservices, though his means were always moderate. He neither had, normade, nor cared to make, a fortune. He cared for the schools as fornothing else; and there is no wiser or nobler care. For more than twentyyears he spent half of his time in the schools, walking among them withsuch intelligent and gentle oversight as to win universal confidenceand affection, so that he was commonly called, by teachers and pupils, "Father Curtis. "

At the same time, his hand and heart were open to every call of charity. I remember once making him umpire between me and Horace Greeley, theonly time that I ever met the latter in company. He was saying, afterhis fashion in the "Tribune, "--he was from nature and training aDemocrat, and had no natural right ever to be in [91] the Whig party, hewas saying that the miseries of the poor in New York were all owing tothe rich; when I said, "Mr. Greeley, here sits Mr. Joseph Curtis, whohas walked the streets of New York for more years than you and I havebeen here, and I propose that we listen to him. " He could not refuse tomake the appeal, and so I put a series of questions upon the point toMr. Curtis. The answers did not please Mr. Greeley. He broke in once ortwice, saying, "Am not I to have a chance to speak? ". But I persistedand said, "Nay, but we have agreed to listen to Mr. Curtis. " The upshotwas, that, in his opinion, the miseries of the poor in New York were notowing to the rich, but mainly to themselves; that there was ordinarilyremunerative labor enough for them; and that, but in exceptionalcases of sickness and especial misfortune, those who fell into utterdestitution and beggary came to that pass through their idleness, theirrecklessness, or their vices. That was always my opinion. They besiegedour door from morning till night, and I was obliged to help them, tolook after them, to go to their houses; my family was worn out withthese offices. But I looked upon beggary as, in all ordinary cases, prima facie evidence that there was something wrong behind it. 

The great evil and mischief lay in indiscriminate charity. Many were thewalks we took to avoid this, and often with little satisfaction. I havewalked across the whole breadth of the city, [92] on a winter's day, to find a man dressed better than I was, with blue broadcloth and metalbuttons and new boots, and just sitting down to a very comfortabledinner. The wife was rather taken aback by my entrance, it was she whohad come to me, and the man, of course, must say something for himself, and this it was: He "had fallen behind of late, in consequence of notreceiving his rents from England. He was the owner of two houses inSheffield. " "Well, " I said, "If that is so, you are better off than Iam;" and I took a not very courteous leave of them. 

To give help in a better way, an Employment Society was formed in ourchurch to cut out and prepare garments for poor women to sew, andbe paid for it. A salesroom was opened in Amity Street, to sell thearticles made up, at a trifling addition to their cost. The ladies ofthe congregation were in attendance at the church, in a large ante-room, to prepare the garments and give them out, and a hundred or more poorwomen came every Thursday to bring their work and receive more; and theyhave been coming to this day. It was thought an excellent plan, and wasadopted by other churches. The ladies of All Souls joined in it, and theinstitution is now transferred to that church. 

One day, in the winter I think of 1837, I heard of an association ofgentlemen formed to investigate this terrible subject of mendacity inour city, and to find some way of methodizing our chari-[93] ties andprotecting them from abuse. I went down immediately to Robert Minturn, who, I was told, took a leading part in this movement, and told him thatI had come post-haste to inquire what he and his friends were doing, forthat nothing in our city life pressed upon my mind like this. I used, indeed, to feel at times and Bellows had the same feeling as if I wouldfain fling up my regular professional duties, and plunge into this greatsea of city pauperism and misery. 

Mr. Minturn told me that he, with four or five others, had taken upthis subject; that, for more than a year past, they had met together oneevening in the week to confer with one another upon it; that they hadopened a correspondence with all our great cities, and with some inEurope; and sometimes had sent out agents to inquire into the methodsthat had been adopted to stem these enormous city evils. Mr. Minturnwished me to join them, and I expected to be formally invited to do so;but I was not, nor to a great public meeting called soon after, undertheir auspices. I suppose there was no personal feeling against me, onlyan Orthodox one. Well, no matter. It was a noble enterprise, betterthan any sectarianism ever suggested, and worthy of record, especiallyconsidering its spontaneity, labor, and expense. 

Their plan, when matured, was this: to district the city; to appointone person in each district to receive all applications for aid; tosell tickets [94] of various values, which we could buy and give theapplicant at our doors, to be taken to the agent, who would render theneeded help, according to his judgment. Of course the beggars did notlike it. I found that, half the time, they would not take the tickets. It would give them some trouble, but the special trouble, doubtless, with the reckless and dishonest among them, was that it would preventthem from availing themselves of the aid of twenty families, all actingin ignorance of what each was doing. 

Jonathan Goodhue was a man whom nobody that knew him can ever forget. Tall and fine-looking in person, simple and earnest in manners, withsuch a warmth in his accost that to shake hands with him was to feelhappier for it all the day after. I remember passing down Wall Streetone day when old Robert Lenox was standing by his side. After one ofthose warm greetings, I passed on, and Mr. Lenox said, "Who is that?""Mr. Dewey, a clergyman of a church in the city. " "Of which church?"said Mr. Lenox. "Of the Unitarian church. " "The Lord have mercy uponhim!" said the old man. It was a good prayer, and I have no doubt it waskindly made. 

Alas! What I am writing is a necrology: they are all gone of whom Ispeak. George Curtis, too; he died before I left the Church of theMessiah, died in his prime. George William Curtis is [95] his son, wellknown as one of our most graceful writers and eloquent men: somethinghereditary in that, for his father had one of the clearest heads I knew, and a gifted tongue, though he was too modest to be a great talker. Hecould make a good speech, and once he made one that was more effectivethan I could have wished. The question was about electing Thomas StarrKing to be my colleague. The congregation was immensely taken with him;but Mr. Curtis opposed on the ground that King was a Universalist, andhe carried everything before him. He said, as it was reported to me, "Iwas born a Unitarian; I have lived a Unitarian; and, if God please, I mean to die a Unitarian!" He had the old-fashioned, and indeedwell-founded, dislike of Universalism. But all that is changed now, waschanging then; for the Universalists have given up their preaching of noretribution hereafter. They are in other respects, also, Unitarians, andthe two bodies affiliate and are friends. 

Moses Grinnell was a marked man in New York. A successful and popularmerchant, his generosity was ample as his means; and I have known himin circumstances that required a higher generosity than that of givingmoney, and he stood the test perfectly. His mind, too, grew with hisrise in the world. He was sent to Congress, and his acquaintance fromthat time with many distinguished men gave a new turn to his thoughtsand a higher tone to his character and [96] conversation. At his house, where I was often a guest, I used to meet Washington Irving, whose niecehe married. Of course everybody knows of Washington Irving; but thereare one or two anecdotes, of which I doubt whether they appear in hisbiography, and which I am tempted to relate. He told me that he oncewent to a theatre in London to hear some music. (They use theatres inLondon as music-halls, and I went to one myself, once, to hear Paganini, and enjoyed an evening that I can never forget. His one string forhe broke all the others was a heart-string. ) Mr. Irving said that onentering the theatre he found in the pit only three or four Englishgentleman, who had evidently come early, as he had, to find a goodplace. Accordingly, he took his seat near them, when one of them ratherloftily said, "That seat is engaged, sir. " He got up and took a seat alittle farther off, when they said, "That, too, is engaged. " Again hemeekly rose, and took another place. Pretty soon one of the party said, "Do you remember Washington Irving's description of a band of music?"(It is indeed a most amusing caricature. One of the performers had blownhis visnomy to a point. Another blew as if he were blowing his wholeestate, real and personal, through his instrument. I quote from memory. )Mr. Irving said they went over with the whole description, with muchentertainment and laughter. They little knew that they had thrust aside[97] the author of their pleasure, who sat there, like the great Caliph, incognito, and they would have paid him homage enough if they had knownhim. 

Mrs. S. Told me that one evening he strolled up to their piazza, theylived near to one another in the country, and fell into one of thoseeasy and unpremeditated talks, in which, to be sure, he was always mostpleasant, when he said, among other things, "Don't be anxious about theeducation of your daughters: they will do very well; don't teach themso many things, --teach them one thing. " "What is that, Mr. Irving?" sheasked. "Teach them, " he said, "to be easily pleased. "

Bryant, too, everybody knows of. Now he is chiefly known as poet; butwhen I went to New York-people thought most about him as editor of the"Evening Post, " and that with little enough complacency in the circleswhere I moved. How many a fight I had for him with my Whig friends! Forhe was my parishioner, and it was known that we were much together. The"Evening Post" was a thorn in their sides, and every now and then, whensome keen editorial appeared in it, they used to say, "There! What doyou say of that?" I always said the same thing: Whether you and I likewhat he says or not, whether we think it fair or not, of one thing besure, he is a man of perfect integrity; he is so almost to a fault, ifthat be possible, regarding [98] neither feelings nor friendships, noranything else, when justice and truth are in question. 

Speaking of Bryant brings to mind Audubon, the celebrated naturalist. I became acquainted with him through his family's attending our church, and one day proposed to Mr. Bryant to go with me to see him. Seatinghimself before the poet, Audubon quietly said, "You are our flower, "--avery pretty compliment, I thought, from a man of the woods. 

I happened to fall in with Mr. Audubon one day in the cars going toPhiladelphia, when he was setting out, I think, on his last great touracross the American wilderness. He described to me his outfit, to beassumed when he arrived at the point of departure, a suit of dresseddeerskin, his only apparel. In this he was to thread the forest and swimthe rivers; with his rifle, of course, and powder and shot; a tin caseto hold his drawing-paper and pencils, and a blanket. Meat, the produceof the chase, was to be his only food, and the earth his bed, for two orthree months. I said, shrinking from such hardship, "I could n't standthat. "--"If you were to go with me, " he replied, "I would bring you outon the other side a new man. " He broke down under it, however, ratherprematurely; for in that condition I saw him once more, --his health andfaculties shattered, --near the end of his life. 

[99] But to return, --turning and returning upon one's self must be thecourse of an autobiography, my health having a second time completelyfailed, I determined again to go abroad; and to make the measure ofrelief more complete, I determined to go for two years, and to take myfamily with me. The sea was a horror to me, but beyond it lay pleasantlands that I wanted to look upon once more, galleries of art by whichI wished to sit down and study at my leisure, and, above all, rest: Iwanted to be where no one could call on me to preach or lecture, to dothis or do that. 

We sailed for Havre in October, 1841, passed the winter in Paris, the summer following in Switzerland, the next winter in Italy, and, returning through Germany, spent two months in England, and came home inAugust, 1843. 

While in Geneva I was induced for my health to make trial of the"water-cure, " and first to try what they call the "Arve bath. " TheCampagne at Champel, where we were passing the summer, is washed forhalf a mile by the Arve. In hot August days I walked slowly by theriver-bank, with cloak on, till a moderate perspiration was induced, then jumped in, --and out as quick! for the river, though it had runsixty miles from its source, seemed as cold as when it left the glacierof the Arveiron at Chamouni. Experiencing no ill effect, however, Idetermined to try the regular water-cure, and for this purpose, in[100] our travel through Switzerland, stopped at Meyringen in the Valeof Hasli. I was "packed, "-bundled up in bed blankets every morning atdaybreak, went through the consequent furnace of heat and drench ofperspiration for two or three hours, --then was taken by a servant onhis back, me and my wrappages, the whole bundle, and carried down to thegreat bath, only 6 of Reaumur above ice (45 degrees Fahrenheit), plungedin, got out again in no deliberate way, was pushed under a shower-bathof the same glacier water, fought my way out of that, at arm's end withthe attendant, when he enveloped me in warm, dry sheets, and made mecomfortable in one minute. It was of no use, however. My brain grew morenervous, the doctor agreed that it did not suit me, and shortly I gaveit up. 

At Rome we were introduced with a small American party to the Pope, Gregory XVI. It was just after the Carnival and just before Lent. Theold man expressed his pleasure that the people had enjoyed themselves inCarnival, "But now, " said he, "I suppose a great many of them will findthemselves out of health in Lent, and will want indulgences. " I couldnot help thinking how much that last was like a Puritan divine. 

What a life is life in Rome!--not common, not like any other, but as ifthe pressure of stupendous and crowding histories were upon every day. A presence haunts you that is more than all you see. We Americans, withsome invited [101] guests, celebrated Washington's birthday by a dinner. In a speech I said, "I was asked the other day, what struck me most inRome, and I answered, --To think that this is Rome!" Lucien Bonaparte, who sat opposite me at table, bowed his head with emphasis, as ifhe said, "That is true. " He was entitled to know what great historicmemories are; and those of his family, criticise them as we may, --and Iam not one of their admirers, --do not, perhaps, fall below much of theRoman imperial grandeur. 

On coming to England from the Continent, among many things to admire, there were two things we were especially thankful for, --comfort andhospitality. We had not been in London half a day before I had renteda furnished house, and we were established in it. That is, theowner, occupying the basement, gave us the parlors above and amplesleeping-rooms, and the use of her servants, -we defraying the expense ofour table, --for so much a month. We took possession of our apartmentsan hour after we had engaged them, and had nothing to do but order ourdinner and walk out; and all this for less, I think, than it would havecost us to live at a good boarding-house in Broadway. 

We visited various parts of England, --Warwick, Kenilworth, Oxford, Birmingham, and Liverpool, and made acquaintance with persons whom toknow was worth going far, and whom [102] to remember has been a constantpleasure ever since. 

Well, we came back in August, 1843, in the steamer "Hibernia. " Whata joy to return home! We landed in Boston. The railroad acrossMassachusetts had been completed during our absence, and brought usto Sheffield in six or seven hours; it had always been a weary journeybefore, of three days by coach, or a week with our own horse. A fewdays' rest, and then six or eight hours more took us to New York, wherewe found the water fountains opened; the Croton had been brought in thatsummer. Did it not seem all very fit and festal to us? For we had comehome!

My health, however, was only partially reestablished, and the recruitingwhich had got me for constant service in my church but three years more. The winter of 1846-47 I passed in Washington, serving the little churchthere. En the spring I returned to New York, struggled on with my dutiesin the church for another year; in the spring of 1848 sold my house, andretired to the Sheffield home, continuing to preach occasionally in NewYork for a number of months longer, when, early in 1849, my connectionwith the Church of the Messiah was finally dissolved. I would willinglyhave remained with it on condition of discharging a partial service, with a colleague to assist me: it was the only chance I saw [103] ofcontinuing in my profession. The congregation, at my instance, hadsought for a colleague, both during my absence in Europe and in thelater years of my continuance with it, but had failed, --there appearingto be some singular reluctance in our young preachers to enter intothat relation, --and there seemed nothing for the church to do but toinaugurate a new ministration. 

It was in this crisis of my worldly affairs, so trying to a clergymanwho is dependent on his salary, that I experienced the benefit of a rulethat early in life I prescribed to myself; and that was, always to layup for a future day some portion of my annual income. I insisted upon itthat, with as much foresight as the ant or the bee, I might be allowedwithout question so to use the salary appointed to me as to make someprovision for the winter-day of life, or for the spring that would comeafter, and might be to others bleak and cold and desolate without it. Sooften have I witnessed this, that I am most heartily thankful that, onleaving New York, I was not reduced to utter destitution, and that withsome moderate exertion I am able to provide for our modest wants. Atthe same time I do not feel obliged to conceal the conviction, and neverdid, that the service of religion in our churches meets with no justremuneration. One may suffer martyrdom and not complain; but I do notthink one is bound to say that it is a reasonable or pleasant thing. [104] Another thing I will be so frank as to say on leaving New York, and that is, that it was a great moral relief to me to lay down theburden of the parochial charge. I regretted to leave New York; I couldhave wished to live and die among the friends I had there; I should makeit my plan now to spend my winters there, if I could afford it: but thatparticular relation to society, --no man, it seems to me, can heartilyenter into it without feeling it to weigh heavily upon him. Sympathywith affliction is the trial-point of the clergyman's office. In thenatural and ordinary relations of life every man has enough of it. But to take into one's heart, more or less, the personal and domesticsorrows of two or three hundred families, is a burden which no man whohas not borne it can conceive of. I sometimes doubt whether it was evermeant that any man, or at least any profession of men, should bear it;whether the general ministrations of the pulpit to affliction should notsuffice, leaving the application to the hearer in this case as in othercases; whether the clergyman's relations to distress and sufferingshould not be like every other man's, --general with his acquaintance, intimate with his friends; whether, if there were nothing conventionalor customary about this matter, most families would not prefer to beleft to themselves, without a professional call from their minister. Suppose that there were no rule with regard to it; that the clergyman, like every [105] other man, went where his feelings carried him, or hisrelations warranted; that it was no more expected of him, as a matterof course, to call upon a bereaved family, than of any other of theiracquaintance, --would not that be a better state of things? I am sure Ishould prefer it, if I were a parishioner. When, indeed, the minister ofreligion wishes to turn to wise account the suffering of sickness orof bereavement, let him choose the proper time: reflection best comesafter; it is not in the midst of groans and agonies, of sobs andlamentations, that deep religious impressions are usually made. 

I have a suspicion withal, that there is something semi-barbaric inthese immediate and urgent ministrations to affliction, something of theIndian or Oriental fashion, or something derived from the elder time, when the priest was wise and the people rude. For ignorant people, whohave no resources nor reflections of their own, such ministrations maybe proper and needful now. I may be in the wrong about all this. PerhapsI ought to suspect it. There is more that is hereditary in us all, Isuppose, than we know. My father never could bear the sight of sicknessor distress: it made him faint. There is a firmness, doubtless, that isbetter than this; but I have it not. Very likely I am wrong. My friendPutnam [FN: Rev. George Putnam, D. D. , of Roxbury, Mass. --M. E. D. ]lately tried to convince me of it, in a conversation we had; maintainingthat the [106] parochial relation ought not to be, and need not be, thatburden upon the mind which I found it. And I really feel bound on such apoint, rather than myself, to trust him, one of the most finely balancednatures I ever knew. Why, then, do I say all these things? Because, ingiving an account of myself, I suppose I ought to say and confess what ajumble of pros and cons I am. 

Heaven knows I have tried hard to keep right; and if I am not as full asI can hold of one-sided and erratic opinions, I think it some praise.. . . I do strive to keep in my mind a whole rounded circle of truthand opinion. It would be pleasant to let every mental tendency run itslength; but I could not do so. It may be pride or narrowness; but I mustkeep on some terms with myself. I cannot find my understanding fallinginto contradiction with the judgments it formed last month or last year, without suspecting not only that there was something wrong then, butthat there is something wrong now, to be resisted. That "there is a meanin things" is held, I believe, to be but a mean apothegm now-a-days;but I do not hold it to be such. All my life I have endeavored to hold abalance against the swayings of my mind to the one side and the otherof every question. I suppose this appears in my course, such as it hasbeen, in religion, in politics, on the subject of slavery, of peace, oftemperance, etc. It may appear to be dulness or tameness or time-servingor cowardice [107] or folly, but I simply do not believe it to beeither. 

But to return: we were now once more in Sheffield, and I was withoutemployment, --a condition always most irksome to me. Hard work, I ampersuaded, is the highest pleasure in the world, and, from the day whenI was in college, vacations have always proved to me the most tedioustimes in my life. 

I determined, therefore, to pursue some study as far as I could, and mysubject, --the choice of years before, --was the philosophy of history andhumanity. While thus engaged, I received an invitation from Mr. John A. Lowell, trustee of the Lowell Institute, to deliver one of its annualpopular courses of lectures in Boston. This immediately gave a directionto my thoughts, and by the winter of 1850-51 I was prepared to write thelectures, which I ventured to denominate, "Lectures on the Problem ofHuman Destiny, " and I gave them in the autumn of 1851. My reason foradopting such a title I gave in the first lecture, and I might add that, with my qualifications, I was ashamed to put at the head of my humblework such great words as "Philosophy of History and Humanity, "--thetitle of Herder's celebrated treatise. The truth was, I had, orthought I had, something to say upon the philosophy of the humancondition, --upon the end for man, and upon the only way in whichit could be [108] achieved, --upon the terrible problem of sin andsuffering in this world, --and I tried to say it. I so far succeededwith my audience in Boston, that, either from report of that, or fromthe intrinsic interest of the subject, I was invited to repeat thelectures in various parts of the country; and during the four or fiveyears following I repeated them fifteen times, --in New Bedford, NewYork, Brooklyn, Washington, Baltimore, St. Louis, Louisville, Madison, Cincinnati, Nashville, Sheffield, Worcester, Charleston, S. C. , NewOrleans, and Savannah in part, and the second time also, I gave them, byMr. Lowell's request, in the Boston Institute. At the same time, I wasnot idle as a preacher, having preached every Sunday in the places whereI lectured, besides serving the church in Washington two long winters. I also wrote another course of lectures for the Lowell Institute, on the"Education of the Human Race, " and repeated it in several places. 

At the time that I was invited to Washington, I received, in February, 1851, a document from the Government, which took me so much by surprisethat I supposed it must be a mistake. It was no other than a commissionas chaplain in the Navy. I wrote to a gentleman in Washington, askinghim to make inquiry for me, and ascertain what it meant. He replied thatthere was no mistake about it, and that it was intended for me. I thenconcluded, as there was a Navy Yard in Washington, and as the President, Mr. [109] Fillmore, attended the church to which I was invited, thathe intended by the appointment to help both the church and me, and Iaccepted it. On going to Washington I found that there was a chaplainalready connected with the Navy Yard, and on his retirement some monthslater, and my offering to perform any duties required there, beinganswered that there was really nothing to be done, I resigned thecommission. 

Life in Washington was not agreeable to me, and yet I felt a singularattachment to the people there. This mixture of repulsion and attractionI could not understand at the time, or rather, -as is usually the casewith our experience while passing, --did not try to; but walking thosestreets two or three years later, when experience had become history, I could read it. In London or Paris the presence of the government ishardly felt; the action of public affairs is merged and lost in the lifeof a great city; but in Washington it is the one, all-absorbing businessof the place. Now, whether it be pride or sympathy, one does not enjoya great movement of things going on around him in which he has no part, and the thoughts and aims of a retired and studious man, especially, sever him from the views and interests of public men. But, on theother hand, this very pressure of an all-surrounding public life bringsprivate men closer together. There they stand, while the tides ofsuccessive Administrations sweep by them, and their relation be-[110]comes constantly more interesting from the fluctuation of everythingelse. It is really curious to see how the private and resident societyof Washington breathes freer, and prepares to enjoy itself when Congressis about to rise and leave it to itself. 

Among the remarkable persons with whom I became acquainted inWashington, at this or a-former time, was John C. Calhoun. I had withhim three interviews of considerable length, and remember each of them, the more distinctly from the remarkable habit he had of talking Tonsubjects, --not upon the general occurences of the day, but upon someparticular topic. The first two were at an earlier period than thatto which this part of my narrative creates; it was when he wasVice-President of the United States, under the administration of JohnQuincy Adams. I went to his room in the Capitol to present my letterof introduction; it was just before the assembling of the Senate, and Isaid, of course, that I would not intrude upon his time at that moment, and was about to withdraw; but he kindly detained me, saying, "No: itwill >e twenty minutes before I go to the Senate; sit down. " And then, in two minutes, I found him talking upon a purely literary point, --Iam sure do not know how he got to it; but it was this, hat the first orsecond book of every author, so le maintained, was always his best. Hecited a [111] number of instances in support of his position. I do notremember what they were; but it occurred to me in reflecting uponit afterwards, that, in purely literary composition, there were somereasons why it might be true. An author writes his first books with thegreatest care; he naturally puts into them his best and most originalthoughts, which he cannot use again; and if he succeeds, and gainsreputation, he is liable to grow both careless and confident, --to thinkthat the things which people admire are his peculiarities, and not hisgeneral merits, and so to fall into mannerism and repetition. I rememberMrs. George Lee, of Boston, a sagacious woman, saying to me one day, when I told her I was going to write a second sermon on a certainsubject, --she had praised the first, --"I have observed that the secondsermon, on any subject, is never so good as the first; even Channing'sare not. "

Mr. Calhoun, on my leaving him, invited me to pass the evening with himat his house in Georgetown. I went, expecting to meet company, but foundmyself alone with him, and then the subject of conversation was theadvantage and necessity of an Opposition in Government. He was himselfthen, of course, in the Opposition, and he was very candid: he said hedid not question the motives of the Administration, while he felt boundto oppose it. I was struck with his candor, --a thing I did not look forin a political [112] opponent, --but especially with what he said aboutthe benefit of an Opposition; both were rather new to me. 

My third interview with him was at a later period, when his discourseturned upon this question: What is the greatest thing that a man can do?His answer was characteristic of the statesman. "It is, " he said, "tospeak the true and saving word in a great national emergency. For itimplies, " he continued, "the fullest knowledge of the past, the largestcomprehension of the present, and the clearest foresight of the future. "He might have added, to complete the idea, that this word was sometimesto be spoken when it involved the greatest peril to the position andprospects of the speaker. But how much moral considerations were apt tobe present to his mind, I do not know. He was mostly known--so we of theNorth thought--as an impracticable reasoner. Miss Martineau said, "Hewas like a cast-iron man on a railroad. "

I was introduced to Mr. Adams, but saw him little, and heard him less, as I will relate. Mr. Reed, of Barnstable, introduced me, --"FatherReed, " as they used to call him, from his having been longer a memberof Congress than any other man in the House, --and I said to him, as wewere entering the White House, "Now tell Mr. Adams who I am and wherefrom; for I think he must be puzzled what to talk about, with so manystrangers coming to him. " Well, I was intro-[113]duced accordingly, andMr. Reed retired. I was offered a seat, and took it. I was a young man, and felt that it did not become me to open a conversation. And there wesat, five minutes, with>tit a word being spoken by either of us! Irose, took my leave, and went away, I don't know whether more angered orastonished. I once, by the by, visited his father, old John Adams, thenlying in retirement at Quincy. Mr. Josiah Quincy took me to see him. Hewas not silent, but talked, I remember, full ten minutes--for ye did notinterrupt him--about Machiavelli and in language so well chosen that Ithought it night have been printed. 

But the most interesting person, as statesman, hat I saw in Washington, was Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, commonly called Tom Corwin. This was a laterperiod. 

Circumstances, or the chances of conversation, sometimes lead toacquaintance and friendship, which years of ordinary intercourse failto bring about. It happened, the first time I saw Mr. Corwin, that someobservation I made upon political normality seemed to strike him as anew thought; suppose it was a topic seldom touched upon in Washingtonsociety. It led to a good deal of conversation, then and afterwards; andI must say that a more high-principled and religiously minded statesmanI have never met with than Mr. Corwin. 

When he was preparing to deliver his celebrated [114] speech in theSenate against the war with Mexico, he told me what he was going to say, and asked me if I thought he could say it and not be politically ruinedby it. I answered that I did not know; but that I would say it if it didruin me. 

The day came for his speech, and I never saw the Senate Chamber sodensely packed as it was to hear him. He told me that he should notspeak; more than half an hour; but he did speak three hours, not onlyagainst the Mexican war, but against the system of slavery, in thebitterest language. His friends in Ohio told me, years after, that itdid ruin him. But for that, they said, he would have been President ofthe United States. 

Thackeray came to Washington while I was here. He gave his course oflectures on "the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century. " Hisstyle, especially in his earlier writings, had one quality which thecritics did not seem to notice; it was not conventional, but spun outof the brain. With the power of thought to take hold of the mind, anda rich, deep, melodius voice, he contrived, without one gesture, or myapparent emotion in his delivery, to charm away an hour as pleasantlyas I have ever felt it in a lecture. What he told me of his way ofcomposing confirms me in my criticism on his style. -He did not dashhis pen on paper, like Walter Scott, and write off twenty pages withoutstop-[115] ping, but, dictating to an amanuensis, --a plan which leavesthe brain to work undisturbed by the pen-labor, --dictating from hischair, and often from his bed, he gave out sentence by sentence, slowly, as they were moulded in his mind. 

Thackeray was sensitive about public opinion; no writer, I imagine, wasever otherwise. I remember, one morning, he was sitting in our parlor, when letters from the mail came in. They were received with someeagerness, of course, and he said, "You seem to be pleased to haveletters; I am not. "--"No?" we said. --"No. I have had letters fromEngland this morning, and they tell me that 'Henry Esmond' is notliked. "

This led to some conversation on novels and novel-writing, and Iventured to say: "How is it that not one of the English novelists hasever drawn any high or adequate character of the clergyman? Walter Scottnever gave us anything beyond the respectable official. Goldsmith's Dr. Primrose is a good man, the best we have in your English fiction, but odd and amusing rather than otherwise. Then Dickens has given usChadband and Stiggins, and you Charles Honeyman. Can you not conceive, "I went on to say, "that a man, without any chance of worldly profit, fora bare stipend, giving his life to promote what you must know are thehighest interests of mankind, is engaged in a noble calling, worthy ofbeing nobly described? Or have you no examples in England to draw from?"[116] This last sentence touched him, and I meant it should. 

With considerable excitement he said, "I delivered a lecture the otherevening in your church in New York, for the Employment Society; wouldyou let me read to you a passage from it?" Of course I said I should bevery glad to hear it, and added, "I thank you for doing that. "--"Idon't know why you should thank me, " he said; "it cost me but an hour'sreading, and I got $1, 500 for them. I thought I was the party obliged. But I did tell them they should have a dozen shirts made up for me, and they did it. " He then went and brought his lecture, and read thepassage, which told of a curate's taking him to visit a poor family inLondon, where he witnessed a scene of distress and of disinterestednessvery striking and beautiful to see. It was a very touching description, and Thackeray nearly broke sown in reading it. 

A part of the winter of 1856-57 I passed with my family at Charleston, S. C. I went to preach in Dr. Gilman's pulpit, and to lecture. I hadbeen there the spring before, and made very agreeable acquaintance withthe people. My reception, both in public and in private, was as kindlyand hospitable as I could desire. I was much interested in societythere, and strongly attached to it. But in August following, inan address under our Old Elm-tree in Sheffield, [117] I made someobservations upon the threatened extension of the slave-system, thatdashed nearly all my agreeable relations with Charleston. I am not aperson to regard such a breach with indifference: it pained me deeply. My only comfort was, that what I said was honestly said; that nohonorable man can desire to be respected or loved through ignorance ofhis character or opinions; and that the ground then recently taken atthe South--that the institution of human slavery is intrinsically right, just, and good--seems to me to involve such a wrong to humanity, suchevil to the South, and such peril to the Union of the States, that itwas a proper occasion for speaking earnestly and decidedly. 

I was altogether unprepared for the treatment I received. One yearbefore, I had been in the great Charleston Club, when the questionof the perpetuity of the slave-system was discussed; when, indeed, anelaborate essay was read by one of the members, in which the ground wastaken, that the dark cloud would sink away to the southwest, to CentralAmerica perhaps, from whence the slave population would find an exodusacross the water to Africa; and of twenty members present, seventeenagreed with the essayist. 

And I take occasion here to say, that this position of the seventeenwas mainly satisfactory to me. I would, indeed, have had the South gofarther. I would have had it take in hand the business of putting an endto slavery, by laws [118] providing for its gradual abolition, and bypreparing the slaves for it; but I did not believe then, and do not now, [FN: The date of this passage must be in or about 1868. -M. E. D. ] thatimmediate emancipation was theoretically the best plan. It was forcedupon us by the exigencies of the war. And, independently of that, suchwas the infatuation of the Southern mind on the subject that thereseemed to be no prospect of its ever being brought to take that view ofit which was prevailing through the civilized and Christian world. Butif it had taken that view, and had gone about the business of preparingfor emancipation, I think the general public sentiment would have beensatisfied; and I believe the result would have been better for theslaves, and better for the country. To be sure, things are workingbetter perhaps now than could have been expected, and it may turn outthat instant emancipation was the best thing. But the results of greatsocial changes do not immediately reveal themselves. We are feeling, forinstance, the pressure and peril of the free system in government morethan we did fifty years ago, and may have to feel and fear it more thanwe do now. The freedmen are, at present, upon their good behavior, andare acting under the influence of a previous condition. But when I lookto the future, and see them rising to wealth, culture, and refinement, and, as human beings, entitled to consideration as much as any other, [119] and yet forbidden intermarriage with the whites, as they shouldbe for physiological reasons, -when, in fine, they see that they have notany fair and just position in American society and government, --theymay be sorry that they were not gradually emancipated, and colonized totheir own native country; and for ourselves-for our own country--theseeds may be sowing, in the dark bosom of the future, which may springup in civil wars more terrible than ever were seen before. 

Such speculations and opinions, I am sensible, would meet with no favoramong us now. The espousal of the slave-man's cause among our Northernpeople is so humane and hearty that they can stop nowhere, for anyconsideration of expediency, in doing him justice, after all his wrongs;and I honor their feeling, go to what lengths it will. Nevertheless, Iput down these my thoughts, for my children to understand, regard themas they may. 

But what it is in my style or manner of writing that has called forthsuch a hard feeling towards me, from extremists both North and South, upon this slavery question, I cannot understand. In every instancein which I have spoken of it, I have been drawn out by a sense ofduty, -there certainly was no pleasure in it. I have never assailed themotives of any man or party; I have spoken in no feeling of unkindnessto anybody; there can have been no bitterness in my speech. [120] Andyet something, I suppose, there must have been in my way of expressingmyself, to offend. It may have been a fault, it may have been a meritfor aught I know; for truly I do not know what it was. 

After all, how little does any man know of his own personality, --of hispersonality in action? He may study himself; he may find out what hisfaculties, what his traits of character are, in the abstract as itwere; but what they are in action, in movement, --how they appear toothers, --he cannot know. The eye that looks around upon a landscape seeseverything but itself. It is just as a man may look in the glass and seehimself there every day; but he sees only the framework, only the"still life" in his face; he does not see it in the free play ofexpression, --in the strong workings of thought and feeling. I was oneday sitting with Robert Walsh in Paris, and there was a large mirrorbehind him. Suddenly he said, "Ah, what a vain fellow you are!"-"Howso?" I asked. --"Why, " said he, "you are not looking at me as youtalk, but you are looking at yourself in the glass. "--"It is a fact!" Iexclaimed, "I never saw myself talking before, --never saw the play of myown features in conversation. " Had the mind a glass thus to look in, it would see things, see wonders, it knows nothing of now. It might seeworse things, it might see better things, than it expected. And yetI have been endeavoring in these pages [121] to give some account ofmyself, while, after all, I am obliged to say that it is little morethan a post mortem examination. If I had been dealing with the livingsubject, I suppose I could not have dealt so freely with myself. Thelast thing which I ever thought of doing is this which I have now done. Autobiographies are often pleasant reading; but I confess that I havealways had a kind of prejudice against them. They have seemed to me toimply something of vanity, or a want of dignified reserve. The apologylies, perhaps, in the writer's ignorance, after all, of his own and veryself. He has only told the story of a life. He has not come much nearerto himself than statistics come to the life of a people. 

All that I know is, that I have lived a life mainly happy in itsexperience, not merely according to the average, not merely as things goin this world, but far more than that; which I should be willing to liveagain for the happiness that has blessed it, yet more for the interestswhich have animated it, and which has always been growing happier fromthe beginning. I have lived a life mainly fortunate in its circumstancesboth of early nurture and active pursuit; marred by no vice, --I donot remember even ever to have told a lie, --stained by no dishonor;laborious, but enjoying labor, especially in the sphere to which my lifehas been devoted; suffering from no pressing want, though moderate inmeans, and successful in every way, as much as I had any [122] right orreason to expect. I have been happy (the word is weak to express it) inmy domestic relations, happy in the dearest and holiest friendships, andhappy in the respect of society. And I have had a happiness (I dread theappearance of profession in saying it) in things divinest, in religion, in God, -in associating with him all the beauty of nature and theblessedness of life, beyond all other possible joy. And, therefore, notwithstanding all that I have suffered, notwithstanding all the painand weariness and anxiety and sorrow that necessarily enter into life, and the inward errings that are worse than all, I would end my recordwith a devout thanksgiving to the great Author of my being. For more andmore am I unwilling to make my gratitude to him what is commonly called"a thanksgiving for mercies, "--for any benefits or blessings that arepeculiar to myself, or my friends, or indeed to any man. Instead ofthis, I would have it to be gratitude for all that belongs to my lifeand being, --for joy and sorrow, for health and sickness, for successand disappointment, for virtue and for temptation, for life and death;because I believe that all is meant for good. 

Something of what I here say seems to require another word or two to beadded, and perhaps it is not unmeet for me to subjoin, as the conclusionof the whole matter, my theory and view and summing up of what life is;for on it, to my apprehension, the virtue and happiness of life [123]mainly repose. It revealed itself dimly in my earlier, it has becomeclearer to me in my later, years; and the best legacy, as I conceive, that I could leave to my children would be this view of life. 

I know that we are not, all the while, thinking of any theory of life. So neither are we all the while thinking of the laws of nature; theattraction of gravitation, for instance. But unless there were someultimate reference to laws, both material and moral, our minds wouldlose their balance and security. If I believed that the hill by my side, or the house I live in, were liable any moment to be unseated and hurledthrough the air by centrifugal force, I should be ill at ease. And ifI believed that the world was made by a malignant Power, or that thefortunes of men were the sport of a doubtful conflict between good andevil deities or principles, my life, like that of the ancients, wouldbe filled with superstitions and painful fears. The foundation of allrational human tranquillity, cheerfulness, and courage, whether we aredistinctly conscious of it or not, lies in the ultimate conviction, thatGod is good, --that his providence, his order of things in the world, isgood; and theology, in the largest sense of the term, is as vital to usas the air we breathe. 

If, then, I thought that this world were a castoff, or a wrecked andruined, world; if I thought that the human generations had come outfrom the dark eclipse of some pre-existent state, or [124] from the darkshadow of Adam's fall, broken, blighted, accursed, propense to allevil, and disabled for all good; and if, in consequence, I believedthat unnumbered millions of ignorant heathens, and thousands aroundme, --children but a day old in their conscious moral probation, andmen, untaught, nay, ill-taught, misled and blind, --were doomed, as theresult of this life-experiment, to intense, to unending, to infinitepain and anguish, --most certainly I should be miserable in such a state, and nothing could make life tolerable to me. Most of all should I detestmyself, if the idea that I was to escape that doom could assuageand soothe in my breast the bitter pain of all generous humanity andsympathy for the woes and horrors of such a widespread and overwhelmingcatastrophe. 

What, then, do I say and think? I say, and I maintain, that theconstitution of the world is good, and that the constitution of humannature is good; that the laws of nature and the laws of life areordained for good. I believe that man was made and destined by hisCreator ultimately to be an adoring, holy, and happy being; that hisspiritual and physical constitution was designed to lead to that end;but that end, it is manifest from the very nature of the case, canbe attained only by a free struggle; and this free struggle, with itsmingled success and failure, is the very story of the world. A sublimestory it is, therefore. The life of men and nations has not been [125] afloundering on through useless disorder and confusion, trial and strife, war and bloodshed; but it has been a struggling onward to an end. 

This, I believe, has been the story of the world from the beginning. Before the Christian, before the Hebrew, system appeared, there wasreligion, worship, faith, morality, in the world, and however erring, yet always improving from age to age. Those systems are great steps inthe human progress; but they are not the only steps. Moses is venerableto me. The name of Jesus is "above every name;" but my reverence for himdoes not require me to lose all interest in Confucius and Zoroaster, inSocrates and Plato. 

In short, the world is a school; men are pupils in this school; God isits builder and ordainer. And he has raised up for its instruction sagesand seers, teachers and guides; ay, martyred lives, and sacrificialtoils and tears and blood, have been poured out for it. The greatestteaching, the greatest life, the most affecting, heart-regeneratingsacrifice, was that of the Christ. From him I have a clearer guidance, and a more encouraging reliance upon the help and mercy of God, thanfrom all else. I do not say the only reliance, but the greatest. 

This school of life I regard as the infant-school of eternity. Thepupils, I believe, will go on forever learning. There is solemnretribution in this system, --the future must forever answer for thepast; I would not have it otherwise. I must fight [126] the battle, ifI would win the prize; and for all failure, for all cowardice, for allturning aside after ease and indulgence in preference to virtue andsanctity, I must suffer; I would not have it otherwise. There is helpdivine offered to me, there is encouragement wise and gracious; Iwelcome it. There is a blessed hereafter opened to prayer and penitenceand faith; I lift my hopes to that immortal life. This view of thesystem of things spreads for me a new light over the heavens and theearth. It is a foundation of peace and strength and happiness more to bevalued, in my account, than the title-deed of all the world. 

[127] LETTERS. 

THE foregoing pages, selected from many written at intervals between1857 and 1870, tell nearly all of their writer's story which it can beof interest to the public to know; and although I have been tempted hereand there to add some explanatory remarks, I have thought it best on thewhole to leave them in their original and sometimes abrupt simplicity. The author did not intend them for publication, but for hisfamily alone; and in sharing a part with a larger audience than hecontemplated, we count upon a measure of that responsive sympathy withwhich we ourselves read frequently between the Lines, and enter into hismeaning without many words. 

But there is one point I cannot leave untouched. There is one subject onwhich some of those who nevertheless honor him have scarcely understoodhis position. 

Twenty-five years ago slavery was a question upon which feeling was notonly strong, but roused, stung, and goaded to a height of passion [128]where all argument was swept away by the common emotion as futile, if not base. My father, thinking the system hateful in itself andproductive of nearly unmingled evil, held nevertheless that, like allgreat and established wrongs, it must be met with wise and patientcounsel; and that in the highest interest of the slave, of the whiterace, of the country, and of constitutional liberty, its abolitionmust be gradual. To the uncompromising Abolitionists such views wereintolerable; and by some of those who demanded immediate emancipation, even at the cost of the Union and all that its destruction involved, it was said that he was influenced by a mean spirit of expediency anda base truckling to the rank and wealth which sustained this insult tohumanity. 

They little knew him. The man who at twenty-five had torn himself fromthe associations and friendships of his youth, and, moved solely by loveof truth, had imperilled all his worldly hopes by joining himself to asmall religious body, despised and hated as heretics by most of thosewhom he had been trained to love and respect, was not the man at fiftyto blanch from the expression of any honest conviction; and, to sumup all in one word, he held his views upon this subject, as upon allothers, bravely and honestly, and stated them clearly and positively, when he felt it his duty to speak, although evasion or silence wouldhave been the more comfortable alternative. "I doubt, " says Mr. Chadwick, [129] "if Garrison or Parker had a keener sense than his ofthe enormity of human slavery. Before the first Abolitionist Societyhad been organized, he was one of the organizers of a committee forthe discussion and advancement of emancipation. I have read all ofhis principal writings upon slavery, and it would be hard to find moreterrible indictments of its wickedness. He stated its defence in termsthat Foote and Yancey might have made their own, only to sweep it allaway with the blazing ubiquity that the negro was a man and an immortalsoul. Yet when the miserable days of fugitive-slave rendition wereupon us, he was with Gannett in the sad conviction that the law mustbe obeyed. We could not see it then; but we can see to-day that it waspossible for men as good and true as any men alive to take this stand. And nothing else brings out the nobleness of Dewey into such bold reliefas the fact, that the immeasurable torrent of abuse that greeted hisexpressed opinion did not in any least degree avail to make him one ofthe pro-slavery faction. The concession of 1850 was one which he wouldnot have made, and it must be the last. Welcome to him the iron flailof war, whose tribulation saved the immortal wheat of justice and purgedaway the chaff of wrong to perish in unquenchable fire!"

His feelings retained their early sensitiveness

[FN The Rev. John W. Chadwick, of Brooklyn, N. Y. , In a sermon preachedafter Dr. Dewey's death. ]

[130] in a somewhat remarkable degree. In a letter written when he wasnear seventy he says, "I do believe there never was a man into whosemanhood and later life so much of his foolish boyhood flowed as intomine. I am as anxious to go home, I shall be all the way to-morrow aseager and restless, and all the while thinking of the end of my journey, as if I were a boy going from school, or a young lover six weeks afterhis wedding-day. Shall I ever learn to be an old man?"

But it was this very simplicity and tenderness that gave such a charm tohis personal intercourse. His emotions, like his thoughts, had aplain directness about them which assured you of their honesty. With aprofound love of justice, he had an eminently judicial mind, and couldnot be content without viewing a subject from every side, and castinglight upon all its points. The light was simple sunshine, untinged byartificial mixtures; the views were direct and straightforward, with nosubtle slants of odd or recondite position; and in his feelings, also, there was the same large and natural simplicity. You feltthe ground-swell of humanity in them, and it was this breadth andgenuineness which laid the foundation of his power as a preacher, makinghim strike unerringly those master chords that are common anduniversal in every audience. Gifts of oratory he had, both natural andacquired, --a full, melodious voice, so sympathetic in modulation and soattuned to [131] reverence that I have heard more than one person saythat his first few words in the pulpit did more towards lifting them toa truly religious frame of mind than the whole service from any otherlips, --a fine dramatic power, enough to have given him distinction as anactor, had that been the profession of his choice, --a striking dignityof presence, and an easy and appropriate gesticulation. But these, aswell as his strong common sense, that balance-wheel of character, werebrought into the service of his earnest convictions. What he had to say, he put into the simplest form; and if his love of art and beauty, andhis imaginative faculty, gave wealth and ornament to his style, he neversacrificed a particle of direct force for any rhetorical advantage. Hisfunction in life--he felt it to his inmost soul--was to present to humanhearts and minds the essential verities of their existence in such amanner that they could not choose but believe in them. His strength wasin his reverent perception of the majesty of Right as accordant with theDivine and Eternal Will; his power over men was in the sublimity of hisappeal to an answering faith in themselves. 

He was greatest as a preacher, and it is as a preacher that he will bebest remembered by the public. The printed page, though far inferior tothe fervid eloquence of the same words when spoken, will corroborate byits beauty, its pathos, and its logical force, the traditions that stilllinger [132] of his deep impressiveness in the pulpit. In making thefollowing selections from his letters, I have been influenced by thedesire to let them show him in his daily and familiar life, with theeasy gayety and love of humor which was as natural to him as the deepand solemn meditations which absorbed the larger part of his mind. Theyare very far from elaborate compositions, being rather relaxations fromlabor, and he thought very slightly of them himself; yet I thinkthey will present the real man as nothing but such careless andconversational writing can. 

No letters of his boyhood have been preserved, and very few of hisyouth. This, to Dr. Channing, was probably written at Plymouth, whilethere on an exchange of pulpits, soon after his ordination at NewBedford:--

To Rev. William Ellery Charming, D. D. 

PLYMOUTH, Dec. 27, 1823. 

DEAR SIR, --I was scarcely disappointed at your not coming to myordination, and indeed I have felt all along that, if you could notpreach, I had much rather see you at a more quiet and leisurely time. Ithank you for the hope you have given me of this in the suggestion youmade to Mr. Tuckerman. When the warm season comes, I pray you to giveMrs. Dewey and me the pleasure of trying what we can do to promote yourcomfort and health, and of enjoying your society for a week. [133] Ourordination was indeed very pleasant, and our prospects are becomingevery day more encouraging. The services of that occasion were attendedwith the most gratifying and useful impression. Our friend, Mr. Tuckerman, preached more powerfully, and produced a neater effect, thanI had supposed he ever did. I must remind you, however, that his sermon, like every good sermon, had its day when it was delivered. We cannotprint the pathos, nor you read the fervor, with which it was spoken. 

I have had no opportunity to express to you the very peculiar and highgratification with which I have received the late expression of theliberality and kindness of your society, nor can it be necessary. Icannot fail to add, however, that the pleasure is greatly enhanced bythe knowledge that I owe the occasion of it to your suggestion. 

I hope to visit Boston this winter, or early in the spring. I often feelas if I had a burden of questions which I wish to propose to you forconversation. The want of this resource and satisfaction is one of theprincipal reasons that make me regret my distance from Boston. I shallalways remember the weeks I spent with you, two years ago, with moreinterest than I shall ever feel it proper to express to you. It isone of my most joyful hopes of heaven, that such intercourse shall berenewed, and exalted and perpetuated forever. 

To the Same. 

NEW BEDFORD, Sept. 21, 1824. 

DEAR SIR, --I thank you for your letter and invitation [See p. 50]. . . . The result of your going to Boston is what I [134] feared, andit seems too nearly settled that nothing will give you health, but adifferent mind, or a different mode of life. 

Quintilian advises the orator to retire before he is spent, and saysthat he can still advance the object of his more active and laboriouspursuits by conversing, by publishing, and by teaching others, youths, to follow in his steps. I do not quote this advice to recommend it, ifit were proper for me to recommend anything. But I have often revolvedthe courses that might preserve your life, and make it at once happy toyourself and useful to us, for many years to come. I cannot admit anyplan that would dismiss you altogether from the pulpit, nor do I believethat any such could favor your happiness or your health. But could younot limit yourself to preaching, say ten times in a year (provided oneof them be in New Bedford)? and will you permit me to ask, nor questionmy modesty in doing so, if you could not spend a part of the year in aleisurely preparation of something for the press? I fear that yourMSS. , and I mean your sermons now, would suffer by any other revisaland publication than your own. With regard to the last suggestion ofQuintilian's, I have supposed that it has been fairly before you; butperhaps I have already said more than becomes me. If so, I am confidentat least that I deserve your pardon for my good intentions; and withthese, I am, dear sir, most truly as well as

Respectfully your friend, O. DEWEY. 

I am tempted to introduce here a sketch of my father as he appearedin those early days, writ-en by Rev. W. H. Channing, for "the LondonEnquirer" of April 13, 1882:

[135] "It so happened then to me, while a youth of twelve or fifteenyears in training at the Boston Latin School for Harvard University, that Dr. Dewey became a familiar guest in my mother's hospitable house. He was at this period the temporary minister of Federal Street Church, while Dr. Channing was seeking to renew his wasted energies, for betterwork, in Europe. And on Mondays--after his exhausting outpourings ofSunday--he was wont to 'drop in, while passing, ' to talk over the themesof his discourse, or for friendly interchange of thought and sympathy. Aspecial attraction was that the Misses Cabot, the elder of whom became afew years later Mrs. Charles Follen (both of whom will be rememberedby English friends), made a common home with my mother; and the radiantintelligence, glowing enthusiasm, hearty affectionateness, and genialmerriment of these bright-witted sisters charmed him. Sometimes theyprobed with penetrating questions the mystical metaphysics of thepreceding day's sermon. Then, deeply stirred, and all on fire withtruths dawning on his vision, he would rise from his chair and slowlypace the room, in a half soliloquy, half rejoinder. At these times ofhigh-wrought emotion his aspect was commanding. His head was roundedlike a dome, and he bore it erect, as if its weight was a burden; hiseyes, blue-gray in tint, were gentle, while gleaming with inner light;the nostrils were outspread, as if breathing in mountain-top air; andthe mobile lips, the lower of which protruded, apparently measured hisdeliberately accented words as if they were coins stamped in themint. It was intense delight for a boy to listen to these luminousself-unfoldings, embodied in rhythmic speech. They moved me moreprofoundly even than the suppressed feeling of his awe-struck prayers, [136] or the fluent fervor of his pulpit addresses; for they raised theveil, and admitted one into his Holy of holies. At other times, literaryor artistic themes, the newest poem, novel, picture, concert, cameup for discussion; and as these ladies were verse-writers, essayists, critics, and lovers of beauty in all forms, the conversations calledout the rich genius and complex tendencies and aptitudes of Dr. Deweyin stimulating suggestions, which were refreshing as spring breezes. Hismind gave hospitable welcome to each new fact disclosed by science, toall generous hopes for human refinement and ennobling ideals, whilehis discernment was keen to detect false sentiment or flashy sophisms. Again, some startling event would bring conventional customs and maximsto the judgment-bar of pure Christian ethics, when his moral indignationblazed forth with impartial equity against all degrading views of humannature, debasing prejudices, and distrust of national progress, --sparingno tyrant, however wealthy or high in station; pleading for thedowncast, however lowly; hoping for the fallen, however scorned. Thanksto this clear-sighted moralist, he gave me, in his own example, astandard of generous Optimism too sun-bright ever to be eclipsed. Let itnot be inferred from these hasty outlines, however, that Dr. Deweywas habitually grave, or intent on serious topics solely, in socialintercourse So far from this, he continually startled one by his swifttransitions from solemn discourse to humorous descriptions of persons, places, experiences. And as the Misses Cabot and my mother alikeregarded healthful laughter, cheery sallies, and childlike gayety asa wise relief for overwrought brains or high-strung sensibilities, ourfireside sparkled with brilliant repartees and scintillating mirth. Itis [137] pleasantly remembered that, in such by-play, Dr. Dewey, whileoften satirical, and prone to good-tempered banter, was never cynical, and was intolerant of personal gossip or he intrusion of mean slander. And to close the chapter of boyhood's acquaintance, it is gratefullyrecalled how cordially sympathetic this earnest apostle was with myyouthful studies, trials, aspirations. All recollections, indeed, ofmy uncle's curate--whom, as is well-known, le wished to become hiscolleague--are charming; and before my matriculation at Harvard, oneof my most trusted religious guides was Orville Dewey. " The Wares, bothHenry and William, were among my father's dearest friends at this time, and the intimacy was interrupted only by death. 

To Rev. Henry Ware. 

NEW BEDFORD, Feb. 2, 1824. MY DEAR FRIEND, There is a great cause committed to us, --not that of a party, but thatof principles. A contest as important as that of the Reformation is topass here, and I trust, -though with trembling, --I trust in God thatit is to be maintained with a better spirit. I cannot help feelingthat generations as boundless as shall spread from the Atlantic to thePacific shores wait for the result. The importance of everything thatis doing for the improvement of this country is fast swelling toinfinitude. These, dear sir, are some of my dreams, I fear I must callthem, rather than waking thoughts. It seems to me not a little to knowthe age and country we live in. I think, and think, and think thatsomething must be done, and often [138] I feel, and feel, and feel thatI do nothing. What can we do to make ourselves and others aware of ourChristian duties and of the signs of this time?

There is one comfort, --Unitarianism will succeed just as far as it isworthy of it, --and there are some forms of practical Unitarianism thatought not to meet with any favor in the world. If the whole mass becomesof this character, let it go down, till another wave of providence shallbring it up again. 

But enough of this preaching: you think of all these things, and athousand more, better than I can say them. I turn to your letter. ElderH. , for whom you ask, is a very good man, -very friendly to me; but le isa terrible fanatic. He has Unitarian revivals that might match withany of them. It is a curious fact that the Christians, as they callthemselves, Unitarian as they ire, form the most extravagant, fiery, fanatical sect in this country. 

Mrs. Dewey desires very friendly regards to Mrs. Ware, of whosecontinued illness we are concerned to lean Let my kind remembrance bejoined with my wife's, and believe me very truly, Your friend and brother, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

NEW BEDFORD, Feb. 14, 1824. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --I cannot repress the inclination to offer you mysympathy. I have often thought with [FN: Mrs. Ware died in theinterval between those two letters she was the daughter of Dr. BenjaminWaterhouse, of Cambridge, Mass. In 1827 Mr. Ware was again married toMiss Mary Lovell Pickard. ] [139] pain of what was coming upon you; andI fear, though long threatening, it has come at last with a weight whichyou could hardly have anticipated. May God sustain and comfort you!You are supported, I well know, while you are afflicted, in everyrecollection of what you lave lost. Surely the greatness of your trialargues the Kindness of Heaven, for it proves the greatness of theblessing you have enjoyed. 

But, my dear sir, I will not urge upon you words which are but words, and touch not the terrible reality that occupies your mind. You want notthe poor and old sayings of one who knows not--who cannot know--what yousuffer. You need not the aids of reflection from me. But you needwhat, in common with your hands, I would invoke for you, --the aid, theconsolation that is divine. God grant it to you, --all that affection canask, --all that affliction can need, --prays

Your friend and brother, O. DEWEY. 

To Dr. Channing. 

NEW BEDFORD, Oct. 16, 1827. 

MY DEAR AND REVERED FRIEND, --Excuse me for calling you so; may theformalities and the English reserves excuse me too. 

I have had two letters from New York, one from Mr. Sewall, and the otherfrom Mr. Ware, which are so pressing as really to give me some trouble. Do say something to me on this subject, if you have anything to say. There certainly are many reasons, and strong as numerous, why I shouldnot at present leave New Bedford, -why I should not take such a post. Icannot say I am made to doubt what I ought to do; but I have a fear lest[140] I should not do right, lest I should love my ease too well, lestit should be said to me in the other world, "A great opportunity, aglorious field was opened to you, and you did not improve it, "--lest, in other words, I should not act upon considerations sufficiently high, comprehensive, and disinterested, --fit, in short, for contemplation fromthe future world as well as from the present. 

I do not write asking you to reply; for I do not suppose you haveanything to say which you would not have suggested when I was with you. Indeed, I believe I write, as much as for anything, because I want tocommunicate with you about something, and this is uppermost in my mind. 

Present my affectionate regards to Mrs. Channing and the children, andto Miss Gibbs. 

Yours most affectionately, O. DEWEY. To Rev. Henry Ware. 

NEW BEDFORD, March 29, 1829. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --I cannot let you go off without my blessing. I did notknow of your purpose till last evening, or I should not have leftmyself to write to you in the haste of a few minutes snatched on Sundayevening, to say nothing of the aching nerves' and the misled hand thatusually come along with it. By the by, I have a good mind to desire youto propose a year's exchange [for me] to somebody in England. If youmeet with a man who is neither too good nor too bad, suppose you suggestit to him, --not as from me, however. 

I should think that a man, in going to England, would feel the evil ofbelonging to a sect, unless that sect [141] embraced all the good andwise and gifted, --which can be said of no sect. The sectarianism ofsects, however, is the bad thing. These are necessary; that is notnecessary, but to human weakness. But fie upon discoursing to a man whois just stepping on shipboard! May it bear you safely! May it tread themountain wave "as a steed that knows its rider, " and is conscious ofwhat it bears from us! My heart will go with you in a double sense; forI want to see England, --I want to see Italy, and the Alps, and the southof France. I don't know whether you intend to do all this; and I am verycertain not to do any of it. I know that yours will not be a travelledheart, any more than Goldsmith's. Let me lay in my claim for as many ofits kind thoughts as belong to me. But yet more, let me assure you, asthe exigency demands, that for every one you have thus to render, I havefive to give in return. 

I believe you will not be sorry, at this time, that my lines and wordsare few and far between; for your leisure cannot serve to read many. 

Mrs. D. Desires her best wishes to you. We do not know whether Mrs. Waregoes with you, but hope she does. 

I took my pen feeling as if I had not a word to say, but--God bless you!and that I say with all my heart. Write me from abroad if you can, butmake no exertion to do so. 

Yours as ever, O. DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

NEW BEDFORD, Sep. 14, 1830, DEAR WARE, --I write down the good old compellation here, not becauseI have anything in particular to say [142] to you, but just to assuremyself in the agreeable conviction that you are again within sixty milesof me. When you get a little quiet, when matters have taken some formwith you, when you have seen some hundreds of people, and answered somethousands of questions, then take your pen for the space of ten minutes, and tell me of your "whereabouts, " and how your strength and spiritshold out, and what is the prospect. 

I hope you will not disappoint me of the visit this autumn, for I wantto talk the sun down and the stars up with you. I suppose you have talesenough for "a thousand and one nights. " You have made friends here, moreover, even in Rome, --some by hearsay, and others who will be hereprobably in a fortnight or three weeks. Kind Mrs. Ware has admirershere. Think of that, sir! That while Mr. W. Is spoken of only with akind of reverence, the lady carries off all the charms and fascinationsof epithet. But alas! Such is the hard fate of us of the wiser sex. There are other senses than Saint Paul's in which we may say, "Where Iam weak, there am I strong. "

Pray excuse the levity (specific) of this letter, on tworounds, --first, that I am very heavy, and should sink in any othervessel; and, secondly, that I cannot take in any of the weighty matters, because I have no room for them. 

Mrs. Dewey joins me in the regards to you and Mrs. Ware, with which Iam, Most truly yours, O. DEWEY. 

In less than three years from this time the nervous suffering fromoverwork became so intense that Mr. Dewey was advised to go abroad [143]to obtain the absolute rest from labor that was impossible here. 

To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick. 

SHEFFIELD, May 2, 1833. 

My DEAR FRIEND, --I am about to go abroad. I have made up my mind tothat huge, half pleasurable, half painful undertaking; or shall I say, rather, that both the pleasure and the pain come by wholes, and not byhalves? The latter I feel as a domestic man, for I must go alone; theformer I feel as a civilized man. Civilized, I say, for who that has thelowest measure of educated intelligence and sensibility can expect totread all the classic lands of the world, Greece only excepted, withouta thrill of delight?

If you should think that I had written thus much as claiming yoursympathy in what so much interests me, and if you should think thiswithout accusing me of presumption, I should be tempted, were I assuredof the fact, to stop here, and to leave the matter on a footingso gratifying to my feelings. But I must not venture to take soconsiderable a risk, and must therefore hasten to tell you that what Ihave said is only a vestibule to something further. 

Nor is the vestibule at all too large or imposing for the object, asI conceive it, to which it is to open the way; for I am about to askthrough you, if you will consent and condescend to be the medium, a veryconsiderable favor of a very distinguished man. Among many lettersof introduction which I have received, it so happens, as they say inParliament, that I can obtain none to certain persons that I want tosee quite as much as any others [144] in Europe. None of our Bostongentlemen that I can find are acquainted with Professor Wilson, or MissFerrier, the author of "Inheritance, " or Thomas Moore, or Campbell, orBulwer. The "Noctes Ambrosianx, " with other things, have made me a greatadmirer of Wilson; and Miss Ferriers (I don't know whether her nameends with s or not) I had rather see than any woman in Europe. She comesnearer to Sir Walter, I think, than any writer of fiction abroad, andin depth of religious sentiment goes very far beyond him. Now, I presumethat Washington Irving is acquainted with all these individuals; andwhat I venture to ask is, whether, through your intervention, letterscan be obtained from him to any of them, and especially to the twofirst. 

Now I must make you comprehend how little I wish you to go out of yourway, or to put any constraint on yourself in the matter. I have noneof the passion for seeing celebrated men, merely as such. Those whosewritings have interested me, I do, of course, wish to see; but I am tobe too hasty a traveller to make it a great object to see them, or togo very much out of my way for it. Above all, if you have the leastreluctance to ask this of Mr. Irving, you must allow me to impose it asa condition of my request that you will not do it; or if Mr. Irving isreluctant to give the letters, do not undertake to tell me so withany circumlocution, for I understand all about the delicacy of theseTransatlantic connections. I only fear that the very length of thisletter will convey to you an undue impression of the importance which Igive to the subject of it. Pray construe it not so, but set it down asone of the involuntary consequences of the pleasure I have in conversingwith you. 

Very truly your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[145] The letters, and every other advantage that the kindness offriends could provide, were given him, and the mingled anticipationswith which he entered on his year of solitary exile were all fulfilled. His enjoyment in the wonders of nature and of art, in society, and inthe charm of historical and romantic association which is the peculiarpleasure to an American of travel in the Old World, was very great, andthe relief to his brain from the weekly pressure of original productiongave him ease for the present and hope for the future. But the yearwas darkened for him by the death of his youngest sister, who had beenmarried the previous summer to Mr. Andrew L. Russell, of Plymouth, and of his wife's brother, John Hay Farnham, of Indiana; and whenhe returned home, three months' work convinced him that arduous andprolonged mental labor was henceforth impossible for him. With deepdisappointment and sorrow, he resigned his charge at New Bedford, andleft the place and people which had been and always remained very dearto him. 

Few are left of those who heard his first preaching there. One of hissisters says: "To me, brought up on the Orthodoxy of Berkshire, it waslike a revelation, and I think it was much the same to the Quakers. Those views of life and human nature and its responsibilities that arecommon now, were new then, and the effect produced upon us all was mostthrilling and solemn; and [146] when, service over, we passed out of thechurch, I remember there were very few words spoken, -a contrast to thecustom nowadays of chatting and laughing at the door. " I have heardothers speak of the overwhelming pathos of his manner, and I asked theRev. Dr. Morison, who came to New Bedford as a young man during the lastyears of our stay there, to put some of his personal remembrances onpaper. In a note from him, dated Toth January, 1883, he says: "Ihave not forgotten my promise to send you some little account of yourfather's preaching in New Bedford. He was so great a man, utteringhimself in his preaching, the sources of his power lay so deep, hiswords came to us so vitally connected with the most subtle and effectiveforces of the moral and spiritual universe, that I can no more describehim than I could a June day, in all its glory and beauty and itsboundless resources of joy and life, to one who had never known it. "

The following pages, which Dr. Morison was nevertheless kind enough tosend, have touching value and beauty:

"More than half a century ago, in March, 1832, I went to New Bedford, and, for nearly a year, was a constant attendant at Mr. Dewey's church. During that year he preached most of the sermons contained in the firstvolume that he published. As we read them, they are among the ablestand most impressive sermons in the language. But when read now they giveonly a slight idea of what they were as they came to us then, all [147]glowing and alive with the emotions of the preacher. When he walkedthrough the church to the pulpit, his head swaying backward and forwardas if too heavily freighted, his whole bearing was that of one weigheddown by the thoughts in which he was absorbed and the solemn messagewhich he had come to deliver. The old prophetic 'burden of the Lord' hadevidently been laid upon him. Some hymn marked by its depth of religiousfeeling was read. This was followed by a prayer, which was not thespontaneous, easy outflowing of calmly reverential feelings, but thelabored utterance of a soul overawed and overburdened by emotionstoo strong for utterance. There was sometimes an appearance almost ofdistress in this exercise, so utterly inadequate, as it seemed to him, were any words of his to express what lay deepest in his mind, whenthus brought face to face with God. 'I do not shrink, ' he said, 'fromspeaking to man. ' But, except in his rarest and best moments, he wasoppressed by a sense of the poverty of any language of thanksgiving orsupplication that he could use in his intercourse with God. "

"His manner in preaching was marked by great depth and strength offeeling, but always subdued. He spoke on great subjects. He enteredprofoundly into them, and treated them with extraordinary intellectualability and clearness. They who were seeking for light found it in hispreaching. But more than any intellectual precision or clearness ofthought was to be gained from him in his treatment of the momentousquestions which present themselves, sooner or later, to every thoughtfulmind. Behind these questions, more important than any one or all ofthem intellectually considered, was the realm of thought, emotion, aspiration, out of which [148] religious ideas are formed, and inwhich the highest faculties of our nature are to find their appropriatenourishment and exercise. He spoke to us as one who belonged to thishigher world. The realm in which he lived, and which seemed never absentfrom his mind, impressed itself as he spoke, and gave a deeper solemnityand attractiveness to his words than could be given by any specificand clearly-defined ideas. A sense of mystery and awe pervaded histeachings, and infused into his utterances a sentiment of divinesacredness and authority. He preached as I never, before or since, haveheard any one else, on human nature, on retribution, on the power ofkindness, on life and death, in their relations to man and to what isdivine. He stood before us compassed about by a religious atmospherewhich penetrated his inmost nature, and gave its tone and coloring toall he said. For he spoke as one who saw rising visibly before him theissues of life and of death. "

"He was gifted with a rare dramatic talent. But it was a gift, not anart, and showed itself in voice and gesture as by the natural impulse ofa great nature profoundly moved, and in its extremest manifestations sosubdued as to leave the impression of a vast underlying reserved force. His action, so full of meaning and so effective, was no studied orsuperficial movement of hand and voice, but the action of the whole man, body and soul, all powerfully quickened and moved from within by theliving thoughts and emotions to which he was giving utterance. "

"I have heard many of the greatest orators of our time. But, with theexception of Daniel Webster and Dr. Channing in their highest moments, Mr. Dewey was the most [149] eloquent man among them all, and that notonce or twice, on great occasions, but Sunday after Sunday, forenoon andafternoon, for months together. "

"Some allowance should perhaps be made for the state of mind and theperiod of life in which I heard him. I had just come from college, wherethe intellect had been cultivated in advance of the moral and religiousfaculties. The equilibrium which belongs to a perfectly healthy andharmonious nature was disturbed, and, as a necessary consequence of thisunbalanced and distempered condition, there was a deep inward unrest, and a craving for something, --the greatest of all, --which had not yetbeen attained. Mr. Dewey's preaching came in just at this critical time, and it was to me the opening into a new world. The hymn, the prayer, theScripture reading, usually brought me into a reverent and plastic stateof mind, ready to receive and be moulded by the deepest and loftiestChristian truths. From the beginning to the end of the sermon Iwas under the spell which he had thrown over me, and unconscious ofeverything else. Very seldom during my life, and then only for afew minutes at a time, has any one, by his eloquence, exercised thisabsorbing and commanding influence over me. Once or twice in hearingDr. Channing I felt as I suppose the prophet may have felt when he heard'the still small voice, ' at which 'he wrapped his face in his mantle, 'and listened as to the voice of God. A few such experiences I have hadwith other men; but with Mr. Dewey more than with all others. And whenthe benediction was pronounced, I wished to go away and be by myselfin the new world of spiritual ideas and emotions into which I had beendrawn. Those were to me great experiences, [150] inwrought into theinmost fibres of my nature, and always associated in my mind with Mr. Dewey's preaching. "

"Nor were these experiences peculiar to any one person. The audience asa whole were affected in a similar manner. A deep solemnity pervaded theplace. There was not merely silence, but the spell of absorbed attentionthat makes itself felt, and spreads itself as by a general sympathythrough a congregation profoundly moved by great thoughts filled out andmade alive by deep and uplifting emotions. The exercises in the churchwere often followed by lasting convictions. The Sunday's sermon wasthe topic, not of curious discussion or indiscriminate eulogy, but ofserious conversation among the young, who looked forward to the comingSunday as offering privileges which it would be a misfortune to lose. The services of the church were remembered and anticipated as the mostinteresting and important event of the week. "

"I shall never cease to think with gratitude of Mr. Dewey's preaching. In common with other great preachers of our denomination, --Dr. Channing, for example, Dr. Nichols, and Dr. Walker, --he spoke as one standingwithin the all-encompassing and divine presence. He awakened in us asense of that august and indefinable influence from which all that isholiest and best must come. He brought us into communication with thatLight of life. He showed us how our lives, our thoughts, and even ourevery-day acts, may be sanctified and inspired by it, as every plant andtree is not only illuminated by the sun but vitally associated with it. "

"If, in the light of later experience, I were to criticise [151] thepreaching I then heard, I should say that it was too intense. Thewriting and the delivery of such sermons subjected the preacher to toosevere a strain both of body and mind. No man could go on preaching inthat way, from month to month, without breaking down in health. And itmay be questioned whether a mind acting under so high a pressure is inthe best condition to take just views, to preserve its proper equipoise, or to impart wise and healthful instruction. The stimulus given may betoo strong for the best activity of those who receive it. They whosesensitive natures are most deeply affected by such an example may, underits influence, unconsciously form an ideal of intellectual attainmentstoo exacting, and therefore to them a source of weakness rather than ofstrength. "

"The danger lies in these directions. But Mr. Dewey's breadth ofapprehension, his steadfast loyalty and devotion to the truth, thejudicial impartiality with which he examined the whole field beforemaking up his mind, saved him from one-sided or ill-balancedconclusions. And the intense action of all the faculties not onlyenables a man of extraordinary intellectual powers to impress histhought on others and infuse his very soul into theirs; but it also, aswe see in the best work of Channing, Dewey, and Emerson, opens to themrealms of thought which otherwise might never have been reached, andgives to them glimpses of a divine love and splendor never granted to aless earnest and passionate devotion. "

In the autumn of 1835 Mr. Dewey was settled over the Second UnitarianChurch in New York, trusting to his stock of already written discourses[152] to save him from a stress of intellectual labor too severe forhis suffering brain, which was never again to allow him uninterruptedactivity in study. When his life-work is viewed, it should always beremembered under what difficulties it was carried on. It was workthat taxed every faculty to the uttermost, while the physical organ ofthought had been so strained by over-exertion at the beginning of hisprofessional career, owing to a general ignorance of the bodily lawseven greater then than it is now, that the use of it during the rest ofhis life was like that which a man has of a sprained foot; causing painin the present exercise, and threatening far worse consequences, if theeffort is continued. Fortunately, his health in all other respects wasexcellent, and his spirits and courage seldom flagged. I remember himas lying much on the sofa in those days, and liking to have his head"scratched" by the hour together, with a sharp-pointed comb, to relieveby external irritation the distressing sensation's, which he compared tothose made, sometimes by a tightening ring, sometimes by a leaden cap, and sometimes (but this was in later life) by a dull boring instrument. Yet he was the centre of the family life, and of its merriment as well;and his strong social instincts and lively animal spirits made him fullof animation and vivacity in society, although he was soon tired, andwith a nervous restlessness undoubtedly the effect of disease, neverwanted to stay long in any company. [153] He preached a sermon afterthe great fire in New York, in December, 1835, which drew forth thefollowing letter from Mr. Henry Ware:--

CAMBRIDGE, Jan. 15, 1836. 

DEAR FRIEND, --I must acknowledge your sermon, -you made me most happy byit. It was so true, so right, so strongly and movingly put; it was theword that ought to be said, the word in season. My feeling was: GodAlmighty be praised for sending that man there to speak to that greatand mighty city, and to interpret to it his providence. You cannot butfeel gratitude in being appointed to be such an instrument; and I trustthat you are to be used much and long, and for great good. Keep yourselfwell and strong; look on yourself as having a message and a mission, andlive for nothing else but to perform it. 

I happen to have found out, very accidentally, what is always the mostsecret of undiscoverable secrets, --that you are asked to preach theDudleian Lecture. Do not let anything hinder you. We want you: you mustcome; do not hesitate; and, mind, I speak first, to have you come andhouse it with me while you are in Cambridge. Pray, deny me not. 

Shall I tell you? Your sermon made me cry so that I could not finishreading it, but was obliged to lay it down. Not from its pathos, --butfrom a stronger, higher, deeper, holier something which it stirred up. Iam almost afraid for you when I think what a responsibility lies on youfor the use of such powers. May He that gave them give you grace withthem! Love to you and yours, and all peace be with you. Yours ever, H. WARE, JR. 

[154] In the same year he addressed a letter to Emerson, who, asa cousin of his wife, was well known to him from the first. Thefamiliarity of the opening recalls what he said in writing of him manyyears after: "Waldo, we always called him in those days, though now alladjuncts have dropped away from the shining name of Emerson. "

To Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

BOSTON, May 13, 1836. 

DEAR WALDO, --I felt much disappointed when, on going to Hancock Placethe third time, I found that you had gone to Concord; for I was drawn toyou as by a kind of spell. I wanted to see you, though it seemed to methat I could not speak to you one word. I can do no more now, --I am dumbwith amazement and sorrow; [FN] and yet I must write to you, were itonly to drop a tear on the page I send. Your poor mother! I did not knowshe had come with you. Miss Hoar 2 I do not know, and will intrude nomessage; but I think of her more than many messages could express. Mydear friend, I am as much concerned for you as for any one. God give youstrength to comfort others! Alas! we all make too much of death. Likea vase of crystal that fair form was shattered, --in a moment shattered!Can such an event be the catastrophe we make it?

[FN: This letter was called forth by the sudden death of CharlesChauncey Emerson, a younger brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and one ofthe noblest young men of America. ]

[FN: Miss Hoar was betrothed to Charles Emerson. ]

[155] I preached to-day at Chauncey Place [FN 1]. I will copy a passage. (I have not space to give the connection. )

"There stood once where now I stand, a father, --I knew him not, butto some of you he was known, --who, ere his children were twined upfor life, was called to leave them, but whose fair example and ferventprayer visited them, and dwelt among them, and helped, with much kindlynurture, to form them to learning, virtue, honor, and to present themto the world a goodly band of brothers. And say not, because oneand another has fallen on the threshold of life, --fallen amidst thebrightest visions and most brilliant promises of youth, --that it isall in vain; that parental toils and cares and prayers are all in vain. There is another life, where every exalted power trained here shall findexpansion, improvement, and felicity. [Those sons of the morning, whostand for a moment upon the verge of this earthly horizon amidstthe first splendors of day, and then vanish away into heaven, asif translated, not deceased, seem to teach us, almost by a sensiblemanifestation, how short is the step and how natural is the passage fromearth to heaven. ][FN 2] They almost open heaven to us, and they helpour languid efforts to reach it, by the most powerful of all earthlyaids, --the memory of admired and loved virtues. Yes, the mingled sorrowand affection which have swelled many hearts among us within the lastweek, tell me that the excellence we have lost has not lived in vain. Precious memory of early [156] virtue and piety! and such memories, andmore than one such, there are among you. Hold these bright companionsever dear, my young friends; embalm their memory in the fragrant breathof your love; follow them with the generous emulation of virtue; let theseal which death has set upon excellence stamp it with a character ofnew sanctity and authority; let not virtue die and friendship mourn invain!"

[FN 1: The church formerly ministered to by the Rev. William Emerson, the father of these rare sons. ]

[FN 2: This letter is taken from a copy, not the original; and themeaning of the brackets is uncertain. Probably, however, the passagewhich they enclose is a quotation. ]

Remember me with most affectionate sympathy to your mother, and AuntMary, and to Dr. Ripley. 

With my kind regards to your wife, I am, dear Waldo, in love and prayer, yours, O. DEWEY. 

Everybody mourns with you. Dr. Channing said yesterday, "I thinkMassachusetts could not have met with a greater loss than of that youngman. "

Mr. Emerson's letter in reply is beautiful in itself, and has the addedinterest attaching now to every word of his:--

CONCORD, May 23, 1836, MY DEAR SIR, --I received the last week your kind letter, and the copyof your affectionate notice of Charles A Chauncey Place. I rememberhow little while ago you consoled us by your sympathy at Edward'sdeparture, --a kind, elevating letter, which I have never acknowledged. I feel as if it was kind, even compassionate, to remember me now thatthese my claims of remembrance are gone. 

Charles's mind was healthy, and had opened steadily with a growth thatnever ceased from month to month [157] under favorable circumstances. His critical eye was so acute, his rest on himself so absolute, andhis power of illustrating his thought by an endless procession of fineimages so excellent, that his conversation came to be depended on athome as daily bread, and made a very large part of the value of lifeto me. His standard of action was heroic, --I believe he never had eventemptations to anything mean or gross. With great value for the opinionof plain men, whose habits of life precluded compliment and made theirverdict unquestionable, he held perhaps at too low a rate the praise offashionable people, --so that he steadily withdrew from display, andI felt as if nobody knew my treasure. Meantime, like Aaron, "he couldspeak well. " He had every gift for public debate, and I thought we hadan orator in training for the necessities of the country, who shoulddeserve the name and the rewards of eloquence. But it has pleased Godnot to use him here. The Commonwealth, if it be a loser, knows it not;but I feel as if bereaved of so much of my sight and hearing. 

His judgment of men, his views of society, of politics, of religion, of books, of manners, were so original and wise and progressive, that Ifeel--of course nobody can think as I do--as if an oracle were silent. 

I am very sorry that I cannot see you, --did not when we were both inBoston. My mother and brother rejoice in your success in New York, andI with them. They have had their part in the benefit. I hear nothingof the aching head, and hope it does not ache. . . . Cannot I see you inConcord during some of your Boston visits? I will lay by every curiousbook or letter that I can think might interest you. My cousin Louisa, Iknow, would be glad to see this old town, and the old [158] man at theparsonage whilst he is yet alive. My mother joins me in sending love toher. 

Yours affectionately, R. WALDO EMERSON. 

Mr. Dewey's mind was too logical in its methods for entire intellectualsympathy with Mr. Emerson; but that he thoroughly appreciated hisspiritual insight is shown by the following passage from a manuscriptsermon on Law, preached 13th August, 1868, on the occasion of theearthquake of that year in South America: "But the law [of retribution]does stand fast. Nothing ever did, ever shall, ever can escape it. Takeany essence-drop or particle of evil into your heart and life, and youshall pay for it in the loss, if not of gold or of honor, yet of thefinest sense and the finest enjoyment of all things divinest, mostbeautiful and most blessed in your being. I know of no writer among uswho has emphasized this fact, this law, more sharply than WaldoEmerson, and I commend his pages to you in this view. Freed from allconventionalism, whether religious or Scriptural, though he has left theranks of our faith, yet he has gone, better than any of us, to the verydepth of things in this matter. "

To Rev. William Ware. 

NEW YORK, Nov. 7, 1836. 

MY DEAR WARE, --Shall I brood over my regrets in secret, or shall I tellyou of them? I sometimes do not care whether any human being knows whatis passing in [159] me; and then again my feelings are all up in armsfor sympathy, as if they would take it by storm. I declare I have a gooddeal of liking for that other, --that sullenness, or sadness, or whatyou will; it is calmer and more independent. So I shall say nothing, only that I miss you even more than I expected. ' Never, in all thisgreat city, will a face come through my door that I shall like to seebetter than yours, --I doubt if so well. 

The next nearest thing to you is Furness's book. Have you got it? Isit not charming? It is a book of beauty and life. Spots there are uponit, --they say there are upon the sun. Certes, there are tendencies tonaturalism in Furness's mind which I do not like, --do not think thetrue philosophy; but it is full of beauty, and hath much wisdom in ittoo. 

I write on the gallop. My dinner is coming in three minutes, and a wagonis coming after that to carry me to Berkshire, that is, by steamboat toHudson as usual. But I am going to send this, though it be worth nothingbut to get a letter from you. 

If letters, like dreams, came from the multitude of business, I shouldwrite of nothing but that tragedy extempore, -for I am sure it was got upin a minute, -the argument whereof was your running away. It positivelyis the staple of conversation. And I think it is rather hard upon me, too. I am here; but that seems to go for nothing. All their talk is ofyour going away, --running away, I say, --desertion, --and help yourself ifyou can. . . . 

My love to Henry Ware, and the love of me and mine to you and yours. 

Yours ever, O. DEWEY. 

[See p. 86. ]

[160] To the Same. 

NEW YORK, Dec. 1, 1836. 

MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM, --For a prince you are in letter-writing, and youcan call me Lord Orville, for I have a birthright claim to that title. 'Excuse this capricole of my pen; it has been drawing hard enough at asermon all the morning, and can't help cutting a caper when it is letout. You won't get the due return for your good long letter this time, nor ever, I think. I am taking comfort in the good long letters that aregoing with mine, and of whose sending by this conveyance I am the cause. 

This conveyance is Miss Searle; and if you and Mrs. Ware don't cultivateher, or let her cultivate you, your folly will be inconceivable. 

Mrs. Jameson I have missed two or three chances of seeing, --verybright sometimes, and very foolish others; but who shall resist suchintoxicating draughts as have for some years been offered to her! Sheset off for Canada yesterday, going for her husband, since he could n'tor would n't come for her. 

Ingham has just finished one of the most exquisite portraits of MissSedgwick that eye ever saw. Did you see anything of it before you went?

Furness ['s book] is selling much, and I hear nothing but admiration, save the usual quaver in the song about the part on miracles. Apropos, . . . I think that the explication of the miracles must be a moot and nota test point, and I would not break with the [161] "Christian Examiner"upon it; and yet I think the heterodox opinions of Ripley should havecome into it in the shape of a letter, and not of a review. It is ratherabsurd to say "We" with such confidence, and that for opinions inconflict with the whole course of the "Examiner" and the known opinionsof almost all its supporters. . . . 

[FN He was named after Lord Orville, the hero of Miss Burney's"Evelina, " which his mother had read with delight shortly before hisbirth. ]

Yours forever and a day, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

NEW YORK, May. 2, 1837. 

. . . A WEEK ago to-day I sat down at my desk, spread before me a sheetof paper, grasped my pen energetically, and had almost committed myselffor a letter to you, when suddenly it occurred to me that Mrs. Schuylerwas in Boston, and would have told you just what it was my specialdesign to write; that is, all about the congregation of the faithful inChambers Street. Well, I suppose she has; but I shall have my say. The congregation has certainly not improved, as you seem, in yourpreposterous modesty, to suppose, but suffered by your leaving it. Theattendance, I should think, is about the same. . . . But I am afraid thatthe society is gradually losing strength. 

I have been preaching some Sunday-evening sermons to the merchants. Have n't you heard of them? And if you have n't, do you pretend thatBrookline is a place? Take my word, Sir, that it is not to be found onthe map of the world, --not known either to the ancients or the moderns. You are not in existence, Sir, take my word [162] for it, if you havenot heard of these crowded, listening, etc. Assemblies at the MercerStreet Church. Well, really, I have seen a packed audience there, andeven the galleries pretty well filled. I have thoughts of publishing thediscourses (only three, more than an hour long, however), and if Icould only write three more, I would; but my brain got into a prettybad condition by the third week, and I don't know whether I can go On atpresent. 

To the Same. 

NEW YORK, March 27, 1837. 

MY DEAR WARE, --I should like to know what you mean by not letting mehear from you these three months. Do you not know that you are in mydebt for a letter at least twenty lines long, which it took me threeminutes to write? And three minutes and twenty lines, in this Babel, are equal to one hour and two sheets in Brookline. Do you not know thateverybody is saying, "When have you heard from Mr. Ware?" Do you notknow that ugly and choking weeds will spring up on the desolation youhave made here if you do not scatter some flower-seeds upon it? Considerand tremble. Or, respect this and repent, as the Chinese say. 

Well, Dr. Follen is to be here for a twelvemonth, and we shall not getyou back again, --oh me!

Dr. Follen has quite filled the church at some evening lectures onUnitarianism. Good! and everything about him is good, but that he comesafter you. [163]

To the Same. 

NEW YORK, July 10, 1837. 

MY DEAR WARE, --I can scarcely moderate my expressions to the tone ofwisdom in telling you how much pleasure I have had in reading yourbook, --how much I am delighted with you and for you. There is no personto whom I would more gladly have had the honor fall of writing the"Letters from Palmyra. " And it is a distinction that places yourname among the highest in our--good-for-nothing--literature, as theMartineau considers it. By the bye, you need n't think you are a-goingto stand at the head of everything, as she will have it. Have not Iwritten a book too, to say nothing of the names less known of Channing, Irving, Bryant, etc. ? And, by the bye, again, speaking of the Martineau, she is a woman of one idea, --takes one view, that is, and knows nothingof qualification, --and hence is opinionated and confident to a degreethat I think I never saw equalled. Julia, Fausta, nay, Zenobia, forme, rather. How beautifully have you shown them up! And Gracchusand Longinus as nobly. What things is literature doing to gratifyambition, --things beyond its proudest hope! How little thought Zenobiathat her character, two thousand years after she lived, would beillustrated by the genius of a clime that she dreamed not of!

My love and congratulations to your wife; my love and envy to you. 

O. DEWEY. 

[164] To the Same. 

NEW YORK, May 13, 1838. 

MY DEAR WARE, --Brother Pierpont has preached finely for me thismorning, and is to do so again this evening; and for this I find myselfindirectly indebted to you. But you are one of those to whom I can'tfeel much obligation--for the love I bear you. 

I wrote to you three weeks ago. I hope Mrs. Ware is patient andsustained. Of you I expect it. But, O heaven! what a world of thoughtdoes it take even to look on calamity!

Your name is abroad in the world as it should be. I rejoice. Pierpontis now sitting by me, reading the London and Westminster article on"Zenobia, or the Fall of Palmyra. " I am glad you have altered the title. We are looking for the sequel. 

The next letter describes some of the difficulties of a journey fromBerkshire to New York forty years ago. The route by Hartford wasprobably chosen instead of the ordinary one by Hudson, to take advantageof the new railroad between that city and New Haven. 

To his W. 

NEW YORK, February 5, 1841. 

I PRAY you to admire my style of writing February. Began to writeJuly, but the truth is, I nearly lost my wits on my journey. Twelve orthirteen mortal hours in getting to Hartford [FN: Fifty miles]. Aftertwo or three hours, called [165] up, just when the sleep had become soprofound that on being waked I could not, for some seconds, settle it onwhat hemisphere, continent, country, or spot of the creation I was, nor why I was there at all. Then whisked away in the dark to thescience-lighted domes of New Haven, but did n't see them--for why? I wasasleep as I went through to the wharf. From the wharf, pitched into thesteamboat, not having the points of compass, nor the time of day, northe zenith and nadir of my own person. After two previous months ofquiet, the whirl-about made me feel very "like an ocean weed uptorn Andloose along the world of waters borne. " If not a foundered weed, a verydumfoundered one at least. 

To Rev. William Ware. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 15, 1841. 

How glad I am you wrote to me, my dear W. Is n't that a queer beginning?But there are people who say that everything natural is beautiful, and Iam sure that first line was as natural as the gushing out of a fountain;for the very sight of your handwriting was as a sunbeam in a winter'sday. By the bye, speaking of sunbeams, they certainly do wonders inwinter weather. Have you ever seen such blue depths, or depths of blue, in the mountains, that it seemed as if the very azure of the sky hadfallen and lodged in their clefts and leafless trees? Yesterday I waslooking towards our barn roofs covered with snow, --and you know theyare but six rods off, --and so deep was the color that I thought forthe moment it was the blue of the distant horizon. [166] Our friendCatherine Sedgwick, writing to me a day or two ago, speaks in rapturesof it. She says it is like the haze over Soracte or Capri. 

So you see my paragraph has led me from winter to summer. Summer is goneto New York a week since. No doubt it will produce beautiful flowers indue time, many of them culled from far distant lands, but most of themnative, I ween. Foreign seeds, you know, can do nothing without agood soil. In truth, I am looking with great interest for CatherineSedgwick's book. 

"Hard work to write. " Yes, terribly hard it has been for me these twoyears past; but when I am vigorous, I like it. However, the pen is ever, doubtless, a manacle to the thought; draws it out, if you please, butmakes a dragging business of it. By the bye, is your laziness making anapology for not finishing "Scenes in Judea "? Hear a compliment of mymother's for your encouragement. "I should think the man that couldwrite the Letters from Palmyra, '--anything so beautiful and so powerfultoo" (her very words), --"could write anything. "

I am delighted to hear of Mr. Farrar's being better. Give my love tothem, and tell him I know of nothing in the world I could near with morepleasure than of his improvement. What a beautiful, gentle, preciousspirit he is!

Yes, I grant you all about Cambridge; and if I don't go abroad, perhapswe will come and live with you a year or two. Something I must do; I getno better. 

I can't guess your plaguy charade. I never thought of one a minutebefore, and I have ruminated upon yours an hour. [167] Oh that you weremy colleague, or I yours, as you please!

With our love to your wife and children, I am as ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Dr. Channing. 

NEW YORK, Sept. 30, 1841. 

MY DEAR SIR, --I cannot go away for two years without taking leave ofyou. I wish I could do so by going to see you. But my decision to gois not more than three weeks old, and the intervening time has beenoverwhelmed with cares. Among other things, I have been occupied withprinting a volume of sermons. I feel as if it were a foolish thing toconfess, but I imagined that I had something to say about "human life"(that is my subject), though I warrant you will find it little enough. But then, you are accustomed to say so much better things than the restof us, that you ought to distrust your judgment. 

I sail for Havre on the 8th October with my family. 

I am extremely glad to learn from Mrs. G. That your health is so good, and that you pass some time every day with your pen in hand. The world, I believe, is to want for its guidance more powerful writing, duringtwenty years to come, than it has ever wanted before, or will again, andI hope you will be able to do your part. Perhaps this is speaking moreoracularly than becomes my ignorance; but it does appear to me that thecivilized world is on the eve of a change and a progress, putting allpast data at fault, and outstripping all present imagination. Whatquestions are to arise and to be [168] hotly agitated about humanrights, social position, lawful government, and the laws that are topress man down or to help him up? What Brownsons and Lamennais' andStrauss' are to come upon the stage, and to be confronted with sober andearnest reasoning?

But I did not think to put my slender finger into such great matters, but only to say adieu! If you would write me while abroad, you know itwould give me great pleasure. 

With my most kind and affectionate regards to Mrs. Channing, and my veryheart's good wishes and felicitations to M. , I am as ever, Very truly your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. William Ware. 

PARIS, Dec. 25, 1841. 

MY DEAR FELLOW, --You see how I begin; truth is, I feel more like writinga love-letter to you than a letter about affairs, or matters, or things;for have you not been my fellow more than anybody else has been? Have wenot lived and labored together, have I not been in your house as if itwere my own, and have you not come into my study many a time and oft, as little disturbing my thought, and seeming as much to belong there, as any sunbeam that glided into it? And furthermore, is not thisanniversary time not only a fellowship season for all Christian souls, but especially a reminder to those who have walked to the house of Godin company?

Still, however, it is of affairs that I have felt pressed to write youever since I left home, --indeed, ever since I received your letter fromMontreal. I have felt [169] that I ought at least to tell you that Isee no prospect of doing anything that you desire of me. When I shallbe able to address myself to any considerable task again, I know not. At present I am lying quite perdu. I have lost all faculty, but to readFrench histories, memoirs, novels, periodicals, etc. , and to run afterthis great show-world of Paris, --Louvre, gallery, opera, what not. I amlonging to get behind these visible curtains, and to know the spirit, character, manner of being, of this French people. At present all isproblem to me. No Sunday, literally no cessation of labor, no sanctityof domestic ties with multitudes, no honesty or truth (it is commonlyreported), but courtesy, kindness, it seems, and a sort of conventionalfidelity, --for instance, no stealing; a million of people here, but without either manufactures or commerce on a great scale; petitmanufacture, petit trade, petit menage, petit prudence unexampled, andthe grandest tableaux of royal magnificence in public works and publicgrounds to be seen in the world; the rez-au-chaussee (ground floor) ofParis, a shop; all the stories above, to be let; a million of people, and nobody at home, in our American sense of the word; an infiniteboutiquerie, an infinite bonbonnerie, an infinite stir and movement, and no deep moral impulse that I can see; a strange melange of the mostshallow levity in society, the most atrocious license in literature, and the most savage liberalism in politics, --on the whole, what sort ofpeople is it?

He bien!-to come down from my high horse before I break my neck, --herewe are, at honest housekeeping; for we hope to pay the bills. Hope topay, did I say? We pay as we go; that is the only way here; no stores, no larder, no bins, no garners, --the shops of [170] Paris are allthis to every family. Our greatest good-fortune here is in having theWalshes for our next-door neighbors; and who should I find in Mrs. W. But a very loving cousin and hearty admirer of yours? She wishes towrite a P. S. In my letter, and I am so happy to come to you insuch good company, as well as to enhance the value of my letter withsomething better than I can write, that I very gladly give the space toher. I am only sorry and ashamed that it is so little. And so, with allour love to you all, I am as ever yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. To the Same. 

CHAMPEL, NEAR GENEVA, July 18, 1842. 

MY DEAR FELLOW AND FRIEND, --At the hour of midnight, with the moonshining in at my open window, the sound of the rushing Arve in myears, --around me, a fine table of land a hundred feet above the streamthat washes its base, and covered with a hundred noble chestnuts, andlaid out with beautiful walks, --thus "being and situate, " I take in handthis abominable steel pen to write you. Envy me not, William Ware! Letno man, that is well, envy him that is sick. If I were "lying and beingand situate, " as the deeds have it, and as I ought to have it, I shouldthink myself an object of envy, that is, supposing I thought at all. No;in this charmed land, and in every land where I go, I bear a burden ofdiseased nerves which I might well exchange for the privilege of livingon the Isle of Shoals, could I but have the constitution of some of itspechereux (by contraction, pesky) inhabitants. 

. . . There has come a new day, and I have got a new [171] pen. Lastnight I was too much awake; I got up from my bed and wrote in mydressing-gown; to-day I am too much asleep. But allons, and see whatwill come of it. 

This morning we walked into Geneva to church, the air so clear that itseemed as if we could count every tile on the houses. The chimneys arecrowned with a forest of tin pipes, twisted in every direction to carryoff smoke. At dusky eve, in a superstitious time, a man, coming suddenlyupon the town, might think that an army of goblins had just alightedupon its roofs. . . . What stupendous things do ages accumulate uponevery spot where they have passed! Every time we go into town we passby the very place where Servetus was burned. And Geneva is old enough tohave seen Julius Caesar!

. . . Here's another new day, William; and I wish I were a new man. Butthe heavens are bright, and the air so clear that I can define everyman's patch of vineyard and farm on the Jura, ten miles off; everyfissure and seam on Saleve, two miles back of us; and through a gap inthe Saleve, I do not doubt, were I to go out on the grounds, I could seethe top of Mont Blanc. And yet lay one or two ounces' weight on aman's brain, and a tackle, standing on the Jura, Saleve, and Mont Blanctogether, can't lift him up. You see, I am resolved you shan't envyme. However, not to be too lugubrious, I am improving; that is, theparoxysms of this trouble are less severe, though I am far from beingrelieved of the burden. 

But it is time I turn to your letter, which I received here withHenry's, on the 12th June. Thank him, for I cannot write you both now. Much news he gave me; [172] but how much that was distressing, and thatconcerning himself most of all. What is to become of our churches? Andwhat is he to do? It relieves me very much to hear that Gannett's caseis no worse. My love and sympathy to him when you see him. Is he not oneof our noblest and most disinterested, as well as ablest men, --nay, asan extemporaneous speaker, unrivalled among us? . . . 

To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick. 

CHAMPEL, NEAR GENEVA, July 13, 1842. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, -The public prints have doubtless relieved me from whatI should consider a most painful duty, --that of announcing to you thedeath of your friend Sismondi! He died on the 25th of last month. I sawMme. Sismondi yesterday, and she desired me to tell you particularlythat she must defer writing to you some little time; that she did notfeel that she could write now, especially in a way to give you anycomfort. She thought it was better that I should announce it to you, notseeming to be aware that the death of her husband is one of the eventsthat the newspapers soon carry through the world. Indeed, the modesty ofSismondi and his wife is one of the things in them that has most struckme. Mme. S. Said yesterday, in speaking of the commencement of yourfriendship, that "Sismondi was so grateful to her for finding him out. "And Sismondi, when I saw him on my arrival, in expressing to me hisregret and concern that it was so long since he had heard from you, saidhe knew that you had many letters to write, etc. ; as if that could bethe reason why you did not write to him! Well, there is more modesty inthe world than we think, I verily believe. [173]. . . Speaking of herhusband, Mme. S. Said: "Of his acquisitions and powers, I say nothing;but it was such a heart, --there never was such a heart!"

I ought to add, while speaking of Mme. S. , since we owe it all to you, that her reception of us was the kindest possible. She brought us all, children and all, to her house immediately to pass an evening, andindeed took all our hearts by storm, --if that can be said of a creatureso gentle and modest. . . . 

I wrote the foregoing this morning. At dinner-time your letter of June12 came, which, with several others, has so turned my head, that I don'tknow whether it is morning or afternoon. We are conscious, "at eachremove, " of dragging "the lengthening chain, " but we do not know exactlyhow heavy or how strong it is, till some one lays a hand on the otherend. The lightest pressure there!--you know how it is when some onesteps on the end of a long string which a boy draws after him. God blessyou!--it was in my heart to say no less, --for thinking it is a longtime. . . . We read and walk and talk and laugh, and sometimes sigh. Switzerland has no remedy against that. Of myself I have nothing to saythat is worth the saying. I am improving somewhat, but I am sufferingmuch and almost continually, and as yet I recover no energy for work. 

To Rev. Henry W Bellows. 

FLORENCE, ITALY, Nov. 24, 1842. 

. . . It is now a fortnight or more since the overwhelming news came tous of the death of Channing. During this time my mind has been passingthrough steps of gradual approximation to the reality, but never didit [174] find, or else voluntarily interpose, so many barriers betweenitself and reality as in this most deplorable event. There are losseswhich I should more acutely feel than the loss of Channing; becausefriendship with him lacked, I imagine, in all who enjoyed it, thoselittle familiarities, those fonder leanings, which leave us, as it were, bewildered and utterly prostrate when the beloved object is gone. Butthere is here a sense of general and irreparable loss, such as thepeople of a realm might be supposed to feel when its cherished head issuddenly taken away. For I suppose that no person sustained so manyand such vital relations to the whole republic of thought, to the wholerealm of moral feeling among us, as this, our venerated teacher andfriend. To call him "that great and good man, " does not meet the feelingwe have about him. Familiar to almost nobody, he was near to everybody. His very personality seems to have been half lost in the sense ofgeneral benefit. He was one of those great gifts of God, like sunlightor the beauty of nature, which we scarcely know how to live without, or in the loss of which, at least, life is sadly changed, and the worlditself is mournfully bereft. 

But a letter affords no scope for such a theme; and besides, painful asit is to pass to common topics, they claim their dues. Life, ay, commonlife, must go on as it ever did, and nothing shall tear that infiniteweb of mystery in which it walks enveloped. Ours, however, in thesedays, is rather a shaded life. Absence from home, a strange land, aland, too, that sits in mourning over the great relics of the past, --allthis tends to make it so. More material still is what passes withinthe microcosm, and I am not yet well. Not that I am worse, for I amcontinually better. But--but, in short, not to [175] speak too gravely, if a man feels as if one of the snakes of Medusa's head were certainlyin his brain, --I have seen a horrible picture of the Medusa to-day byLeonardo da Vinci, --he cannot be very happy, you know. And if thosearound him be of such as "bear one another's burdens, " then you see howthe general conscience follows. 

But let me not make the picture too dark, for the sake of truth andgratitude. Pleasantly situated we are, in his fair Florence, which growsfairer to my eye the more I see it. Our rooms look to the south, anddown from a balcony upon a garden full of orange-trees, and rosesEnd chrysanthemums in full bloom. . . . Then we have reading and musicin-doors, and churches and palaces and galleries out-doors. And suchgalleries they grow upon me daily; the more ordinary paintings, or thosehat seemed such at first, reveal something new on very new perusal. Itis great reading with such walls or pages. Still there is a longing, almost a sick pining, or home at times. . . 

To Rev. William Ware. 

NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 1843. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --Why have I not written to you, before? Every day forthe last three weeks I have thought of it. I have been with you inthought, and with him, your dear brother, --my dear friend! If he shouldhave known me and conversed with me, I could lot have refrained frommaking the journey to see him. How easy his converse ever was, hownatural, how sensible [176] and humorous by turns, but especially sounforced that for me it always had a charm by itself. The words seemedto drop from our lips almost without our will, and yet with nobody couldI get through so much conversation in so little time. Neither of usseemed to want much explanation from the other; I think we understoodone another well. 

Where is he now? With whom talks he now? Perhaps with Channing andGreenwood! Oh! are not the best of us gone; and all in one year! Wasthere ever such a year?

My dear William Ware, we must hold on to the ties of life as we may, and especially to such as unite you and me. But are you not getting astrange feeling of nonchalance about everything, --life, death, and thetime of death, what matters it? I rather think it is natural for thelove of life to grow stronger as we advance in life and yet it is soterribly shaken by the experience of life, and one is so burdened attimes by the all-surrounding and overwhelming mystery and darkness, thatone is willing to escape any way and on any terms. 

I have your few kind words. I hope I shall have such oftener than onceor twice a year. I will try to take care of myself, and to live. . . . 

To the Same. 

NEW YORK, Oct. 17, 1844. 

MY DEAR WARE, --I ought not--I must not--I cannot--I dare not, --at leastnot at present. When the present stress is over. I may feel better. Thefact is, at present I am scarcely fit to take care of my parish, and itwould be madness to take upon myself any new [177] burden. See therea fine fellow I should be to have charge of the "Examiner, " who havewritten present three times in as many lines! However, I am writing nowin terrible haste, on the spur of an instant determination; for I mustand will put this thing off from my mind. I have kept it there fora fortnight. I have wished to do this. First, because you wished it;secondly, because others wish it; and, thirdly, I had a leaning to it. In case of a colleagueship, and that must come, I might be glad of it. Bellows, too, would help me, --would take charge with me, --and that maybe, if the thing is open by and by, but not now; I must not think of itany more now. I have not slept a wink all night for thinking of this andother things. 

All this, my dear fellow, is somewhat confidential. I do not wish to beconsidered a good-for-nothing. Perhaps I shall rally. I was doing verywell when I left the Continent. England overwhelmed me with engagements, and so it is here. With our love to your love and the children, Yours as ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

NEW YORK, Jan. 6, 1845. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --I shall make no clue return for your good long letter;I have none of the Lambent light which plays around your pen wherewithto illuminate my page, and indeed am in these days, I am sorry to say, something more dark than usual. However, if wishes be such good thingsas you ingeniously represent, [178] I judge that attempts are worthsomething. Ergo, Q. S. , which means good sequitur; it can hardly be anon sequitur, if nothing follows. 

There! I have just touched all the points of your letter, I think. Ihave sent my light comment-stone skittering over your full smooth lake. 

Well, I see you on the bank of your literal lake, your beautifulMenotomy, --beautiful as Windermere, only not so big; and I see thespring coming to cover that bank with verdure, and I long for both; thatis, for spring and you. I always long for you, and for spring, I think Ilong for it more than I ever did It must be that I am growing old. Shallwe ever meet, my friend, if not by Menotomy, by those fountains whereChrist leads his flock in the immortal clime, and rejoin our belovedHenry, and Greenwood, and Channing? I am not sad, but my thoughts thiswinter are far more of death than of life. Ought one to part with hisfriends so? No; happy New Year to you. Hail the expected years, and theyears of eternity! God bless you. 

As ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

SHEFFIELD, Aug. 18, 1845. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, -. . . The whole previous page is to no purpose but tolet you know that I have thought about you incessantly; for you knowthat I have a sympathy not only with your heart, but with your head, if that be again, as I suppose it is, the seat of your trouble. Headscertainly can bear a great deal. Mine has; and [179] I am now readingthe work, in six volumes, of a man who was out of his head for yearsfrom hard study; and yet these volumes are full of thought, full ofminute and endless explications on the greatest of subjects. It is thework of Auguste Comte on the "Philosophie Positive, " essentially anattempt at a philosophic appreciation of the whole course of humanthought and history. With an awfully involved style, with a greatover-valuation of his own labor, he seems to me to have done a greatdeal. I have met with nothing on the philosophy of history to comparewith it, as philosophy, though I have read Vico and Herder. 

I shall not be easy till I know something about your health and plans. My vacation is nearly ended. I go down to New York the 1st ofSeptember. . . . 

As ever yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows. 

SHEFFIELD, Aug. 25, 1845. 

DEAR BELLOWS, --I thought to answer you in your own vein, but I am madevery serious just now by reading the first five chapters of Matthew. How many things to think of! Does no doubt arise concerning thoseintroductory chapters? And then what heart-penetrating, what tremendousteaching is that of the Sermon on the Mount!

In fact, though jests have flown pretty freely about the house, and hearty laughter is likely to be where the Deweys muster in muchstrength, yet I have had a pretty serious vacation. I set for my stent, to read the [180] New Testament, or the Gospels at least, in Greek, and to master the great work of Auguste Comte, and to write one or twosermons. With the philosopher I have spent the most time. Morning aftermorning, with none to annoy or make me afraid, I have gone out on thegreen grass under the trees, and, seated in the bosom of the world, I have striven with the great problem of the world. The account looksfanciful, perhaps, but the matter is not so; for amidst this solitudeand silence, and this infinitude which nature opens to me as thecity never does, I find the most serious and terrible business of myexistence. I do not mean terrible in a bad sense; I have courage andfaith, but I can gain no approach towards philosophical apathy. 

We are well, and expect to go down on Wednesday next, and we too beginto feel a longing for New York and you. With our love to E. 

As ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Mrs. Ephraim Peabody. 

NEW YORK, Oct. 24, 1845. 

MY DEAR MRS. PEABODY, --Do not regret that you have let us have yourhusband a few days. He has done us much good; unless I am to put in theopposite scale his having stolen away the hearts of my children. 

If you had heard him last evening, I think you would have beensatisfied, though wives are hard to please. It was a majestical andtouching ministration; I have never felt anything from the pulpit to bemore so. The hearty, honest, terrible tears it wrung from me were [181]such as I have given to no sermon this many a day, I think, never. Ihope you are better; and with all other good wishes, I am, Yours verytruly, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. William Ware. 

NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 1846. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --This week is a little breathing-time, the first I haveallowed myself for five months; and my old pile of sermons shows such asprinkling of new ones as it has not in any equal time these ten years. Sometimes I have thought I might get my head strong and clear again, and good as anybody's; but this last week has brought me to a stand, andmade me think of that monitory prediction of yours when I came home, twoyears ago. . . . To be sure, I do not usually think of any retreat thatwill separate me entirely from New York. I have expected to live and diein connection with this church; but I have had a feeling this winter asif a new voice might be better for them; and any way it may be betterfor them to have one man than two; that is, myself and a colleague. Somewhere, indeed, I expect to preach as long as I can do anything, for I suppose this is my vocation, if I have any, poorly as it isdischarged. Poorly; alas! how does this eternal ideal fly before us, andleave us ever restless and unsatisfied! How much Henry felt it! more, indeed, than I had thought, well as I knew his humility. And indeed Icannot help thinking that he did not sufficiently distinguish betweenoutward and inward defect. I can very well understand how, in any rightmind, the latter should give deep pain. But for Henry Ware to chargehimself with indolence [182] and idleness, --with not doing enough! Why, he was ever doing more than his health would bear. The Memoir, I hardlyneed say, is read here with deep interest. Tell your brother, with myregards and thanks to him, that it appears to me a perfect biography inthis, --that it placed me in the very presence of my friend, and made mefeel, all the while I was reading it, as if he were with me. I laid itdown, however, I may confess to you, with one sad feeling beyond thatof the general loss; and that was that nowhere throughout was there onerecognition of the friendship that bound me and Henry Ware together. Itis nobody's fault, unless it be mine. And I am led sometimes toquery whether there be not something strange about me in my friendlyrelations; some apparent repulsion, or some want of visible kindliness. One thing I do know; that we are all crushed down under this great wheelof modern life and labor, and friendships seem to have but poor chanceof culture and expression. 

To pass on; with regard to our New York churches, we have more visibleactivity this winter than usual. I hold a weekly evening meeting inthe library of our church; Mr. Bellows also. Our Sunday school isreorganized, being divided into two, and the numbers are more thandoubled; and we have formed a Unitarian Association for the State of NewYork, with headquarters in the hall over the entrance to the Church ofthe Divine Unity. 

To the Same. 

NEW YORK, May 4, 1846. 

MY DEAR not "rugged and dangerous, " but gentle and good-natured, --Iforesee a biography (far be the [183] day when it shall be required!)in which it is not difficult to anticipate a passage running somewhatas follows: "He seemed to possess every attribute of genius butself-reliance. From this cause, doubtless, he failed to some extent ofwhat he might otherwise have accomplished. He himself thought that thechoice of his profession was the fatal mistake of his life; and perhapshe might have found a more congenial sphere. But it may be doubtedwhether his self-distrust might not have prevented him from puttingforth his full strength, or rather, perhaps, from giving full playto his mind in any walk of literature or art. Even in those beautifulOriental and Roman fictions there is a certain staidness, a measuredstep, from which he never departs. Even in some of those chaptersof Zenobia, which a critic of the day pronounced to be `absoluteinspiration, ' the light glows through the smooth and polished sentencesas through the crevices of plated armor. In fact, it was only in hisfamiliar letters that his genius seemed to break out into perfectfreedom. In these he approached the letters of Charles Lamb nearer thanany writer of his day. 

"There is a curious and really amusing specimen of his modesty in aletter of his to a friend of the name of Dewey, --if we read the namerightly in his somewhat illegible manuscripts. This Dewey, it seems, hadpublished some sermons, or volumes of sermons, we know not which, --forthey are long since swept down beneath the flood of time to thatoblivion to which many cart-loads of such things are worthilydestined, --and the author of Zenobia really addresses this forgottenpreacher as his superior in strength, in power, and, it would seem, even in the felicities of style. We hope [184] the good man had toomuch sense, or humility at least, to have his head turned by suchinexplicable fatuity. "

Now I will thank you to preserve this letter among your papers, that thebiographer may light upon some evidence of "the good man's" sanity. 

. . . I do not think I shall go to the great May meetings in Boston. Iam afraid I am not made for them. It wants a man, at any rate, with allhis faculties about him, ready and apt and in full vigor; and mine arenot, --certainly not now-a-days, if they ever are. The condition of mybrain at present makes quiet necessary to me. Every exertion is nowsomething too much. 

I have addressed the trustees of the church to-day, to express myconviction to them that, by next autumn, some material change must bemade. By that time all my sermons will be preached to death, and I shallhave no power to make new ones. The church must determine whether itwill relinquish my services entirely, or have them one quarter or onethird of the time. 

The thought of having soon to be clone with time and life has almostoppressed me for the year past, so constantly has it been with me. Andindeed I have felt that there may be too much of this for the vigor, notto say the needful buoyancy, of life. Earth is our school, our sphere;and I more than doubt whether the anchorite's dreaming of heaven, or thespirit of the "Saints' Rest, " is the true spiritual condition. I havelong wanted to review Baxter's work, in this and other views. 

With my love to your wife and children, --I mean, by your leave, yourwife especially, --I am, as ever, Yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[185] To the Same. 

NEW YORK, July 10, 1846. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --If from this awful heat (90 degrees in my study) whereI am busy, I were not going to an equally awful country heat whereI shall be lazy, I would put off writing a few days. . . . Myprincipal--no, I won't say that--my most painful business is huntingup sermons fit to be preached. The game grows scarce, and my greatestvexation is that every now and then, when I think I have got a fox or abeaver, it turns out to be a woodchuck or a muskrat. 

From the tenor of some of our late letters, I believe we should bethought to belong to the "Mutual Admiration Society. " I deny that of usboth, though appearances are rather against us. I will have done, at anyrate, for your last has quite knocked me down, or rather so outrageouslyset me up, as I was never before. 

With regard to my plans, I myself prefer four months in the pulpit here, and that was what I proposed; but something had been said by me, aboutthree months in a different connection, and the congregation, I amtold, thought that in naming three they were conforming precisely tomy wishes. But that will be arranged satisfactorily. I am to go out oftown, of course; I cannot live here upon a quarter or third of a salary. I have something of my own, this house and a little more, --twelvethousand dollars, perhaps, in all; so far I have carried out the planyou speak of. I have had reasons more than most others for attending tothe means, for I am the only surviving male member of my family. I havehad the satisfaction of doing something for them all along, and shallhave that of leaving to my mother [186] and sisters a house to coverthem, and forty acres of land. . . . 

Yours as ever, only more than ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows. 

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2, 1846. 

MY DEAR BELLOWS, --Suppose I take my pen and write just what comes intomy head. Did you expect things coming from anywhere else, I would liketo know? It's a pretty serious condition, however. Conceive--I am towrite in total forgetfulness that I am a Dr. , and without any fearbefore my eyes of having it printed in a biography. Bah! if anybodyever did write letters that never could be printed anywhere, I amthat person. What the reason is precisely, I do not know, but I alwaysfancied it was because I had no time and no superfluous energies tothrow away upon letters, any pore than upon conundrums. And I havefancied, too that when the blessed leisure days should come in thequiet country, --not only the otium cum dignitate, but he silence and themeditation, --that then I should pour myself out in letters. But the timehas n't come yet. Consider that my leisure as yet extends to only about(I've pulled out my watch to see) three hours and twenty minutes. Itis now Monday, 11: 20 A. M. , and we did not arrive here till Saturdayevening. 

Let me hear from you as soon as ten thousand things will let you. Youwill easily see that there is no good reason why I have written thisletter but this, --that have left the greater part of my heart in NewYork and naturally turn back to find it. Remind your three [187] housesof the stock they have in it, bad as it is; and, to be most sadlyserious, remember my very affectionate regards to Mrs. Kirkland, andgive my love to the -s and -s, and believe me, Ever your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 1846. 

. . . FOR am I not through the one third of the second of the fivemonths, and am I not very glad of it? And yet I am very glad I cameaway. You have no idea how I am relieved, and I shall not go backempty-handed. But the relief I feel admonishes me never to return to thefull charge. How little do people know or conceive what it is! One case, like what I fear Mrs. -'s is, of slow decline, -one such case weighsupon the mind and heart for months. If you could go and make the call, without any sad anticipation or afterthought; but you cannot. And then, when it is not one case that draws upon your sympathies, but several, and you are made the confidant of many sorrows besides, and you areanxious for many minds; and when, moreover, your studies are not of thehabitudes of bees, and the length of butterflies' wings, but wastingthoughts of human souls in sorrow and peril, and your Sundays rack yoursinews with pain, --I declare I wonder that men live through it at all. 

To the Same. 

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 1847. 

MY DEAR BELLOWS, --I consider it a mercy to you to put some intervalbetween my letters; indeed, I do [188] not know how you write any, ever;besides, I feel all the while as if some of your burdens were to be laidat the door of my delinquencies. . . . Indeed, I rejoice in you always. Inever hear of you but to hear good of you; and it is often that Ihear. . . . 

As to the sermons I have been writing here, I consider your suggestionthat you might read since you will not hear them such an enormouscompliment, such a reckless piece of goodness, that all your duties inregard to them are fully discharged in the bare proposition. And I amnot going to have you canonized and sent down to all ages as the mostsuffering saint in the nineteenth century, for having read twelve ofDewey's manuscript sermons. I have preached one of them this evening, and it made so much impression (upon, me) that I was quite takenby surprise. The title is "Nature. ". . . Last week I wrote the mostconsiderable lucubration of the winter, on the darkest problem in thephilosophy of life and history, "the ministry of error and evil in theworld, " to wit, Polytheism, Despotism, War, and Slavery. . . . Alwaysmy poor mind and heart are struggling with one subject, and that is thegreat world-question. 

You speak of my opportunities here. Perhaps I have not improved themvery well. I am not very enterprising in the social relations, and halfof the winter I have not cared for Washington, nor anything else butwhat was passing in my own mind. . . . I have met some admirable personshere, of those I did not know before. Crittenden and Corwin and JudgeMcLean have interested me most; men they seem to me of as fine andbeautiful natures as one can well meet. I have had two interviews withCalhoun that interested me much; [189] and the other evening I metSoule, the Louisiana senator, and had a long conversation with him, chiefly about slavery, --a very remarkable person. There is no face inthe Senate, besides Webster's, so lashed up with the strong lines ofintellect; and his smile shines out as brightly and beautifully from thedark cloud of his features. 

To his Daughter Mary. 

NEW YORK, May 23, 1847. 

DEAR MOLLY, --I thought M. E. D. Made you m-a-d; but you shall haveit hereafter, if it makes you "demnition" mad; no appreciation of mydelicacy in leaving out the E, --which stands for error, egotism, eggnog, epsom-salts, and every erroneous entity extant. Yes, the E, --have it, with all its compounds. The fact is, I suppose, that when peopleretire up into the country, they grow monstrous avaricious, and exacteverything that belongs to them; lay up their best clothes and goslip-shod. I'm preparing for that condition, mentally and bodily. You see I begin to slip already in language. Your mother is trying topersuade me to buy a dressing-gown. A dressing-gown! when I don't expectto dress at all. As if a beggar who never expects to dine were to buy aservice of plate, or a starving man should have his picture taken, andgive a hundred dollars for famine in effigy. I have ordered a suit ofsummer clothes, to be sure, because I feel very thin, and expect to feelvery light some five weeks hence. I shall get some cigars by the sametoken, because all things with me are vanishing into smoke. And ifthin clothes can't live, can't be distended, filled out, and lookrespectable, upon smoke, let 'em die, and be crushed before the moth. 

[190] Monday morning. These tantrums, dear Molly, were--what? cutup?-last night after preaching, and mortal tired I was too. I do notknow how it is, but it seems to me that every sermon I take now, everypoor, little, innocent sermon comes bouncing out in the pulpit like aBrobdingnag. 

To Rev. William Ware. 

SHEFFIELD, Aug. 22, 1847. 

DEAR FRIEND, --I don't like Commencements. I hate travelling. And justnow I hate my pen so much that I can scarce muster patience to tell youso. 

I have been reading Prescott's "Peru. " What a fine accomplishment thereis about it! And yet there is something wanting to me in the moralnerve. History should teach men how to estimate characters. It should bea teacher of morals. And I think it should make us shudder at the namesof Cortez and Pizarro. But Prescott's does not. He seems to have a kindof sympathy with these inhuman and perfidious adventurers, as if theywere his heroes. It is too bad to talk of them as the soldiers ofChrist. If it were said of the Devil, they would have better fitted thecharacter. 

Monday morning. The shadows of the lilac fall upon my page, checkeredwith the slant rays of the morning light; there is a slope of greengrass under the window; here is quiet all around; I wish you were here. 

My love to your wife and children. 

Yours as ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[191]To the Same. 

SHEFFIELD, Sept. 30, 1847. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --I should have answered your letter of the 6th before, but sermons have been in hand or the first and second Sundays of Octoberin New York, and my hand is commonly too weary, when engaged in suchtasks, to turn to anything else. 

I sent the late edition of my--things (works, they call 'em) to theHarvard College Library, and if you will take the second volume, youwill see, in a sermon "On the Slavery Question, " how entirely I agreewith you hat this is the great trial question of the country. And Ithink it will press upon the country this coming winter is it never hasbefore. It certainly will if the Californias are ceded to us, and theWilmot Proviso is brought before Congress, not for hypothetical, butfor practical, actual decision. If it should be, I entertain the mostpainful apprehensions for the result. We have lost a host by the deathof Silas Wright. A sagacious politician said to a friend of mine theother day, "It is a special providence, for it has saved us from adissolution of the Union. " His opinion was that Silas Wright, if he ladlived, would have been President; and you know that he would have takenhis stand on the Proviso. 

The judgment of the individual to whom I have just referred presents thetrue issue. It is Policy against Right. I suppose there is not a man inNew England who does not wish for the extinction of Slavery. I supposethere is hardly a man at the North who does not feel that the system iswrong, that it ought to be abolished, and must eventually be abolished;and that the only question about its abolition is a question of time. [192] But here is the peril, --that a good many persons in Congress andout of Congress will falter in their conviction before the determinedstand of the South, --the determination, that is to say, to break offfrom the Union rather than submit to the Wilmot Proviso. And I do mostseriously fear, for my part, that they would hold to that determination. But I am prepared, for myself, to say that, rather than yield thenational sanction to this huge and monstrous wrong, I would take therisk of any consequences whatever. I reason for the nation as I wouldfor myself. I say, rather than tell a lie, I would die. I cannotdeliberately do wrong, and I cannot consent that my people shall. Iwould rather consent to the dismemberment of my right hand than to layit in solemn mockery on the altar of injustice. As I have said in thesermon to which I have referred you, suppose that we were called uponto legalize polygamy or no marriage in California; would we do it?Certainly we would not, though all the Southern States should threatento break off from us for our refusal, and should actually do it. I askeda similar question with regard to legalizing theft, in my sermon on theAnnexation of Texas; and one of the stanchest opposers of the WilmotProviso once told me that that was the hardest instance he had ever beencalled upon to answer. 

But though he felt the force of the moral parallel, still policy wascarrying it with him over the right; or rather I should say, perhaps, that he resolved the right' of the matter into temporary expediency. Hedid not mean to cross the line of conscience, but he thought it shouldsway to this great emergency. 

This, I say, is the great peril; and he who would raise up thisnation to the height of this great argument, must [193] lift it to thedetermination to do no wrong, --must lift it high enough, in fact, to seethat the right is the only true policy. 

Who shall do it? You exhort me to write. I shall do so as I am able, andsee occasion, as I have done. I shall scarcely refrain, I suppose, fromwriting this winter. But alas! I am broken in health, and am totallyunable fairly and fully to grapple with any great subject. I have morethan I can well, or, I fear, safely do to meet the ordinary calls of mypulpit. 

In fact I am a good deal discouraged about my ability to do good in anyway, unless it be by quiet study, and such fruits as may come of it. Ihave encountered so much misconstruction within a year past, or ratherhave come to the knowledge of so much, that I am seriously tempted, attimes, to retire from the pulpit, from the church, from the open fieldof controversy in every form, and to spend the remainder of my days instudies, which, if they last long enough, may produce a book or two thatwill not subject me to that sort of personal inquisition which I findhas beset me hitherto. 

You may be surprised at my saying this, and may ask if I have not hadas much honor and praise as I deserve. I do not deny it. But still thereis, unless I am mistaken, a sort of question about me as a professionalperson, --about my professional sanctity, or strictness, or peculiarity, that moves my indignation, I must say, but (what is more serious) thatmakes me doubt whether, as a clergyman, I am doing any good that isproportionate to my endeavors, and inclines me to retreat from thisground altogether. How, for instance, if I have any desirable place inone denomination, could the "Christian World" venture to say that Ihad done more hurt [194] by my observation about teetotalism in myWashington discourse than all the grog-shops in the land! How could aclerical brother of mine seriously propose, as if he spoke the sense ofmany, to have me admonished about my habits of living, --of eating, he said, but perhaps he meant drinking, too, --my habits, who am aremarkably simple and small eater; and, as to wine, do not taste itone day in twenty! Yet this person actually attributed my ill-health toluxurious living. I live as list; I feast as other men feast, when I amat a feast, which is very rarely; I laugh as other men laugh; I willnot have any clerical peculiarity in my manners; and if his cannot beunderstood, I will retire from the profession, for I will be a man morethan a minister. I came unto the profession from the simplestpossible impulse, --from a religious impulse; I have spoken in it as Iwould, --with earnestness, if nothing else, --and I cannot throw away thisearnestness upon a distrusting community. Besides, I confess that Iam peculiarly sensitive to personal wrong. I do not suppose that thisblackguardism of the Abolition press would have found anywhere a moresensitive subject than I am. It fills me with horror, --as if I had beenstruck with a blow and beaten into the mire and dust in the very street. 

I must have some great faults, --that is my conclusion, --and such faults, perhaps, as unfit me for doing much good. I open my heart to you. Godbless you and yours. 

Your assured friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[195]To Mrs. David Lane. 

SHEFFIELD, Oct. 19, 1847. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --I cannot feel easy without knowing how little C. Isgetting along. I pray you to take your pen, if you are not too busy, orshe too ill, and tell me how she is. 

And now, having my pen in hand, I could and should go on and writea letter to you, were it not that all ingenuity, fancy, liberty ofwriting, is put to a complete nonplus by the uncertainty in what stateof mind my writing will find you. I must not write merrily, I would notwrite sadly. I hope all is well, I fear all is not, and I know not howto blend the two moods, though an apostle has said, "As sorrowful, yetalways rejoicing. " But apostolic states of mind somehow seem to me toogreat to enter into letters, and there is nothing to me more surprisingthan to find in biography--Foster's, for instance--long lettersoccupied with the profoundest questions in religion. If I were nothabitually engaged in the contemplation of such subjects, if I had notanother and appropriate vehicle for them, and if they did not alwaysseem to me too vast for a sheet or two of paper, I suppose that myletters, too, might be wise and weighty. As it is, they are always mererelaxations, or mere chip-pings and parings from the greater themes, atthe most. So you see that neither you nor the public lose anything by mybeing a negligent and reluctant letter-writer. 

Well, I shall make a serious letter, if I do not mind, about nothing, and so doubly disprove all I have been saying. I trust C. Is gettingwell, but I am always anxious about that fever. Pray write a word torelieve my [196] solicitude, which my wife shares with me, as in theaffectionate regard with which I am, Ever yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

Our kind remembrances to Mr. Lane. We are busy, Is city people cannotconceive of, in getting the indoors and outdoors to rights. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows. 

SHEFFIELD, Nov. 26, 1847. MY DEAR FRIEND, --I have thought much of whatyou said the other morning; and though I expect to see you gain in afortnight, I cannot let the interval pass without a few words. The newinterest in your mind, as far is it is spiritual, and the new measuresyou propose to adopt in your church, so far as I understand them, have my entire sympathy. But I demur to your manner of stating thespeculative grounds of this change in your feeling and view. Certainlymy mind is, and has been or a long time, running in a direction contraryto your present leanings. I cannot think that human nature is o low andhelpless as you seem to think, nor that the gospel is so entirelythe one and exclusive remedy. And yet I agree, too, with much (in itspractical bearing) of what you say, in the direction that your mind istaking. I have often insisted in the pulpit that the people do not yetunderstand Christianity; its spiritual nature, however, rather than itspositive facts, its simple love and disinterestedness rather than itssupernaturalism, were to me the points where they have failed. . . . Fully admit, too, the need of progress in our denomination, but I do notbelieve in any grand new era to be [197] introduced into its historyby the views you urge, or any other views. All good progress must begradual. If there is a revolution in your mind, does it follow that thatmust be the measure for others, for your brethren, for the denomination, in past or present time?

Your sympathies are wide; the tendency to outward action is strong inyou; your generous nature opens the doors of your mind to light fromevery quarter; need is, to carry on a strong discriminating work ina mind like yours. With your nature, so utterly opposed to everythingsluggish and narrow, you have need of a large and well-consideredphilosophy, "looking before and after, " and settling all things in theirright places, and questioning every new-coming thought with singularcaution, lest it push you from your propriety or consistency. In truth, you quite mistake me when you say that I have not studied your mind. I have watched its workings with the greatest interest, often withadmiration, and sometimes--may I say?--with anxiety. There was a timewhen I greatly feared that you would go the lengths of Parker. The turnin your mind to what I deem healthier views took place about the time Iwent abroad; and the relief your letters gave me while I was in Europe, you can hardly have suspected. Now, it seems to me, you are liable to goto the opposite extreme. The truth is, your intellectual insight seemsto me greater than your breadth of view, your penetration greater thanyour comprehension; and the consequence has been a course of thought, asI believe you are aware, somewhat zigzag. 

Have I not thought of you, my dear fellow? I guess I have; and amongother things I have so thought of you that I now entirely confide in themagnanimity of [198] your mind to receive with candor all this, andmore if I should say it, --saying it, as I do, in the truest love andcherishing of you. 

My love to E. And all the phalanstery. 

As ever, yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

P. S. I read this letter to my wife last evening, and I told her of yourcriticism on the sermon at Providence. She made the very rejoinder thatI made to you, --"The power to cast one's self on the great Christianresource, to put one's self in relation with God the Father and withspiritual help, is the very power which he denies to human nature, andthe very thing that Mr. H. Contended for. " Nor yet do I like your modeof statement, for Christianity does not represent itself to me as a sortof Noah's Ark, and human nature as in stormy waters, --to be saved if itcan get its foot on that plank, and not otherwise. I prefer my figure ofthe shower specially sent on the feeble and half-withered plant. All thedivines of every school have always said that there is light enough innature, if with true docility and love men would follow it. Christ cameto shed more light on our path, not the only light; to lift up the lameman, not to create limbs for him or to be limbs for him. 

And I confess, too, that I do not like another aspect in the state ofyour mind; and that is, that your newly wakened zeal should fasten, as it seems to do, upon the positive facts and the supernaturalism ofChristianity. Not, as I think, that I undervalue them. I do not knowif any rational and thinking man that lays more stress on them in theirplace than I do. But certainly there is something beyond to which theypoint; and that is, the [199] deep spiritualism of the Gospel, the deepheart's repose and sufficiency in things divine and infinite. If yourmind had fastened upon this as the newly found treasure in the Gospel, Ishould have been better satisfied. I am writing very frankly to you, asyou are wont to write to me (and I believe that you and I can bear theseterms, and bless them too), and therefore I will add that my greatestdistrust of your spiritual nature turns to this very point: whether youhave, in the same measure as you have other things, that deep heart'srest, that quiet, profound, all-sufficing satisfaction in the infiniteresource, in the all-enbosoming love of the All-Good, in silent andsolitary communion with God, settling and sinking the soul, as intothe still waters and the ocean depths. Your nature runs to socialcommunions, to visible movements, to outwardness, in short, more than tothe central depths within. The defects in your preaching, which I haveheard pointed out by the discerning, are the want of consistency, --ofone six months with another six months, --and the want of spiritual depthand vitality; of that calm, deep tone of thought and feeling that goesto the depths of the heart. 

God knows that I do very humbly attempt to criticise another's religionand preaching, being inexpressibly concerned about the defects of myown. And, dear friend, I speak to you as modestly as I do frankly. I maybe wrong, or I may be only partly right. But in this crisis I think thatI ought to say plainly what I feel and fear. I cannot bear, for everyreason, --for your sake and for the sake of the church, in which, foryour age, you are rooting yourself so deeply, --that you should make anymisstep on the ground upon which you seem to be entering. 

[200] To Rev. William Ware. 

SHEFFIELD, Dec. 6, 1847. 

MY DEAR WARE, --I think my pen will run on, with such words to startfrom, though it have spent itself on the weary "Sermons. " This is Mondaymorning, and I am not quite ready in mind to begin on a new one. Thereadiness, with me, is nine tenths of the battle. I never, or almostnever, write a sermon unless it be upon a. Subject that I want to writeupon. I never cast about for a subject; I do not find the theme, but thetheme finds me. Last week I departed from my way, and did lot make goodprogress. The text, "What shall it profit t man?" struck upon my heartas I sat down on Monday Horning, and I wrote it at the head of my usualseven sheets of white paper, and went on. But the awfulness if the textimpressed me all the while with the sense of allure, and though thesermon was finished, I mainly felt at the end that I had lost my week. 

One thing I find in my preaching, more and more, and hat is that thesimplest things become more and more weighty to me, so that a sermondoes not require to be my thing remarkable to interest me deeply. Everything hat I say in the pulpit, I think, is taking stronger andstronger hold upon me, and that which might have been lull in myutterance ten years ago, is not so now. I say his to you, because it hassome bearing on one of the natters discussed in our last letters; thatis, whether I should leave the pulpit. If I leave it, it will be with afresher life in it, I think, than has stirred in me at any previous partof my course. And certainly I have long believed that it was my vocationto preach, above all things, --more than to visit parishioners, though Ialways [201] visit every one of them once a year, --more than to write, though you say I have written to some purpose (and your opinion isa great comfort to me). Certainly, then, I shall not retire from thepulpit, but upon the maturest reflection and for what shall seem to bethe weightiest reasons. And I did not mean that the things I referred toshould be prima facie reasons for retirement; but the question with mewas whether my unprofessional way of thinking and acting were not somisconstrued as to lessen my power to do good; whether the good I do isin any proportion to the strength I lay out. 

But enough of myself, when I am much more concerned about you. I seeplainly enough how intense is your desire to go to Rome. I see how allyour culture and taste and feeling urge you to go, and yet more what areason in many ways your health supplies. And I declare the author ofZenobia and Probus and Julian ought to go to Rome! There is a fitness init, and I trust it will come to pass. But you should not go alone. Every one wants company in such a tour, --that I know full well; butyour health demands it. You must not be subject to sudden seizures in astrange city, --a stranger, alone. Your family never will consent to it, and I think never ought to. Do give up that idea entirely, --of goingalone. Have patience. There will be somebody to go with next spring, ornext summer. I would that I could go with you where you go, and lodgewith you where you lodge. But somebody will go. Something better willturn up, at any rate, than to go alone. There are young men every yearwho want to go abroad in quest of art and beauty and culture, and towhom your company would be invaluable. I do not forget the difficultyabout expense. But there are those who, like you, would be [202] glad togo directly by Marseilles or Leghorn. It is quite true that movement isthe mischief with the purse. -Abiding in Rome or Florence, you canlive for a dollar a day. A room, or two rooms (parlor and littlesleeping-room), say near the Piazza di Spagna, or the Propaganda justby, can be hired, with bed, etc. , all to be kept in order, for threeor four pauls (thirty or forty cents, you know) a day. And you canbreakfast at a colt; any time you fancy, while wandering about, for twopauls, and dine at a trattoria for from two to four pauls. I have morethan once dined on a bowl of soup and bread and butter for two pauls. Ihate heavy dinners. In Rome, one should always take a room in which thesun lies. "Where the sun comes, the doctor does n't, " they say there. But you won't go before I come and see you and talk it all over withyou. Don't fail to let me know if you set seriously about it, for Ishall certainly come. The truth is, Airs. Ware should go with you. It istrue the women are very precious when it comes to casting them up in abill of expense, as in all things else. Does not that last clause saveme, madam? And, madam dear, I want to talk with you about this projectof William's, as much as I want to hear what he says. 

About the war, dear Gulielmus, and slavery, and almost everything elseunder heaven, I verily believe I think just as you do; so I need notwrite. And my hand is very tired. With ten thousand blessings on you, Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[203]

To his Daughter Mary. 

SHEFFIELD, July 13, 1848. 

DEAR MOLLY, --You're an awful miss when you're not here; what will yoube, then, when you descend upon us from the heights of Lenox, --fromthe schools of wisdom, from fiction and fine writing, from tragedy andcomedy, from mountain mirrors reflecting all-surrounding beauty, down toplain, prosaic still-life in Sheffield? I look with anxiety and terrorfor the time; and, to keep you within the sphere of familiarity asmuch as possible, I think it best to write sometimes; and, to adoptthe converse of the Western man's calling his bill "William, " I call myWilliam, bill, --my Mary, Molly, thereby softening, mollifying (as I maysay) the case as much as possible. 

One thing I must desire of you. You are on an experiment. [FN: Totry whether the air of Lenox, on the hills, would have any effect inaverting an annual attack of hay-fever. ] Now be honest. Don't bringany "sneeshin" down here to throw dust in our poor, simple eyes in thevalley. Much as ever we can see anything for fogs. Mind ye, I shall besharp, though. If you fall into any of those practices, I shall say youbrought the trick from Lenox. You may say "I-ketch-you" as much as youplease, but you won't ketch me. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows. 

SHEFFIELD, Dec. 19, 1848. 

MY DEAR BELLOWS, --Now shall I heap coals of fire on your head. Youought to have written to me forty days ago. Your letter bears dateof yesterday. I [204] received it this afternoon. I am replying thisevening. How does your brain-pan feel, with this coal upon it? "How hasit happened that there has been no communication?" Why, it has happenedfrom your being the most unapprehensive mortal that ever lived, or fromyour having your wits whirled out of you by that everlasting New Yorktornado. As to letters, I wrote the two last, though the latter was abit of one. As to the circumstances, my withdrawal from your society wasinvoluntary, and painful to me. You should have written at once to youremeritus coadjutor, your senior friend. I have been half vexed with you, my people quite. 

There! I love you too much not to say all that. But I am not an exactingor punctilious person, and that is one reason why we have got along sowell together 3 as well as that you are one whom nobody can know withouttaking a plaguy kindness and respect for, and can't help it. Andall that you say about our past relation and intercourse I heartilyreciprocate, excepting that which does you less than justice, and memore. As to deep talks, I really believe there is no chance for them inGotham. And this reminds me that my wife has just been in my study todesire me to send a most earnest invitation to you and E. To come uphere this winter and pass a few days with us. It will be easier than youmay think at first. The New York and New Haven Railroad will be open ina few days, and then you can be here in seven or eight hours from yourown door. Do think of it, --and more than think of it. 

To the Same. 

ARE n't you a pretty fellow, --worse than Procrustes, --to go about theworld, measuring people's talent and [205] promise by their noses? . . . Why, man, Claude Lorraine and Boccaccio and Burke had "small noses;" andKosciusko and George Buchanan had theirs turned up, and could n't helpit. It reminds me of what a woman of our town said, who had married avery heinous-looking blacksmith. Some companions of our "smithess" sawhim coming along in the street one day, and unwittingly exclaimed, "Whatdreadful-looking man is that?" "That's my husband, " said the wife, "andGod made him. "

To the Same. 

SHEFFIELD, Jan. 2, 1849. 

MY DEAR BELLOWS, --Your letter came on New Year's Day, and helped to someof those cachinnations usually thought to belong to such a time; thoughfor my part I can never find set times particularly happy or eveninteresting, --partly, I believe, from a certain obstinacy of dispositionthat does not like to do what is set down for it. 

As to church matters, I said nothing to you when I was down last, because I knew nothing. That is, I had no hint of what the congregationwas about to do, --no idea of anything in my connection with the churchthat needed to be spoken of. I was indeed thinking, for some weeksbefore I went down, of saying to the congregation, that unless theythought my services very important to them, I should rather they woulddispense with them, and my mind was just in an even balance about thematter. But one is always influenced by the feeling around him, --atleast I am, --and when I found that every one who spoke with me about mycoming again seemed to depend upon it, and to be much [206] interestedin it, I determined to say nothing about withdrawing. My reasons forwishing to retire were, that I was working hard--hard for me--toprepare sermons which, as my engagement in my view was temporary, mightbe of no further use to me; and that if I were to enter upon a newcourse of life, the sooner I did so the better. 

And here I may as well dispose of what you and others say and urge withregard to my continuance in the profession. To your question whether Ihave not sermons enough to last me for five years in some new place, Ianswer, No, not enough for two. And if I had, I tell you that I cannotenter into these affecting and soul-exhausting relations again andagain, any more than I could be married three or four times. The greattrial of our calling is the wrenching, the agonizing, of sympathy withaffliction; and there is another trying thing which I have thoughtof much of late, and that is the essential moral incongruity of suchrelations, and especially with strangers. I almost feel as if nobody butan intimate friend had any business in a house of deep affliction. In acongregation ever so familiar there is trial enough of this kind. If myfriend is sick or dying, I go to his bedside of course, but it is as afriend, --to say a word or many words as the case may be; to look whatI cannot say; to do what I can. But to come there, or to come to thedesolate mourner, in an official capacity, --there is something in thiswhich is in painful conflict with my ideas of the simple relations ofman with man. Now all this difficulty is greatly increased when oneenters upon a new ministration in a congregation of strangers. Thereforeon every account I must say, no more pastoral relations for me. I cannottake [207] up into my heart another heap of human chance and changeand sorrow. Do you not see it? Why, what takes place in New Bedford nowmoves me a hundred times more than all else that is in the world. And soit will always be with all that befalls my brethren in the Church of theMessiah. 

As to the world's need of help, I regard it doubtless as you do; and Iam willing and desirous to help it from the pulpit as far as I am able. But I cannot hold that sort of irregular connection with thepulpit called "supplying "; nor can I go out on distant missionaryenterprises, --to Cincinnati, Mobile, or New Orleans. The first wouldyield me no support; and as to the last, I must live in my family. Besides, there is sphere enough with the pen; and study may do the worldas much good as action. And there is no doubt what direction my studiesmust take. Why, I have written out within a week--written incontinentlyin my commonplace book, my pen would run on--a thesis on Pantheismnearly as long as a sermon. And as to preaching, what ground have Ito think that mine is of any particular importance? Not that I mean toaffect any humility which I do not feel. I profess that I have quite agood opinion of myself as a preacher. Seriously; I think I have one ortwo rather remarkable qualifications for preaching, --a sense of realityin the matter of the vitality of the thing, and then an edge of feeling(so it seems to me) which takes off the technical and commonplacecharacter from discourse. Oh! if I could add, a full sense of thedivineness of the thing, I should say all. Yet something of this, too, Ihope; and I hope to grow in this as I hope to live, and do not dreadto die. But though I think all this, with all due modesty, it does not[208] follow that others do; and the evidence seems to be rather againstit, does it not?

As ever, yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

In connection with this letter, and with his own frank but moderateestimate of his gift as a preacher, it is interesting to read thefollowing extract from a paper in his memory, read before the annualmeeting of the American Unitarian Association by Rev. Dr. Briggs, May30, 1882:

"I remember well the way in which he seemed to me to be a power in thepulpit. He was the first man who made the pulpit seem to me as a throne. When he stood in it, I recognized him as king. I remember how eager Iwas to walk in from the Theological School at Cambridge to hear him whenthere was an opportunity to do so in any of the pulpits of Boston. Iremember walking with my classmate, Nathaniel Hall, --when the matterof the expense of a passage was of great concern to me, --to Providence, where Mr. Dewey was to preach at the installation of Dr. Hall. MyBrother Hall was not drawn there simply for the sake of his brother'sinstallation, I, not from the fact that Providence was the home of myboyhood; but both of us, more than by anything else, by our eager desireto hear this preacher where he might give us a manifestation of hispower. And, as he spoke from the text, I have preached righteousness inthe great congregation, ' we felt that we were well repaid for all ourefforts to come and listen to him. 

"I have heard of some one who heard him preach from the text on dividingthe sheep from the goats, and as he came away, he said, I felt as if Iwere standing before [209] the judgment-seat. ' I remember hearing himpreach from the text, Thou art the man, ' and I felt that that word wasaddressed to me as directly as it was by the prophet to the king. Hiswas a power scarcely known to the men of this later generation. 

"It would be difficult, I think, to analyze his character and mind, andto say just in what his power consisted. He did not have the reasoningpower that distinguished Dr. Walker; he did not have the poetic giftthat gave such a charm to the sermons of Ephraim Peabody; he did nothave that peculiarity of speech which made the sermons of Dr. Putnam soeffective upon the congregation, and yet he was the peer of any one ofthem. It was, I think, because the truth had possession of his wholebeing when he spoke. It was because he always had a high ideal of thepulpit, and was striving to come up to it, and because he went to thepulpit with that preparation which alone makes any preaching effective, and which will make it mighty forever. "

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 26, 1849. 

MY DEAR BELLOWS, --I came from Albany to-day at noon, and have had butthis afternoon to reflect upon your letter. But I see that you ought tohave an answer immediately; and my reply to your proposition to me growsout of such decided considerations, that they seem to me to require nolonger deliberation. I see that you desire my help, and I am very sorrythat I cannot offer it to you; but consider. You ask of me what, with myhabits of thought and methods of working, would be equal to writing onesermon is a fortnight. I [210] would rather do this than to write fouror even three columns for the "Inquirer, " considering, especially, thatI must find such a variety of topics, and must furnish the tale ofbrick every week. I have always been obliged to work irregularly, when Icould; and this weekly task-work would allow no indulgence to such poorhabits of study. Besides, this task would occupy my whole mind; that is, such shattered mind as I have at present to give to anything; I could donothing else, --nothing to supply my lack of means to live upon. I couldbetter take the "Christian Examiner;" it would cost me much less labor, and it would give me the necessary addition to my income, provided Icould find some nook at the eastward where I could live as cheaply as Ican here. 

I think the case must be as plain to your mind as it is to mine. IfI were to occupy any place in your army, it would be in the flyingartillery; these solid columns will never do for me. Why, I can'tremember the time when I have written twenty-five sermons in a year, andthat, I insist, is the amount of labor you desire of me. You may thinkthat I overrate it, and you speak of my writing from "the level of mymind. " The highest level is low enough, and this I say in sad sincerity. In fact, if nothing offers itself for me to do that I can do, I thinkthat I shall let the said mind lie as fallow ground for a while, hopingthat, through God's blessing, leisure and leisurely studies may givestrength for some good work by and by. How to live, in the mean time, isthe question; but I can live poor, and must, if necessary, trench uponmy principal. But if I am driven to this resort, I will make thoroughwork of it; I will bind myself to no duty, professional, literary, orjournalistic; if a book, or a little course of lectures, or any otherlittle thing comes out from under [211] my hands at the end of one, two, or three years, let it; but I will do nothing upon compulsion, thoughthe things to do be as thick as blackberries. There's my professionof--duty! I have worked hard, however imperfectly. I have worked inweariness, in tribulation, and to the very edge of peril; and I believethat the high Taskmaster, to whom I thus refer with humble and solemnawe, will pardon me some repose, if circumstances beyond my controlassign it to me for my lot. 

As to the "Inquirer, " in times past, you should remember that in whatI said of it that was disparaging, I excepted your part in it. Thatcertainly has not lacked interest, whatever else it has lacked. You have, I think, some remarkable qualifications for the proposedenterprise; and if you could give your whole mind and life to it, Ishould augur more favorably of such a monarchy than of the proposedoligarchy. You are a live man; you have a quick apprehension of what isgoing on about you; you have insight, generosity, breadth of view. Andyet, if I were fully to state what I mean by this last qualification, Ishould say it is breadth rather than comprehension. You see a great wayon one side of a subject, rather than all round. This requires a greatdeal of quiet, silent study, and where you are going to find space forit, I do not see, look all round as I may, or may pretend to. What Ishall most fear about the "Inquirer" is, that it will give an uncertainsound; and this danger will be increased by the number of minds broughtinto it. Associate editors ought to live near to each other, and tocompare notes. How do you know that Mr. C. Will not cross Mr. O. 's track, or both of them Mr. Bellows, even if Mr. Bellows do not cross his own?You say you will put your own stamp upon the paper, [212] of course. Butyour stamp has been rather indefinite as yet. "Shaper and Leader, " sayyou? Suggester and Pioneer, rather, is my thought of your function. Thisis pretty plain talk; but, confound you, you can bear it. And I can bearto say it, because I love--because I like you, and because I think ofyou as highly, I guess, as you ought to think of yourself. After all, Ido expect a strong, free, living journal from you, and the men of yourage, or thereabouts, who are united with you. 

You say that I do not understand a "certain spirit of expectation andseeking" in these men. Perhaps not; it is vaguely stated, and I cannottell. One of these days you will spread it out and I shall see. I haveideas of progress, with which my thoughts are often wrestling, and Ishall be glad to have them made more just, expanded, and earnest. Withlove to all, Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. William Ware. 

SHEFFIELD, May 25, 1849. MY DEARLY BELOVED AND LONGED FOR, --I can't haveyou go to New York and not come here; and my special intent in writingnow is to show you how little out of your way it is to return toCambridge by Berkshire, and how little more expense it is. I trust thatMrs. Ware is to be with you. 

There! it's a short argument, but a long conclusion shall follow, --aweek long of talk and pleasure, which shall be as good as forty weekslong, by the heart's measurement. [213]Alas! these college prayers! IfI had anything to do with them, it would be upon the plan of remodellinghem entirely. I would have them but once in a day, it a convenient hour, say eight or nine o'clock in the morning. I would have leave to dowhat my heart night prompt in the great hours of adoration. Reading theScriptures with a word of comment, sometimes, or t word uttered as thespirit moved, without reading; or instead, a matin hymn or old Gregorianchant, solemn seasons, free breathings of veneration and joy; sometimeshe reading of a prayer of the Episcopal Church, or of he venerable oldentime, always a bringing down A the great sentiment of devotion intoyoung life, to De its guidance and strength, --this should be collegeprayers. . . . 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. II, 1850. 

My DEAR FRIEND, --In the first place, La Bruyere was the name of theFrench satirist that I could not remember the other day. In the secondplace, I have a letter from Mr. Lowell, inviting me to deliver thesecond course of lectures, and the time fixed upon is the winter afternext; I can't be prepared by next winter. As to the title, I think, after all, Herder's is the best: "Philosophy of Humanity, " or I shouldas lief say, "On the Problem of Evil in the World. " You said of me oncein some critique, I believe, that I always seemed to write as in thepresence of objectors. I shall be very likely to do so now. Well, hereis work for me for two years ahead, if I have life and health, and workthat I like above all other. In the third place, I don't think I shalldo much for the "Inquirer. " My name has really [214] no business on thefirst page; in fact, I never thought of its standing there as a fixture. I supposed you would say for once in your opening that such and suchpersons would help you. With my habits of writing, I am better able towrite long articles than short ones; and the "Christian Examiner" paysmore than you, and I am obliged to regard that consideration. I musthave three or four hundred dollars a year beyond my income, or sellstock, --a terrible alternative. In the fourth place, every man is rightin his own eyes; I am a man: therefore I am right in my eyes. I am veryunprofessional; that is, in regard to the etiquette and custom of theprofession. I am; and in regard to the professional mannerism and spiritof routine, I am very much afraid of it. But I do not think that manypersons have ever enjoyed the religious services of our profession morethan I have; the spiritual communion, which is its special function, and that, not through sermons alone, but in sacraments, in baptisms, infireside conference with darkened and troubled minds, has long been tome a matter of the profoundest interest and satisfaction. It is theone reigning thought of my life now to see and to show how the InfiniteWisdom and Loveliness shine through this universe of forms. To this willI devote myself; nay, am devoted, whether I will or not. This will Ipursue, and will preach it. I will preach it in the Lowell Lectures. Shall I be wrong if I give up other preaching for the time? Youthink so. Perhaps you are right. Any way, it is not a matter of muchimportance, I suppose. There is a great deal too much of preaching, suchas it is. The world is in danger of being preached out of all hearty andspontaneous religion. What would you think, if the love of parents andchil-[215] dren were made the subject of a weekly lecture in thefamily, and of such lecture as the ordinary preaching is? Oh if a SaintChrysostom, or even a Saint Cesarius, or a Robert Hall could come alongand speak to us once in half a year, they would leave, perhaps, adeeper imprint than this perpetual and petrifying drop-dropping of thesanctuary. 

By the bye, read those extracts from the sermons of Saint Cesarius, inthe sixteenth lecture of Guizot on French civilization, and see if theyare not worth inserting in the "Inquirer. " The picture which Guizotgives in that and the following lecture, of Christianity struggling inthe bosom of all-surrounding wrong, cruelty, and sensualism, is verybeautiful. It is one of the indications of the raging ultraism of thetime, that the calm wisdom and piety of such a man as Guizot should beso little appreciated. 

When I read such writers as this, I am rather frightened at myundertaking; but I believe there is a great deal to be said to thepeople that is not beyond me, and I shall modestly do what I can. Ibegan yesterday to study Hegel's "Philosophy of History, " and though Ican read but a few pages a day, I believe I shall master it; and afterone gets through with his theory, I imagine, in looking at his topicsahead, that I shall find matters that are intelligible and practical. Iam, as ever, Yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 25, 1850. 

MY DEAR BRYANT, --You will remember, perhaps, our conversation whenyou were last up here, about our Club [216] of the XXI. You know myattachment to it. The loss of those pleasant meetings is indeed one ofthe things I most regret in leaving the city. I cannot bear to forfeitmy place in that good company. In this feeling I am about to make aproposition which I beg you will present for me, and that you will, asmy advocate, try to explain and show that it is not so enormous as atfirst it may seem. I pray, then, my dear Magnus, [FN 1] that you willturn your poetical genius to account by describing the beautiful ride upthe valley of the Housatonic, and this our beautiful Berkshire, and willput in the statistical fact that it is but six hours and a half from NewYork to Sheffield, [FN 2] and then will request the Club to meet at myhouse some day in the coming summer. I name Wednesday, the 9th of June. I propose that the proper Club-meeting be on the evening of that day. The next day I propose that we shall spend among the mountains, -seeingBashpish, and, if possible, the Salisbury Lakes. And I will thank you, as my faithful solicitor, that, if you are obliged of your knowledgeto confess to the fact of my very humble housekeeping, you will alsocourageously maintain that with the aid of my friends I can make ourbrethren as comfortable as people expect to be on a frolicking bout, andthat I can easily get good country wagons to take them on a jaunt amongthe mountains. You will tell me, I hope, how my proposition is received;and by received, I do not mean any vote or resolution, but whether thegentlemen seem to think it would be a pleasant thing. 

And when you write, tell me whether you or Mrs. Bryant chance to know ofany person who would like to [217] come up here this summer and teachFrench in my sister's school an hour or two a day for a moderatecompensation. It must be a French person, --one that can speak thelanguage. Her school is increasing, and she must have more help. 

[FN 1: Mr. Dewey was wont to call his friend "our Magnus Apollo. "]

[FN 2: Now lessened to five hours. ]

With mine and all our kindest regards to Mrs. Bryant and Julia andFanny, I am, as ever, Yours truly, ORVILLE DEWEY. Tell Mrs. Bryant we depend on her at the Club. 

To his Daughter Mary. 

SHEFFIELD, March 4, 1850. 

. . . As I suppose you are tormented with the question, "What's yourfather doing in Sheffield?" you may tell them that I have taken tolecturing the people, and that I give a second lecture to-morrowevening, and mean to give a third. Forbye reading Hegel every morning, and what do you think he said this morning? Why, that he had read of agovernment of women, "ein Weiberstaat, " in Africa, where they killed allthe men in the first place, and then all the male children, and finallydestined all that should be born to the same fate. And what do you thinkyour mother said when I told her of these atrocities? Even this: "Thatshows what bad creatures the men must have been. " And that's all I getwhen trying to enlighten her upon the wickedness of her sex. 

And I'm just getting through with Guizot's four volumes, too. Oh, a verymagnificent, calm, and beautiful course of lectures. You must read them. It's the best French history, so far as it goes. 

[218] To Rev. Henry W. Bellows. 

SHEFFIELD, March 6, 1850. 

. . . To my poor apprehension this is an awful crisis, especially ifpushed in the way the Northern doctrinaires desire. I feel it so fromwhat I saw of Southern feeling in Washington the winter I passedthere. I fear disunion, and no mortal line can sound the depth of thatcalamity. I sometimes think that it would be well if we could weararound this last, terrible, black headland by sounding, and trimmingsails, rather than attempt to sail by compass and quadrant. Do notmistake my figure. I am no moral trimmer, and that you know. Consciencemust be obeyed. But conscience does not forbid that we should treat theSouthern people with great consideration. What we must do, we may doin the spirit of love, and not of wrath or scorn. Oh, what a mysteryof Providence, that this terrible burden--I had almost saidmillstone--should ever have been hung around the neck of thisConfederation!

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

SHEFFIELD, June 7, 1850. 

MY DEAR SIR, --You should n't have lived in New York, and you should n'thave been master of the French language, and you should n't have beenMr. Bryant, and, in fact, you should n't have been at all, if youexpected to escape all sorts of trouble in this world! Since all theseconditions pertain to you, see the inference, which, stated in the mostskilfully inoffensive way I am able, stands or runs thus:

[Here followed a request that Mr. Bryant would make [219] some inquiriesconcerning a French teacher who had applied, and the letter continued:]

Now, in fine, if you don't see that all this letter is strictlylogical, --an inference from the premises at the beginning, --I am sorryfor you; and if you do see it, I am sorry for you. So you are pitied atany rate. 

The 19th draws nigh. If any of the Club are with you and Mrs. Bryantin coming up, do not any of you be so deluded as to listen to anyinvitation to dine at Kent, but come right along, hollow and merry, and--I don't say I promise you a dinner, but what will suffice fornatzir, anyhow. Art, to be sure, is out of the question, as it is whenI subscribe myself, and ourselves, to you and Mrs. Bryant, withaffectionate regard, Yours truly, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. William Ware. 

SHEFFIELD, Oct. 13, 1850. 

"THAT'S what I will, " I said, as I took up your letter just now, toread it again, thinking you had desired me to write immediately. "Howaffectionate!" thinks I to myself; "that must have been a good letterthat I wrote him last; I really think some of my letters must be prettygood ones, after all; I hate conceit, --I really believe my tendency isthe other way, -but, hang it! who knows but I may turn out, upon myself, a fine letter after all? But at any rate Ware loves me, does n't he?He wants me to write a few lines, at least, very soon. It's evident hewould be pleased to have me, pleased as the Laird of Ellangowan said ofthe king's commission, --good honest gentle-[220] man, he can't be morepleased than I am!" But oh! the slips of those who are shodden withvanity! I read on, thinking it was a nice letter of yours, --feelingsomething startled, to be sure, at the compellation, as if you weremesmerise, and had got an insight (calls me bambino half of thetime)--looking at your mood reverential as a droll jest, --vexed atfirst, but then reconciled, about the book and the lecturing, --charmedand grateful beyond measure at what you say about your health, --when!at last!! I fell upon your request: "Now give me one brief epistlebetween this and our seeing you. "!!! BETWEEN! what a word! what ahiatus! what a gulf! Down into it tumbled pride, vanity, pleasure, everything. Well, great occasions call out virtue. As I emerged, as Icame up, I came up a hero; the vanities of this world were all struckoff from me in my fall, and I came up a hero; for I determined I wouldwrite to you immediately. There! beat that if you can! I give you achance, -one chance, --I don't ask YOU to write at all. 

What is it you call my study now-a-days, --"terrible moral metaphysics "?You may well say "weighed down" with them. I was never in my life beforequite so modest as I am now. Not that I have n't enough to say, and allmy faculties leap to the task; but all the while there looms up beforeme an ideal of what such a course of lectures might be, that I fear Ishall never reach up to, no, nor one twentieth part of the way toit. . . . 

[221]To Mrs. David Lane. 

SHEFFIELD, Jan. 25, 1851. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --You won't come, and I will write to you! See thedifference. See how I return good for evil!

I say, you won't come; for I have a letter from Mrs. Curtis, from whichit is evident the will not, and so I suppose that laudable conspiracyfalls to the ground. However, we shall sort o' look for you all theweek. But you won't come. I know it to my fingers' ends. Cradled inluxury, wrapped in comfort, enervated by city indulgences, sophisticatedby fashionable society--well, I won't finish the essay; but you won'tcome. 

Ah! speaking of fashionable society, --that reminds me, --you ask aquestion, and say, "Answer me. " Well, then, --society we must have;and all the question I should have to ask about it would be whether itpleased me, --not whether everybody in it pleased me, but whether itsgeneral tone did not offend me, and then, whether I could find personsin it with whose minds I could have grateful and good intercourse. IfI could, I don't think the word "fashion, " or the word "world, " wouldscare me. As to the time given to it, and the time to be reserved forweightier matters, that is, to be sure, very material. But the chiefthing is a reigning spirit in our life, gained from communion withthe highest thoughts and themes, which consecrates all time, andsubordinates all events and circumstances, and hallows all intercourse, and turns the dust of life into golden treasures. 

I have no thoughts of going to New York or anywhere [222] else atpresent. I finished my eighth lecture yesterday. This is my poor serviceto the world in these days, -since you insist that I have relations tothe world. 

I reciprocate Mr. Lane's kind wishes, and am, as ever, Yours, with no danger of forgetting, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. William Ware. 

SHEFFIELD, July 3, 1851. 

DEAR GWYLLYM (is n't that Welsh for William?)--I don't know whether yourletter with nothing in it, and the postage paid on the contents, ison the way to me; but I am writing to all my friends, to celebrate theIndependence-day of friendship and to help the revenue, and not to writeto you would be lese-majesty to love and law. 

Is it not a distinct mark higher up on the scale of civilization, --thischeap postage? The easier transmission of produce is accounted such amark, --much more the easier transmission of thought. 

Transmission, indeed! When I had got so far, I was called away to directMr. P. About the sink. And do you know what directing a man is, in thecountry? Why, it is to do half the work yourself, and to take all theresponsibility. And, in consequence of Mr. P. , you won't get a bitbetter letter than you proposed to send. 

Where's your book? What are you doing? What do you think of your MissMartineau now? Is n't the Seven Gables a subtile matter, both in thoughtand style?

Have n't I said the truth about the much preaching? Some of the clergy, I perceive, say with heat that [223] preaching is not cold and dull. Better let the laity testify. 

There is Mr. P. Again. 

Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows. 

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11, 1851. 

. . . HAVE you seen the "great Hungarian"? Great indeed, and in a waywe seem not to have thought of. Is n't there a story somewhere of aman uncaging, as he thought, a spaniel, and finding it to be a lion?We thought we had released and were bringing over a simple, harmless, inoffensive, heart-broken emigrant, who would be glad to settle, and find rest, and behold, we have upon our hands a world-disturbingpropagandist, a loud pleader for justice and freedom, who does not wantto settle, but to fight; who will not rest upon his country'swrongs, nor let anybody else if he can help it; who does not care forprocessions nor entertainments, but wants help. Kossuth has doubtlessmade a great mistake in taking his position here; it is the mistake of aword-maker and of a relier on words, and he has not mended the matterby defining. But I declare he is infinitely more respectable in my eyesthan if he had come in the character in which we expected him, --as theprotege and beneficiary of our people, who was to settle down among usand be comfortable. 

To Rev. William Ware. 

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3, 1852. 

. . . I MUST fool a little, else I shan't know I am writing to you. And really I must break out somewhere, [224] life is such a solemnabstraction in Washington to a clergyman. What has he to do, but what'ssolemn? The gayety passes him by; the politics pass him by. Nobody wantshim; nobody holds him by the button but some desperate, dilapidatedphilanthropist. People say, while turning a corner, "How do youdo, Doctor?" which is very much as if they said, "How do you do, Abstraction?" I live in a "lone conspicuity, " preach in a vacuum, andcall, with much ado, to find nobody. "What doest thou here, Elijah?" onemight say to a prophet in this wilderness. 

What a curious fellow you are! calm as a philosopher, usually, wise as ajudge, possessed in full measure of the very Ware moderation and wisdom, and yet every now and then taking some tremendous lurch--against Englandor for Kossuth! I go far enough, go a good way, please to observe, --butto go to war, that would I not, if I could help it. Fighting won'tprepare men for voting. Peaceful progress, I believe, is the only thingthat can carry on the world to a fitness for self-government. I have noidea that the Hungarians are fit for it. See what France has done withher free constitution! Oh! was there ever such a solemn farce, beforeHeaven, as that voting, --those congratulations to the Usurper-President, and his replies?

To Rev. Henry W Bellows. 

WASHINGTON, March 7, 1852. 

. . . I HAVE seen a good deal of Ole Bull here within a week or two. Iadmire his grand and simple, reverent and affectionate Norwegian naturevery much. He has come out here now with views connected with thewelfare [225] of his countrymen; I do not yet precisely understandthem. Is it not remarkable that he and Jenny Lind should have this noblenationality so beating at their very hearts?

To the Same. 

I DON'T see but you must insert these articles in the "Inquirer" as"Communications. " Some of them will have things in them that cannotpossibly be delivered as Wegotisms. Don't be stiff about the matter. Itell you there is no other way; and indeed I think it no harm, but anadvantage, to diversify the form, and leave out the solemn and juridicalWego sometimes, for the more sprightly and "sniptious" Ego. 

To his Daughter Mary. 

WASHINGTON, May, 1852. 

DEAREST MOLLY, --To be sure, how could you? And, indeed, what did youfor? Oh! for little K. 's sake. Well, anything for little K. 's sake. Indeed, it's the duty of parents to sacrifice themselves for theirchildren. It's the final cause of parents to mind the children. Poorlittle puss! We shall feel relieved when we hear she is in New York, and safe under the sisterly wing. I am afraid she is getting too big fornestling. How I want to see the good little comfort! Is she little? Tellus how she looks and does. 

Yesterday, beside preaching a sermon more than half new, and attending afuneral (out of the society), I read skimmingly more than half Nichol's"Architecture of the Heavens. " I laid aside the book overwhelmed. Whatshall we do? What shall we think? Far from our [226] Milky Way, --therethey lie, other universes, --rebuke resolved by Rosse's telescope intostars, starry realms, numerous, seemingly innumerable, and as vast asour system; and yet from some of them it takes the light thirty--sixtythousand years to come to us: nay, twenty millions, Nichol suggests, I know not on what grounds. And yet in the minutest details suchperfection! A million of perfectly formed creatures in a drop of water!I do not doubt that it is this overwhelming immensity of things thatleads some minds to find a sort of relief, as it were, in the idea ofan Infinite Impersonal Force working in all things. But it is a child'sthought. Nay, does not the very fact that my mind can take in so vast arange of things lead me better to conceive of what the Infinite Mind cando? An ant's mind, if it had one, might find it just as hard to conceiveof me. 

With love to you two miserable creatures, away from your parents, Thine ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

[Undated. ]

What have I not written to you about, you cross thing? Oh! Kossuth. Well, then, here is an immensely interesting person, whom we invitedover here to settle, and who is much more likely to unsettle us. How farwould you have him unsettle us? To the extent of carrying us into a warwith Russia, or of banding us, with all liberal governments, in a warwith the despotic governments, so that Europe should be turned into acaldron of blood for years to come, millions of people sacrificed, [227]unutterable miseries inflicted, the present frame of society torn inpieces; and, when all is done, the human race no better off, --worse off?You say, no. Well, anything short of that I am willing Kossuth shouldaccomplish. Any expression of opinion that he can get here, from thepeople or the government, asserting the rights of nations and thewrong of oppression, let him have, --let all the world have it. Moralinfluence, gradually changing the world, is what I want. But Kossuthand the Liberals of Europe want to bring on that great war of opinion, which, I fear, will come only too soon. I fear that Kossuth has fairlybroached the question of intervention here, and that in two yearsit will enter the ballot box. I fear these tendencies to universaloverthrow that are now revealing themselves all over the civilizedworld. 

Kossuth is a man all enthusiasm and eloquence, but not a man, I judge, of deep practical sagacity. A sort of Hamlet, he seems to me, --graceful, delicate, thoughtful, meditative, moral, noble-minded; and I should notwonder if he was now feeling something of Hamlet's burden: "The time isout of joint: oh, cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!"

A lady, who saw him two days ago, told me that so sad a face she neversaw; it haunted her. 

It was on his return to his Berkshire home, after this winter inWashington, that the next merry little letter, describing his renewedacquaintance with his country neighbors, was sent to me. The custom ofringing the church bell at noon and at nine in the evening had not thenbeen relinquished, although it has since died out. 

[228] To his Daughter Mary. 

SHEFFIELD, July 23, 1852. 

DEAR MOLLY, --Dr. K. And H. Called upon us the very evening after wearrived! Mrs. K. As usual. Mrs. B. Is on a visit to her friends; thechildren with their grandmother. . . . Mr. D. Does n't raise any tobaccothis summer. I saw Mr. P. Lying fiat on his back yesterday, --notfloored, however, but high and dry on Mr. McIntyre's counter. Mr. M. Has succeeded Doten, Root, and Mansfield. These three gentlemen haveall flung themselves upon the paper-mill, hardly able to supplythe Sheffield authors. Mr. Austin continues to announce the solemnprocession of the hours. Mr. Swift is building an observatory to see 'emas they pass. There are thoughts of engaging me to note 'em down, as Ihave nothing else to do. 

I am particularly at leisure, having demitted all care of the farm toMr. Charles, and committed all the income thereof to him, down to thesmallest hen's-egg. 

Your mother is always doing something, and always growing handsomer andlovelier, so that I told her yesterday I should certainly call her asa-int, if she was n't always a do-int

I have nothing to tell of myself; no stitches or aches to commemorate, being quite free and whole in soul and body, and, freely and wholly

Your loving father, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[229] To Rev. Henry W. Bellows. 

SHEFFIELD, July 24, 1852. 

MY DEAR BELLOWS, --Amidst all this lovely quiet, and the beautifuloutlooks on every side to the horizon, my thoughts seem ever to minglewith the universe; they bear me beyond the horizon of life, and yourreflections, therefore, fall as a touching strain upon the tenor ofmine. Experience, life, man, seem to me ever higher and more awful; andthough there is constantly intervening the crushing thought of what apoor thing I am, and my life is, and I am sometimes disheartened andtempted to be reckless, and to say, "It's no matter what this ephemeralbeing, this passing dust and wind, shall come to, "--yet ever, like thelittle eddying whirlwinds that I see in the street before me, this dustybreath of life struggles upward. I am very sad and glorious by turns;and sometimes, when mortality is heavy and hope is weak, I take refugein simple resignation, and say: "Thou Infinite Goodness! I can desirenothing better than that thy will be done. But oh! give me to liveforever!--eternal rises that prayer. Give me to look upon thy glory andthy glorious creatures forever!" What an awful anomaly in our beingwere it, if that prayer were to be denied! And what would the memory offriends be, so sweet and solemn now, --what would it be, but as the taperwhich the angel of death extinguishes in this earthly quagmire?

After you went away, I read more carefully the splendid article on the"Ethics of Christendom;" [FN: From the "Westminster Review, " vol. Lvii. P. 182, or, in the American edition, p. 98. ] and I confess that my wholemoral being shrinks from the position [230] of the writer (which bringsdown the majesty of the Gospel almost to the level of Millerism), thatJesus supposed the end of the world to be at hand, and that he shouldcome in the clouds of heaven, and be seated with his disciples onairy thrones, to judge the nations. No; the false double ethics of thepulpit, which I have labored, though less successfully, all my life toexpose, has its origin, I believe, in later superstition, and not in theteachings of Christ. 

The passages referred to by the writer, I conceive to be moreimaginative, and less formalistic and logical, than he supposes. 

To the Same. 

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 1852. 

MY DEAR BELLOWS, --I will wish you all a happy New York, (ahem! yousee how naturally and affectionately my pen turns out the old belovedname)--a happy New Year. After all, it isn't so bad; a happy New Yearand a happy New York must be very near neighbors with you. I sometimeswish they could have continued to be so with me, for those I have learntto live with most easily and happily are generally in New York. Ourbeloved artists, the goodly Club, were a host to me by themselves. Iwish I could be a host to them sometimes. 

Well, heigho! (pretty ejaculation to come into a New Year'sgreeting--but they come everywhere!) Heigho! I say submissively--things meet and match us, perhaps, better than we mean. I am not aclergyman--perhaps was never meant for one. I question our position moreand more. We are not fairly thrown into the field of life. We do notfairly take the free and [231] unobstructed pressure of all surroundingsociety. We are hedged around with artificial barriers, built up bysuperstitious reverence and false respect. We are cased in peculiarity. We meet and mingle with trouble and sorrow, --enough of them, toomuch, --but our treatment of them gets hackneyed, worn, weary, andreluctant. They grapple with the world's strife and trial, but it is anarmor. Our excision from the world's pleasure and intercourse, I doubt, is not good for us. We are a sort of moral eunuchs. 

To his Daughter Mary. 

WASHINGTON, June 19, 1853. 

THOUGH it is very hot, Though bladed corn faint in the noontide ray, And thermometers stand atninety-three, And fingers feel like sticks of sealing-wax, Yet I willwrite thee. 

This evening I saw Professor Henry, who said he saw you at the CenturyClub last Wednesday evening; that le did not speak to you, but that youseemed to be enjoying yourself. I felt like shaking hands with him onthe occasion, but restrained myself. But where are you, child, thisblessed minute? . . . I would have you to know that it is a merit towrite to somebody who is nowhere. Why in thunder don't you write to me?If I were nobody, I am somewhere. I hope you are enjoying yourself, butI can't think you can, conscientiously, without telling me of it. 

My love to the Bryants. I hope it may greet the Grand Panjandrumhimself. Tell Mrs. C. I should write to her, but I have too much regardfor her to think of [232] such a thing with the thermometer at 93degrees, and that it is as much as I can do to keep cool at any time, when I think of her. 

To Mrs. David Lane. 

SHEFFIELD, Sept. 2, 1853. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --Do you remember when we were walking once in Weston, that we saw the carpenter putting sheets of tarred paper under theclapboarding of a house? I want you to ask your father if he thinksthat a good plan; if he knows of any ill effect, as, for instance, therebeing a smell of tar about the house, or the tar's running down betweenthe clapboards. If he thinks well of it (that is question first);question second is, What kind of paper is used? and question third, Is it simply boiled tar into which the paper is dipped? I stateprecisement, and number the queries, because nobody ever yet answeredall the questions of a letter. I hope in your reply you will achieve adistinction that will send down your name to future times. . . . 

To the Same. 

Sept. 9, 1853. 

You have achieved immortal honor; the answers, Numbers 1, 2, and 3, aremost satisfactory. I have thoughts of sending your letter to the CrystalPalace. I am much obliged to your father, and I will avail my-self ofhis kindness, if I should find it necessary, next rear, when I may bebuilding an addition here. 

I am sorry things don't go smoothly with-; but I guess nothing ever didgo on without some hitches, that s, on this earth. It is curious, by thebye, how we go in blindly, imagining that things go smoothly with many[233] people around us, --with some at least, --with some Wellington, orWebster, or Astor, when the truth is, they never do with anybody. Totake our inevitable part with imperfection, in ourselves, in others, inthings, --to take our part, I say, in this discipline of imperfection, without surprise or impatience or discouragement, as a part of the fixedorder of things, and no more to be wondered at or quarrelled with thandrought or frost or flood, --this is a wisdom beyond the most of us, farther off from us, I believe, than any other. Ahem! when you told meof those rocks in the foundation of the house, you did not expect this"sermon in stones. ". . . 

To William Cullen Bryant. 

SHEFFIELD, May 13, 1854. 

DEAR EDITOR, --Are we to have fastened upon us this nuisance that isspreading itself among all the newspapers, --I mean the abominable smellcaused by the sizing or something else in the manufacture? For a longtime it was the "Christian Register" alone that had it, and I used tothrow it out of the window to air. Now I perceive the same thing inother papers, and at length it has reached the "Post. " Somebody ismanufacturing a villanous article for the paper-makers (I state the factwith an awful and portentous generality. ) But do you not perceive whatthe nuisance is? It is a stink, sir. I am obliged to sit on the windwardside of the paper while I read its interesting contents, and to wash myhands afterwards--immediately. 

But, to change the subject, --yes, toto aelo, -for I turn to something asfragrant as a bed of roses, --will [234] not you and Mrs. Bryant come tosee us in June? Do. It is a long time since I have sat on a green bankwith you, or anywhere else. I want some of your company, and talk, andwisdom. The first Lowell Lecture I wrote was after a talk with youhere, three or four years ago. Come, I pray, and give me an impulse foranother course. Bring Julia, too. I will give her my little green room. 

I shall be down in New York on business a fortnight hence, and shall seeyou, and see if we can't fix upon a time. 

With all our loves to you all, Yours as ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

Mr. Dewey's father died at the very beginning of his son's career, in1821, and early in 1855 he lost also his mother from her honored placeat his fireside. He was, nevertheless, obliged to leave home inMarch, to fulfil an engagement made the previous autumn to lecture inCharleston, S. C. 

To his Daughter Mary. 

CHARLESTON, March 16, 1855. 

I HAVE been trying four hours to sleep. No dervish ever turned roundmore times at a bout, than I have turned over in these four hours. I dined out to-day, at Judge King's, and afterwards we went to thecelebrated Club 3 and, whether it is that I was seven consecutive hoursin company, or that I drank a cup of coffee, The reason why, I cannot tell, But this I know full well, [235] thathere I am, at three o'clock in the morning, venting my rage on you. 

It would do your heart good to see the generous and delighted interestwhich the G. 's and D. 's, and indeed many more, take in the phenomenon ofthe lectures. The truth is, that their attention to the matter, andthe intelligence of the people, and the merits of the lecturer, mustbe combined to account for such an unprecedented and beautifulaudience, -larger, and much more select, they say, than even Thackeray's. I'll send you a newspaper slip or two, if I can lay my hand upon them, upon the last lecture, which, assembled (the audience, I mean), undera clouded sky, and in face of a threatening thunder-gust, was a greaterwonder, some one said, than any I undertook to explain. 

Bah! what stuff to write I But all this is such an agreeable surpriseto me, and will, I think, give me so much better a reward for this wearyjourney and absence than I expected, that you must sympathize what youcan with my dotage. 

As to the "Corruptions of Christianity, " dear, if you don't find enoughof them about you, --and you may not, as you live with your mothermostly, --you will find them in the library somewhere. There were, Ithink, two editions, one in one volume, and another in two. There are ahundred in the world. 

The Club mentioned in this letter was that of which my father wrote inhis Reminiscences: "This Charleston Club, then, I think, forty yearsold, was one of the most remarkable, and in some respects [236] the mostimproving, that I have ever known. An essay was read at every meeting, and made the subject of discussion. One evening at Dr. Gilman's was readfor the essay a eulogy upon Napoleon III. It was written con amore, andwas really quite sentimental in its admiration, --going back to his veryboyhood, his love of his mother, and what not. I could not help touchingthe elbow of the gentleman sitting next me and saying, Are n't we apretty set of fellows to be listening to such stuff as this? He showedthat he thought as I did. When the reading was finished, Judge King, who presided, turned to me and asked for my opinion of the essay. I wasconsiderably struck up, ' to be the first person asked, and confessedto some embarrassment. I was a stranger among them, I said, and didnot know but my views might differ entirely from theirs. I was notaccustomed to think myself illiberal, or behind the progress of opinion, and I knew that this man, Louis Napoleon, had his admirers, and perhapsan increasing number of them; but if I must speak, --and then I blurtedit out, --I must say that it was with inward wrath and indignation thatI had listened to the essay, from beginning to end. There was a markedsensation all round the circle; but I defended my opinion, and, to myastonishment, all but two agreed with me. "

The following winter he was invited to repeat his lectures inCharleston, and passed some time there, accompanied by his family. InMarch, 1856, he went with Mrs. Dewey to New Orleans, and, returning toCharleston at the end of April, went home in June. 

[237] To his Daughters. 

ON BOARD THE "HENRY KING, " ON THE

ALABAMA RIVER, March 18, 1856. 

. . . Sum charming things cars are! No dirt, --no sp-tt-g, oh! no, --andsuch nice places for sleeping! Not a long, monotonous, merely animalsleep, but intellectual, a kind of perpetual solving of geometricproblems, as, for instance, --given, a human body; how many angles is itcapable of forming in fifteen minutes? or how many more than a crabin the same time? And then, no crying children, --not a bit ofthat, --singing cherubs, innocently piping, --cheering the dull hours withdulcet sounds. 

I write in the saloon, on this jarring boat, that shakes my hand andwits alike. We are getting on very prosperously. Your mother bears thejourney well. This boat is very comfortable-for a boat; a good largestate-room, and positively the neatest public table I have seen in allthe South. 

There! that'll do, --or must do. I thought wife would do the writing, butI have "got my leg over the harrow, " and Mause would be as hard to stop. 

To Mrs. David Lane. 

NEW ORLEANS, March 29, 1856. 

DEAR FRIEND, --Yesterday I was sixty-two years old. After lecturing inthe evening right earnestly on "The Body and Soul, " I came home verytired, and sat down with a cigar, and passed an hour among the scenes ofthe olden time. I thought of my father, when, a boy, I used to walk withhim to the fields. Something way-[238] ward he was, perhaps, in hismoods, but prevailingly bright and cheerful, --fond of a joke, --strongin sense and purpose, and warm in affection, --steady to his plans, butsomewhat impulsive and impatient in execution. Where is he now? Howoften do I ask! Shall I see him again? How shall I find him afterthirty, forty years passed in the unseen realm? And of my mother youwill not doubt I thought, and called up the scenes of her life: in themid-way of it, when she was so patient, and often weary in the careof us all, and often feeble in health; and then in the later days, thedeclining years, so tranquil, so gentle, so loving, --a perfect sunshineof love and gentleness was her presence. 

But come we to this St. Charles Hotel, where we have been now for aweek, as removed as possible from the holy and quiet dreamland of pastdays. Incessant hubbub and hurly-burly are the only words that candescribe it, seven hundred guests, one thousand people under one roof. What a larder! what a cellar! what water-tanks, pah! filled from theMississippi, clarified for the table with alum. People that we haveknown cast up at all corners, and many that we have not call uponus, --good, kind, sensible people. I don't see but New Orleans is to belet into my human world. 

You see how I blot, --I'm nervous, --I can't write at a marble table. Verywell, however, and wife mainly so. Three weeks more here, and then backto Savannah, where I am to give four lectures. Then to Charleston, tostay till about the 25th May. 

The lectures go here very fairly, --six hundred to hear. They call it avery large audience for lectures in New Orleans. . . . With our love toall your household, Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[239]The Same

SHEFFIELD, Aug. 10, 1856. 

DEAR FRIEND, --My time and thoughts have been a good deal occupied oflate by the illness and death of Mr. Charles Sedgwick. The funeral wason last Tuesday, and Mr. Bellows was present, making the prayer, while Iread passages, and said some words proper for the time. They were heartywords, you may be sure; for in some admirable respects Charles Sedgwickhas scarcely left his equal in the world. His sunny nature shone intoevery crack and crevice around him, and the poor man and the strangerand whosoever was in trouble or need felt that he had in him an adviserand friend. The Irish were especially drawn to him, and they maderequest to bear his body to the grave, that is, to Stockbridge, sixmiles. And partly they did so. . . . It was a tremendous rain-storm, butthe procession was very long. 

But I must turn away from this sad affliction to us all, --it will belong before I shall turn my thought from it, --for the world is passingon; it will soon pass by my grave and the graves of us all. I do notwonder that this sweeping tide bears our thoughts much into the comingworld, --mine, I sometimes think, too much. 

But we have to fight our battle, perform our duties, while one andanother drops around us; and one of the things that engages me justnow, is to prepare a discourse to be delivered under our Elm Tree on the21st. 

The Elm Tree Association, before which the address just alluded to wasmade, was a Village Improvement Society, of which my father was [240]one of the founders, and which took its name from an immense tree, oneof the finest in Massachusetts, standing near the house of his maternalgrandfather. To smooth and adorn the ground around the Great Elm, andmake it the scene of a yearly summer festival for the whole town, wasthe first object of the Society, extending afterwards to planting trees, grading walks, etc. , through the whole neighborhood; and it was oneof the earlier impulses to that refinement of taste which has made ofSheffield one of the prettiest villages in the country. With itsfine avenue of elms, planted nearly forty years ago, its gardens andwell-shaven turf, it shows what care and a prevailing love of beautyand order will do for a place where there is very little wealth. It wasabout this time that my father planted in an angle of the main streetthe Seven Pines, which now make, as it were, an evergreen chapel to hismemory, and with the proceeds of some lectures that he gave in the town, set out a number of deciduous trees around the Academy, many of whichare still living, though the building they were intended to shade isgone. 

The Elm Tree Association, however, from one cause and another, wasshort-lived; but "It lived to light a steadier flame" in the Laurel HillAssociation, of Stockbridge, which, taking the idea from the Sheffieldplan, continues to develop it in a very beautiful and admirable manner. [241] The address at the gathering in 1856 was chiefly occupied with areview of the history of the town, and with the thoughts appropriateto the place of meeting; and at the close the speaker took occasion toexplain to his townspeople his ideas upon the national crisis of theday, and the changed aspect that had been given to the slavery questionby the fresh determination of the South to maintain the excellence ofthe system and to force it upon the acceptance of the North in the newStates then forming. Against this he made earnest and solemn protest, with a full expression of his opinion as to the innate wrong to theblacks, and the destructive effects on the whites, of slavery; butat the same time he spoke with large and kindly consideration for theSoutherners. After doing justice to the care and kindness of many ofthem for their slaves, he said, in close:--

"I have listened also to what Southern apologists have said in anotherview, --that this burden of slavery was none of their choosing; that itwas entailed upon them; that they cannot immediately emancipate theirpeople; that they are not qualified to take care of themselves; thatthis state of things must be submitted to for a while, till remediallaws and other remedial means shall bring relief. And so long as theysaid that, I gave them my sympathy. But when they say, 'Spread thissystem, --spread it far and wide, ' I cannot go another step with them. And it is not I that has changed, but they. When they say, 'Spread it, --spread it over [242] Kansas and Nebraska, spread it over the far West, annex Mexico, annex Cuba, annex Central America, make slavery a nationalinstitution, make the compact of the Constitution carry it into allTerritories, cover it with the national images, set it up as part of ourgreat republican profession, stamp on our flag and our shield and ourscutcheon the emblem of human slavery, ' I say, --no--never-God forbid!"

It seems strange now that so temperate and candid a speech should haveraised a storm of anger when read in Charleston. But the sore lacewas too tender for even the friendliest such, and of all those whohad greeted him here so cordially the winter before, but two or threemaintained and strengthened their relations with him after this summer. It was one of many trials to which his breadth of view exposed him. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

SHEFFIELD, Aug. 11, 1856. 

MY DEAR BELLOWS, --I do not complain of your Teter; but what if itshould turn out that I cannot agree with you? What if my opinions, whenproperly understood, should displease many persons? Is it the first timethat honest opinions have been proscribed, or the expression of themthought "unfortunate "?

I appreciate all the kindness of your letter, and your care for myreputation; but you are not to be told that here is something higherthan reputation. 

You write with the usual anti-slavery assurance that our opinion is thecorrect one. It is natural; it is the [243] first-blush, the impromptuview of the matter. But whether there is not a juster view, comingout of that same deliberateness and impartiality that you accuse meof, --whether there is not, in fact, a broader humanity and a broaderpolitics than yours or that of your party, is the question. 

I don't like the tendencies of your mind (I don't say heart) on thisquestion; your willingness to bring the whole grand future of thiscountry to the edge of the present crisis; your idea of this crisis as asecond Revolution, and of the cause of liberty as equally involved; yourthinking it so fatal to be classed with Tories, or with-, and-, and yourregret that I should have gone down South to lecture. It all looks to menarrow. 

I may address the public on this subject. But if I do, I shan't do itmainly for my own sake; at any rate, I shall write to you when I getleisure. 

With love to E. , Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Ephraim Peabody, D. D. 

SHEFFIELD, Nov. 10, 1856. 

MY DEAR PEABODY, --I have written you several imaginary letters since Isaw you, and now I'm determined (before I go to Baltimore to lecture, which is next week) that I will write you a real one. I desired H. T. To inquire and let me know how you are, and she writes that you are verymuch the same as when I was in Boston, --riding out in the morning, andpassing, I fear, the same sad and weary afternoons. I wish I were nearyou this winter, that is, if I could help you at all through those heavyhours. [244] I am writing a lecture on "Unconscious Education;" for Iwant to add one to the Baltimore course. And is not a great deal of oureducation unconscious and mysterious? You do not know, perhaps, all thatthis long sickness and weariness and prostration are doing for you. Ialways think that the future scene will open to us the wonders of thisas we never see them here. 

Heine says that a man is n't worth anything till he has suffered;or something like that. I am a great coward about it; and I imaginesometimes that deeper trial might make something of me. 

My dear friend, if I may call you so, I write to little purpose, perhaps, but out of great sympathy and affection for you. I do not knowof a human being for whom I have a more perfect esteem than for you. And in that love I often commend you, with a passing prayer, or sighsometimes, to the all-loving Father. We believe in Him. Let us "believethe love that God hath to us. "

With all our affectionate regards to your wife and girls and to you, Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

Within a few weeks the pure and lofty spirit to whom these words wereaddressed was called hence, and the following letter was written:--

SHEFFIELD, Dec. 17, 1856. 

MY DEAR MRS. PEABODY, --Do you not know why I dread to write to you, andyet why I cannot help it? Since last I spoke to you, such an event haspassed, that I tremble to go over the abyss and speak to you again. Butyou and your children stand, bereft and stricken, on [245] the shore, asit were, of a new and strange world, --for strange must be the world toyou where that husband and father is not, --and I would fain express thesympathy which I feel for you, and my family with me. Yet not with manywords, but more fitly in silence, should I do it. And this letter isbut as if I came and sat by you, and only said, "God help you, " or kneltwith you and said, "God help us all;" for we are all bereaved in yourbereavement. 

True, life passes on visibly with us as usual; but every now and thenthe thought of you and him comes over me, and I exclaim and pray atonce, in wonder and sorrow. 

But the everlasting succession of things moves on, and we all takeour place in it-now, to mourn the lost, and now, ourselves to bemourned--till all is finished. It is an Infinite Will that ordains it, and our part is to bow in humble awe and trust. 

I had a letter once, from a most lovely woman, announcing to me thedeath of her husband, a worthless person; and she spoke of it with nomore interest than if a log had rolled from the river-bank andfloated down the stream. What do you think of that, --with affections, venerations, loves, sympathies, swelling around you like a tide?

I know that among all these there is an unvisited loneliness whichnothing can reach. May God's peace and presence be there!

I could not write before, being from home. I do not write anything now, but to say to you and your dear children, "God comfort you. "

From your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[246] To his Daughter Mary. 

BALTIMORE, Nov. 24, 1856. 

DEAREST MOLLY, --I must send you a line, though somehow I can't make mytable write yet. I have just been out to walk in the loveliest morning, and yet my nerves are ajar, and I can't guide my pen. I preached veryhard last evening. I don't know but these people are all crazy, but theymake me feel repaid. The church was full, as I never saw it before. Thelecture Saturday evening was crowded. So I go. 

I am reading Dr. Kane's book. Six pages could give all the actualknowledge it contains; but that fearful conflict of men with the mostterrible powers of nature, and so bravely sustained, makes the storylike tragedy; and I read on and on, the same thing over and over, anddon't skip a page. But Mrs. --has just been in, and sat down and openedher widowed heart to me, and I see that life itself is often a moresolemn tragedy than voyaging in the Arctic Seas. Nay, I think the deaconhimself, when he accepted that challenge (how oddly it sounds!), musthave felt himself to be in a more tragic strait than "Smith's Strait, "or any other that Kane was in. 

Your letters came Saturday evening, and were, by that time, anindispensable comfort. . . . 

This will be with you before the Thanksgiving dinner. Bless it, and youall, prayeth, giving thanks with and for you, Your

ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[247]Mr. Dewey had been asked repeatedly, since his retirement from NewYork, to take charge of Church Green, in Boston, a pulpit left vacant bythe death of Dr. Young; and he consented to go there in the beginning of1858, with the understanding that he should preach but once on a Sunday. He had an idea of a second service, which should be more useful to thepeople and less exhausting to the minister than the ordinary afternoonservice, which very few attended, and those only from a sense of duty. He had written for this purpose a series of "Instructions, " as he calledthem, on the 104th Psalm. Each was about an hour long, and they were, in short, simple lectures on religious subjects. To use his own words, "This was not preaching, and was attended with none of the exhaustionthat follows the morning service. Many people have no idea, nor evensuspicion, of the difference between praying and preaching for an hour, with the whole mind and heart poured into it, and any ordinary publicspeaking for an hour. They seem to think that in either case it is voxet preterea nihil, and the more voice the more exhaustion; but the truthis, the more the feelings are enlisted in any way, the more exhaustion, and the difference is the greatest possible. "

[248] To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

BOSTON, Sept. 7, 1858. 

DEAR BRYANT, -You have got home. If you pronounce the charm-word fourtimes after the dramatic (I mean the true dramatic) fashion, all istold. It makes me think of what Mrs. Kemble told us the other day. Ina play where she acted the mistress, and her lover was shot, --orwas supposed to be, but was reprieved, and came rushing to herarms, --instead of repeating a long and pretty speech which was set downfor her, the dramatic passion made her exclaim: "ALIVE! ALIVE! alive!alive!"

Well, you are such a nomadic cosmopolitan, that I won't answer for you;but I will be bound it is so with. Mrs. Bryant, and I guess Julia too. How you all are, and how she is especially, is the question in all ourhearts; and without waiting for forty things to be done, all working youlike forty-power presses, pray write us three words and tell us. 

. . . I hope that some time in the winter I shall get a sight of you. You and the Club would make my measure full. And yet Boston is great. 

To Mrs. David Lane. 

BOSTON, Sept. 20, 1858. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --Dr. Jackson is fast turning me into a vegetable, -homomulti-cotyledonous is the species. My head is a cabbage--brain, cauliflower; my eyes are two beans, with a short cucumber between them, for a nose; my heart is a squash (very soft); my lungs--cut a watermelonin two, lengthwise, and you have them; [249]my legs are cornstalks, and my feet, potatoes. I eat nothing but these things, and I amfast becoming nothing else. I am potatoes and corn and cucumber andcabbage, --like the chameleon, that takes the color of the thing it liveson. Dr. Jackson will have a great deal to answer for to the world. Hadn't you better come into town and see about it? Perhaps you can arrestthe process. . . . 

I declare I think it is too bad to send such a poor dish to you as this, and especially in your loneliness; but it is all. Dr. Jackson's fault. 

Think of mosquito-bars in Boston! They must be very trying things--tothe mosquitoes. You see they don't know what to make of it; and verylikely their legs and wings get caught sometimes in the "decussated, reticulated interstices, " as Dr. Johnson calls them. At any rate, fromtheir noise, they evidently consider themselves as the most ill-treatedand unfortunate outcasts upon earth. Paganini wrote the "Carnivalof Venice. " I wonder somebody does n't write the no-carnival of themosquitoes. 

To the Same. 

BOSTON, Dec. 30, 1858. 

DEAR MY FRIEND, --I cannot let the season of happy wishes pass by withoutsending mine to you and yours. But you must begin to gather up patiencefor your venerable friend, for the happy anniversaries somehow begin togather shadows around them; they are both reminders and admonishers. 

Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the "Happy New Year!" is neversounded out in the minor key; always it has a ring of joyousness andhope in it. Read that [250] little piece of Fanny Kemble's, [FN: Mrs. Kemble's Poems] on the 179th page, --the "Answer to a Question. " I sendyou the volume 1 by this mail. Ah! what a clear sense and touchingsensibility and bracing moral tone there is, running through the wholevolume! But I was going to say that that little piece tells you what Iwould write better than I can write it. We all send "Merry Christmas"and "Happy New Year" to you all, in a heap; that is, a heap of us to aheap of you, and a heap of good wishes. 

My poor head is rather improving, but it is n't worth much yet, as youplainly see. Nevertheless, in the other and sound part of me I am, As ever, your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To his Sister, Miss F. Dewey. 

[Date missing. About 1859. ]

So you remember the old New Bedford times pleasantly, --and I do. And Iremember my whole lifetime in the same way. And even if it had beenless pleasant, if there had been many more and greater calamities in it, still I hold on to that bottom-ground of all thanksgiving, even this, that God has placed in us an immortal spark, which through storm andcloud and darkness may grow brighter, and in the world beyond may shineas the stars forever. I heard Father Taylor last Sunday afternoon. Towards the close he spoke of his health as uncertain and liable tofail; "But, " said he, "I have felt a little more of immortality comedown into me today, and as if I should live awhile longer here. "

[251]To Mrs. David Lane. 

BOSTON, Saturday evening [probably Oct. , 1859]

DEAR MY FRIEND, --I imagine you are all so cast down, forlorn, anddesolate at my leaving you, and especially "At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove, When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill, And naught but thenightingale's song in the grove, " that I ought to write a word to fillthe void. I should have said, on coming away, like that interestingchild who had plagued everybody's life out of them, "come again!"

Bah! you never asked me; or only in such a sort that I was obliged todecline. Am I such a stupid visitor? Did I not play at bagatelle withL. ? Did I not read eloquently out of Carlyle to you and C. ? Did I nottalk wisdom to you by the yard? Did I not let drop crumbs of philosophyby the wayside of our talk, continually? Above all, am I not the veriestwoman, at heart, that you ever saw? Why, I had like to have choked upon"Sartor Resartus. " I wonder if you saw it. But, ahem!-a great swallow aman must have, to gulp down the "Everlasting Yea. " And a great swallowimplies a great stomach. And a great stomach implies a great brain, unless a man's a fool. "If not, why not?" as Captain Bunsby says;"therefore. "

Oh, what a mad argument to prove swan sane, --and good company besides IWell, I am mad, and expect to be so, -at least I think I have a right tobe so, in the proportion of one hour to twenty-four, being so rationalthe rest of the time. I think it's but a reasonable allowance. [252] Youwill judge that this is my mad hour to-day, and it is; nevertheless, Iam, soberly, Your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

In the winter of 1859 he writes to the same friend upon New York Citypolitics with a passionate vivacity that old New Yorkers will sadlyappreciate. 

"I took up the paper this morning that announced Fernando Wood'selection by two thousand plurality. If you had seen the way in whichI brought down my hand upon the table, --minding neither muscle normahogany, you would know how people at a distance, especially if theyhave ever lived in New York, feel about it. I hope he will pay youwell. I wish he would take out some of your rich, stupid, arms-folding, purse-clutching millionnaires into Washington Square and flay themalive. Something of the sort must be done, before our infatuated cityupper classes will come to their senses. "

To his Sister, Miss F. Dewey. 

SHEFFIELD, Oct. 5, 1859. 

I HAVE got past worrying about things, myself. I see all thesemovements, this way and that way, as a part of that great oscillation inwhich the world has been swinging, to and fro, from the beginning, andalways advancing. These are the natural developments of the freed mindof the world; and whoever lives now, and yet more, whoever shall livethrough this century, must take this large and calm philosophy to hisheart, or he will find himself cast upon the troubled waters withoutrudder [253] or compass. Daniel Webster, one day at Marshfield, when hiscattle came around him to take an ear of corn each from his hand, saidto Peter Harvey, who was by, as he stood looking at them, "Peter, thisis better company than Senators. " So I am tempted to turn from all thereligious wranglings and extravagances of the time, to nature and to thesolid and unquestioned truths of religion. I sometimes doubt whether Iwill ever read another word of the ultraists and the one-sided men. Theywill do their work, and it will all come to good in the long run; but itis not necessary that I should watch it or care for it. I did, indeed, print a political sermon four months ago, and I said a few words in the"Register" last week (which I will send you), but I am not the man to beheard in these days. I can't take a side. . . . 

Yours as always, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

SHEFFIELD, May 7, 1860. 

WELL, did I address you as a poet, Magnus; for none but a poet ora Welshman could write such a reply. Do you know I am Welsh? So wasElizabeth, Tudor; so is Fanny Kemble, and other good fellows. 

Well, I take your poetry as if it were just as good as prose. But youdon't consider, my dear fellow, that if we make our visit when I go downto preach for Bellows, that I can't preach for your Orthodoxfriend. . . . 

Oh, ay, I quite agree with you about leaving the world-melee to others. For my part, I feel as if I were dead and buried long ago. You said, awhile ago, that you did n't so well like to work as you once did. Sensible, [254] that. I feel the same, in my bones--or brains. There itis, you always say, what I think; except sometimes, when you scathe theopponents, --for I am tenderhearted. I don't like to have people madeto feel so "bad. " Seriously, I wonder that some of you editors are notbeaten to death every month. Ours is a much-enduring society. I couldenlarge, but I have n't time; for I must go and set out some trees--forposterity. 

With our love to your wife and all, Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Mrs. David Lane. 

BOSTON, Dec. 1860. 

DEAREST FRIEND (for I think friends draw closer to one another introublous times), --Indeed I am sad and troubled, under the mostfavorable view that can be taken of our affairs; for though all thisshould blow over, as I prevailingly believe and hope it will, yet thecrisis has brought out such a feeling at the South as we shall noteasily forget or forgive. To be sure, as the irritation of an arraignedconscience, we may partly overlook it, as we do the irritation of ablamed child, --as an arraigned, and, I add, not quite easy conscience;for surely conscious virtue is calmer than the South is, today. I knowthat other things are mixed up with this feeling of the South; but ifit felt that its moral position was high and honorable and unimpeachablebefore the world, it would not fly out into this outrageous passion. Ifthe ground it stood upon in former days were held now, it might be calm, as it was then; but ever since the day when it changed its mind, --eversince it has assumed that the slave system is right and good andadmirable [255] and ought to be perpetual, --it has been growing more andmore passionate. Well, we must be patient with them. For my part, I amfrightened at the condition to which their folly is bringing them. Itis terrible to think that the distrust and fear of their slaves isspreading itself all over the South country. To be sure, they, in theirunreasonableness, blame us for it. They might as well accuse England;they might as well accuse all the civilized world. For the convictionthat slavery is wrong, that it ought not to be advocated, but to becondemned, and ultimately removed from the world, -this conviction isone of the inevitable developments of modern Christian thought andsentiment. It is not we that are responsible for the rise and spread ofthis sentiment; it is the civilized world; it is humanity itself. 

And now what is it that the South asks of us as the condition of unionwith it? Why, that we shall say and vote that we so much approve ofthe slave-system, that we are willing, not merely that it should existuntouched by us, --that is not the question, --but that it should betaken to our bosom as a cherished national institution. 

I hope we shall firmly but mildly refuse to say it. It is the onlyhonorable or dignified or conscientious position for us of theNorth. But, do you see the result of these municipal elections inMassachusetts? That does not look like firmness. There may be flinching. But so it is, under the great Providence, that the world wears aroundquestions which it cannot sharply meet. 

These matters take precedence of all others now-adays, or else my firstword would have been to say how glad we were to hear that C. Is wellagain. 

Yours as ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[256] To his Daughter Mary. 

BOSTON, Feb. 10, 1861. 

HAPPILY for my peace of mind, I have been over to the post-office thisevening and got your letter. For my one want has been to know how thattremendous Thursday afternoon and night took you; that is, whether ittook you off the ground, or the roof off the house. Here, it did notunroof any houses, but it blew over a carryall in Beacon Street; andwhen Dr. J. Went out, like a good Samaritan, to help the people, itdid not respect his virtue at all, but blew him over. Blew him over thefence, it was said; at any rate; landed him on his face, which was muchbruised, and dislocated his shoulder. So you see I could not tell whatpranks the same wind might play around the corners of certain houses orbarns afar off. 

Was there ever anything like the swing of the weather? Now it is warmhere again, and ready to rain. Agassiz told me that the change inCambridge, on Thursday, was 71? in ten hours. In Boston it was Go?, being 100 or 1? colder in Cambridge. 

I see Agassiz often of late at Peirce's Lowell Lectures on "theMathematics in the Cosmos. " The object is to show that the same ideas, principles, relations, which the mathematician has wrought out from hisown mind, are found in the system of nature, indicating an identityof thought. You see of what immense interest the discussion is. But Peirce's delivery of his thoughts is very lame and imperfect(extemporaneous). Two lectures ago, as I sat by Agassiz, I said at theclose, "Well, I feel obliged to apologize to myself for being here. "

A. Why?

[257] D. Because I don't understand half of it. 

A. No? I am surprised. I do. 

D. Well, that is because you are learned. (Thinking with myself, however, why does he? For he knows no more of the mathematics than I do. But I went on. )

D. Well, my apology is this; Peirce is like nature, -vast, obscure, mysterious, --great bowlders of thought, of which I can hardly get hold;dark abysses, into which I cannot see; but, nevertheless, flashes oflight here and there, and for these I come. 

A. Why, yes, I understand him. Just now, when he drew that curiousdiagram to illustrate a certain principle, I saw it clearly, for I knowthe same thing in organic nature. 

D. Aha! the Mathematics in the Cosmos!

Was it not striking? Here are the Mathematics (Peirce), and NaturalScience (Agassiz), and they easily understand each other, because thelecturer's principle is true. 

The three or four years which Mr. Dewey spent in Boston with his familywere full of enjoyment to him; but in December, 1861, he withdrewfinally to Sheffield, which he never left again for more than a fewweeks or months at a time. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

SHEFFIELD, July 26, 1861. 

MY DEAR BELLOWS, --God bless you for what you and your SanitaryCommission are doing for our people in the camps It goes to my heart tobe sitting here in quiet and comfort, these lovely summer days, whilethey [258] are braving and enduring so much. And so, though of silverand gold I have not much, I send my mite, to help, the little that Ican, the voluntary contribution for your purposes. 

Last Monday night [Alluding to the battle and rout of Bull Run, July1861] was the bitterest time we have had yet some, even in this quietvillage, did not sleep a wink. Confound sensation newspapers andnewspaper correspondents that fellow who writes is enough to drive onemad. The "Evening Post" is the wisest paper. But it is too bad thatthat rabble of civilians and teamsters should have brought this apparentdisgrace upon us. 

We have an immense amount of inexperience, and of rash, opinionatedthinking to deal with; but we shall get over it all. 

If you are staying in New York, I wish you could run up and take alittle breathing-time with us. Come any time; we have always a bed foryou. 

We are all well, and all unite in love to you and E. 

Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Miss Catherine M. Seagwick. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 5, 1862. 

My FRIEND, --I must report myself to you. I must have you sympathize withmy life, or--I will not say I shall drown myself in the Housatonic, butI shall feel as if the old river had dried up, and forsaken its bed. 

I do not know how to set about telling you how happy I am in the oldhome. I feel as if I had arrived after a long voyage, or were reposingafter a day's [259] work that had been forty years long. Indeed, it isforty-two years last autumn since I left Andover and began to preach. And I have never before had any cessation of work but what I regarded astemporary. Indeed, I have never before had the means to retire upon. Andalthough it is but a modest competence, $1, 500 a year [FN: He had justreceived a legacy of $5, 000 from Miss Eliza Townsend, of Boston]-yet Iam most devoutly thankful to Heaven that I have it, and that I am notturned out, like an old horse upon the common. To be sure, I should beglad to be able to live nearer to the centres of society; but you canhardly imagine what comfort and satisfaction I feel in having enough tolive upon, instead of the utter poverty which I might well have fearedwould be, and which so often is, the end of a clergyman's life. '

This house of ours is very pleasant, you would think so if you werein it, --all doors open, as in summer, a summer temperature from thefurnace, day and night, moderate wood-fires in the parlor and library, cheering to the eye, and making of the chimneys excellent ventilators, and the air pure; and this summer house seated down amidst surroundingcold, and boundless fields of snow, --it seems a miracle of comfort. 

And then, this surrounding splendor and beauty, -the valley, and thehills and mountains around, --the soft-falling snow, the starry crystalsdescending through the still air, --the lights and shadows of morning andevening, --this wondrous meteorology of winter--but you know all aboutit. Really, I think some days that winter is more beautiful than summer. Certainly I would not have it left out of my year. . . . "Aha! all isrose-colored to him!" Well, nay, but it is literally [260] so. The whitehill opposite, looking like a huge snow-bank, only that it is checkeredwith strips and patches of wood, dark as Indian-ink, is stained of thatcolor every clear afternoon, and rises up at sundown into a bank ofroseate or purple bloom all along above the horizon. 

6th. I did n't get through last evening. No wonder, with so much heavystuff to carry. Did I ever write such a stupid letter before? Well, donot say anything about it, but quickly cover it over with the mantle ofone of your charming epistles. It is not often that one has a chanceto show so much Christian generosity. Besides, consider that I do notaltogether despair of myself. I am reviving; and you don't know what aletter I may write you one of these days, if you toll me along. 

In the autumn his only son enlisted for nine months in the 49thMassachusetts Regiment. 

To his Daughters. 

SHEFFIELD, Oct. 13, 1862. 

MY DEAR GIRLS, Charles has enlisted. It was at a war-meeting at thetown-hall last evening. You have known his feelings, and perhaps willnot be surprised. I did not expect it, and must confess I was very muchshaken in spirit by it. But, arriving through some sleepless hours at acalmer mood, I do not know that it is any greater sacrifice than we as afamily ought to make. 

Although it will throw a great deal of care upon me, and there is allthis extra work to do, yet, that excepted, perhaps he could not go atany better time than now. [261] It is for the winter, and nine monthsis a fitter term for a family man, circumstanced as he is, than threeyears; and this enlistment precludes all liability to future draft. Thisis in the key of prudence; but I do think that men with young familiesdependent upon them should be the last to go. And yet I had rather havein C. The patriotic spirit that impels him, than all the prudence in theworld. 

To the Same. 

Oct. 16, 1862. 

C. Is steadily and calmly putting all things into order that hecan. . . . He came in the morning after he had enlisted, and said to mewith a bright, vigorous, and satisfied expression of countenance, "Well, you see what I have done. " I believe some people have been very muchstirred and moved by his decision. It is said to have given an impulseto the recruiting, and the quota, I am told, is now about full and therewill be no drafting here. 

Thinking of these things, --thinking of all possible good or ill tocome, your mother and I go about, from hour to hour, sometimes very muchweighed down, and sometimes more hopeful and cheerful; and poor J. , withthe tears ready to come at every turn, is yet going on very bravely andwell. . . . Cassidy is to look after barn-yard, etc. , for the winter. 

But all this is nothing. Good heaven! do people know, does the worldknow, what we are doing, when we freely send our sons from peaceful andhappy homes to meet what camp-life, and reconnoissances, and battles maybring to them and us? God help and pity us!

[262] To Mrs. David Lane. 

SHEFFIELD, Dec. 19, 1862. 

DEAR FRIEND, --I wrote to Mrs. Curtis [FN]last Saturday, before I knewwhat had befallen her, and in that letter sent a message to you, to knowof your whereabouts, provided you were still in town. I don't expectan answer from her now, of course, though I have written her since; butthinking that you are probably in New York, I write. 

I had hoped to hear from you before now. Through this heavy winter cloudI think friendly rays should shine, if possible, to warm and cheer it. It is, indeed, an awful winter. I will not say dismal; my heart istoo high for that. But public affairs, and my private share in them, together, make a dread picture in my mind, as if I were gazing upon thepassing of mighty floods, that may sweep away thousands of dwellings, and mine with them. And though I lift my thoughts to Heaven, there aretimes when I dare not trust myself to pray aloud; the burden is toogreat for words. It is singular, but you will understand it, --I thinkthere was never a time when there was less visible devotion in mylife than now, when my whole being is resolved into meditations, andstrugglings of faith, and communings with the supreme and holy will ofGod. 

I am writing, my friend, very solemnly for a letter; but never mindthat, for we are obliged to take into our terrible questioning now whatis always most trying in the problem of life, --the results of humanimperfection--

[FN: Mrs. George Curtis, of New York, whose son, Joseph Bridgham Curtis, lieutenant-colonel, commanding a Rhode Island regiment, had just fallenat Fredericksburg, Va. ]

[263] human incompetence, brought into the most immediate connectionwith our own interests and affections. See what it is for our friendMrs. Curtis to reflect that her son was slain in that seemingly recklessassault upon the intrenchments at Fredericksburg, or for me that myson may be sent off in rotten transports that may founder amidst theSouthern seas. 

But do I therefore spend my time in complainings and reproaches, andalmost the arraigning of Providence? No. I know that the governingpowers are trying to do the best they can. The fact is, a charge isdevolved upon them almost beyond human ability to sustain. NeitherRussia nor Austria nor France, I believe, ever had a million of soldiersin the field, to clothe, to equip, to feed, to pay, and to direct. We have them, --we, a peaceful people, suddenly, with no militaryexperience, and there must be mistakes, delays, failures. What then?Shall we give up the cause of justice, of lawful government, ofcivilization, and of the unborn ages, and do nothing? If we willnot, --if we will not yield up lawful sovereignty to mad revolt, thenmust we put what power, faculty, skill, we have, to the work, and amidstall our sacrifices and sorrows bow to the awful will of God. 

Have you seen Mrs. Curtis? In her son there was a singular union ofloveliness and manliness, of gentleness and courage, and, high over all, perfect self-abnegation. A mother could not well lose in a son more thanshe has lost. I hope she does not dwell on the seeming untowardness ofthe event, or that she can take it into a larger philosophy than that ofthe New York press. . . . 

[264] To the Same. 

SHEFFIELD, July 26, 1863. 

YOUR sympathy, my friend, for us and Charles, is very comforting to me. Yes, we have heard from him since the surrender of Port Hudson. He wroteto us on the 9th, full of joy, and glorying over the event; but, poorfellow, he had only time to wash in the conquered Mississippi, beforehis regiment was ordered down to Fort Donaldsonville, and took part ina fight there on the 13th; and we have private advices from Baton Rougethat the brigade (Augur's) is sent down towards Brash-ear City. . . . Now, when we shall hear of C. I do not venture to anticipate, butwhenever we do get any news, that is, any good news, you shall have it. 

If these horrid New York riots had not lifted up a black and frightfulcloud between us and the glorious events in Pennsylvania andthe Southwest, we should have burst out into illuminations andcannon-firings all over the North. But the good time is coming FN Weshall be ready when Sumter is taken. I hardly know of anything thatwould stir the Northern heart like that. 

I have not seen Mrs. Kemble's book yet. Have you read Calvert's"Gentleman"? It is charming. And "The Tropics, " too. And here isDraper's book upon the "Intellectual Development of Europe" on my table. I augur much from the first dozen pages. 

With kind remembrances to Mr. Lane, and love to the girls, Yours as ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[265] To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

SHEFFIELD, Aug. 15, 1863. 

MY DEAR BELLOWS, --Such a frolic breeze has not fallen upon theseinland waters this good while. Complain of heat! Why, it is as good aschampagne to you. Well, I shan't hesitate to write to you, for fear ofadding to your overwhelming burdens. A pretty picture your letter is, of a man overwhelmed by burdens! And weigh a hundred and eighty! Ican't believe it. Why, I never have weighed more than a hundred andseventy-six. Maybe you are an inch or two taller; and brains, I haveoften observed, weigh heavy; but yours at the top must be like a glassof soda-water! Nature did a great thing for you, when it placed thatbuoyant fountain within you. I have often thought so. 

But let me tell you, my dear fellow, that with all the stupendous shareyou have had in the burdens of this awful time, you have not known, andwithout knowing can never conceive, of what has weighed upon me for thelast nine months. . . . I thank you most heartily for your sympathy withC. After all, my satisfaction in what he has done is not so great as inwhat his letters, all along, show him to be. . . . 

Always and affectionately your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Mr. And Mrs. Lindsey. 

SHEFFIELD, Nov. 28, 1863. 

MY DEAR FRIENDS, --I received your letter, dated 20 September, two daysago. I am very sorry to see that you are laboring under the mistakenimpression that I [266] have lost my son in the war. Something youmisapprehended in-'s letter. You seem to suppose that it was Charles whoused that striking language, "Is old Massachusetts dead? It is sweet todie for our country!" No; it was Lieutenant-Colonel O'Brien, who fellimmediately afterwards. Charles was one of the storming party underO'Brien. He stepped forward at that call, for they had all hesitateda moment, as the call was unexpected; it came upon them suddenly. Hebehaved as well as if he had fallen; but, thank God, he is preservedto us, and, is among us in health, in these Thanksgiving days. Allwere around my table day before yesterday, --three children, with theirmother, and three grandchildren. 

To Mrs. David Lane. 

SHEFFIELD, Dec. 29, 1863. 

DEAR FRIEND, --Our life goes on as usual, though those drop from it thatmade a part of it. We strangely accustom ourselves to everything, --towar and bloodshed, to sickness and pain, to the death of friends; andthat which was a bitter sorrow at first, sinks into a quiet sadness. Andthis not constant, but arising as occasions or trains of thought callit forth. Life is like a procession, in which heavy footsteps and gayequipages, and heat and dust, and struggle and laughter, and music anddiscord, mingle together. We move on with it all, and our moods partakeof it all, and only the breaking asunder of the natural bonds andhabitudes of living together (except it be of some especial heart-tie)makes affliction very deep and abiding, or sends us away from the greatthrong to sit and weep alone. Of friends, I [267] think I have sufferedmore from the loss of the living than of the dead. 

I do not know but you will think that all this is very little like me. It certainly less belongs to the sad occasion that has suggested it thanto any similar one that has ever occurred to me. I shall miss E. S. Frommy path more than any friend that has ever gone away from it into theunknown realm. 

Oh! the unknown realm! Will the time ever come, when men will lookinto it, or have it, at least, as plainly spread before them as to thetelescopic view is the landscape of the moon? I believe that I haveas much faith in the future life as others, --perhaps more than mostmen, --but I am one of those who long for actual vision, who would

"See the Canaan that they love, With unbeclouded eyes. "

But now what I have been saying reasserts its claim. The greatprocession moves on, --past the solemn bier, past holy graves. You are init, and in these days your life is crowded with cares and engagements.. . . I wish I could do something for the Great Fair; [FN] but I amexhausted of all my means. 

With my love to all around you, I am, as ever, Yours affectionately, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[FN: The Great Fair, held in New York for the benefit of the SanitaryCommission, and of which Mrs. Lane was the chief manager and inspiringpower. ]

[268] To Rev. Henry Bellows, D. D. SHEFFIELD, Dec. 31, 1863. 

. . . Ah! heaven, --what is rash or wise, shortsighted or far-seeing, too fast or too slow, upon the profound and terrible question, "What isto be done with slavery?" You have been saying something about it, and Irather think, if I could see it, that I should very much agree with you. Bryant and I had some correspondence about it a year ago, and I said tohim; "If you expect this matter to be all settled up in any brief way, if you think that the social status of four millions of people is to besuccessfully placed on entirely new ground in five years, all historicalexperience is against you. "

However, the real and practical question now is, How ought theGovernment to proceed? Upon what terms should it consent to receive backand recognize the Rebel States? I confess that I am sometimes tempted togo with a rush on this subject, --since so fair an opportunity is givento destroy the monster, --and to make it the very business and object ofthe war to sweep it out of existence. But that will be the end; and forthe way, things will work out their own issues. And in the mean time Ido not see that anything could be better than the cautious and tentativemanner in which the President is proceeding. 

One thing certainly has shaken my old convictions about the feasibilityof immediate emancipation, and that is the experiment of emancipatedlabor on the Mississippi and about Port Royal. But the severest trialof emancipation, as of democracy, --that is, of freeing black men as offreeing white men, --may not be found at the start, but long after. 

[269] To the Same. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 12, 1864. 

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED, THOU AND THY PEOPLE, --We are so muchindebted to you all for our four pleasant days in the great city, thatI think we ought to write a letter to you. We feel as if we had come outof the great waters; the currents of city life run so strong, that itseems to us as if we had been at sea; so many tall galleys are there, and such mighty freights are upon the waves, and the captains and thevery sailors are so thoroughly alive, that--that--how shall I end thesentence? Why, thus, if you please, --that it seems to me as if I oughtto be there six months of the year, and that somebody ought to want meto do something that would bring me there. But somebody, --who is that?Why, nobody. You can't see him; you can't find him; Micawber nevercaught him, though he was hunting for him all his life, --always hopedthe creature would turn up, though he never did. 

Well, I 'm content. I am more, I am thankful. I have had, all my life, the greatest blessing of life, --leave to work on the highest themes andtasks, and I am not turned out, at the end, on to the bare common of theworld, to starve. I have a family, priceless to me. I have many dear andgood friends, and above all I have learned to draw nigh to a Friendshipwhich embraces the universe in its love and care, if one may speak so ofThat which is almost too awful for mortal word. . . . 

But leaving myself, and turning to you, --what a monstrous person youare! a prodigy of labor, and a prodigy in some other ways that I couldpoint out. I always thought that the elastic spring in your nature was[270] one of the finest I ever knew, but I did not know that it wasquite so strong. You, too, know of a faith that can remove mountains. 

The Great Fair is one mountain. I hope you will get the "raffles"question amicably settled. There is the same tempest in the Sheffieldteapot; for we have a fair on the 22d, and they have determined herethat they won't have raffles. 

What made you think that I "dread public prayers "? Did I say anythingto you about it? If I did, I should not have used exactly the word"dread. " The truth is, that state of the mind which is commonly calledprayer becomes more and more easy, or at least inevitable to me; but theaction has become so stupendous and awful to me, that I more and moredesire the privacy in it of my own thoughts. "Prayers, "-"saying one'sprayers, " grows distasteful to me, and a Liturgy is less and lesssatisfying. Communion is the word I like better. 

But I have touched too large a theme. With our love to E. And yourlovely children, let me be, Always your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 22, 1864. 

DEAR FRIEND, --You are not well; I know you are not, or you would havewritten to me; and indeed they told me so when I was in New York theother day. I wrote you a good (?) long letter about New Year's, which "the human race running upon our errands" (as Carlyle says) hasdelivered to you, unless in the confusion of these war times it haslet said letter drop out of [271]its pocket. That many-membered body, according to this account of it, has a good deal to do with us; and, doyou know, I find great help by merging myself in the human race. It hastaken a vast deal of worry to wash and brush it into neatness, and totrain it to order, virtue, and sanctity; why should I not have myshare in the worry and weariness and trouble? Many have been sick andsuffering, --all mankind more or less; why should not I be? All the humangenerations have passed away from the world; Walter Scott died; Prescottdied; Charles Dewey, of Indiana, died; E. S. Has died; who am I, that Ishould ask to remain?

E. 's passing away was very grand and noble, --so cheerful, sonatural, --so full of intelligence and fuller of trust, --this earthlyland to her but a part of the Great Country that lies beyond. She leftsuch an impression upon her family and friends, that they hardly yetmourn her loss as they will; they feel as if she were still of them andwith them. . . . 

All my people love you, as does

Your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

SHEFFIELD, May 1, 1864. 

THANK your magnificence! Perhaps I ought to say your misericordia, forCharles says you wrote to him that you knew I should n't have thosegrapes unless you sent them to me. And I am afraid it's true; for I havehad such poor success in my poor grape-culture, that I had about givenup in despair. 

[272] Nonetheless, I have had these set out, according to the best of myjudgment, in the best place I could find in the open garden, and I willhave a trellis or something for them to run upon; and then they may doas they have a mind to. 

I have delayed to acknowledge the receipt of the grape-roots, --Charlesis n't to blame, I told him I would write, --because I waited for thecider to come, that wife and I might overwhelm you with a joint letterof thanks, laudation, and praise. But I can wait no longer. That is, thecider does n't come, and I begin to think it is a myth. Poets, you know, deal in such. They imagine, they idealize, nay, it is said they create;and if we were poets, I suppose we should before now have as good asdrank some of that Long Island champagne. Speaking of poets reminds methat I did n't tell you how charmed I was with those translations fromthe Odyssey; the blank verse is so simple, clear, and exquisite, so Ithink. 

To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick. 

SHEFFIELD, May 5, 1864. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --Dear B. Did you no wrong, and me much right, in givingme to read a letter of yours to her, written more than a month ago, which impressed me more and did me more good than any letter I have readthis long time. It was that in which you spoke of Mr. Choate. It wasevidently written with effort and with interruptions, --it was not likeyour finished, though unstudied letters, of which I have in my garnera goodly sheaf; but oh! my friend, take me into your [273] realm, yourframe of mind, your company, wherever it shall be. The silent tide isbearing us on. May it never part, but temporarily, my humble craft fromyour lovely sail, which seems to gather all things sweet andbalmy-affections, friendships, kindnesses, touches and traits of humanity, hues and fragrances of nature, blessings of providence and beatitudes oflife--into its perfumed bosom. 

You will think I have taken something from Choate. What a strange, Oriental, enchanted style he has! What gleams of far-off ideas, flashesfrom the sky, essences from Arabia, seem unconsciously to drop into it!I have been reading him, in consequence of what you wrote. It is strangethat with all his seeking for perfection in this kind he did not succeedbetter. But it would seem that his affluent and mysterious genius couldnot be brought to walk in the regular paces. He was certainly a veryextraordinary person. I understand better his generosity, candor, amiableness, playfulness. I understand what you mean by the resemblancebetween him and your brother Charles. With constant love of us all, Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Mrs. David Lane. 

SHEFFIELD, Sept. 3, 1864. 

DEAR FRIEND, --. . . Mrs. __ reported you very much occupied withdocuments, papers, letters, and what not, on matters connected withthe Sanitary. I should like to have you recognize that there are otherpeople who need to be healed and helped besides soldiers; and that thereare other interests beside public ones to be looked after. Are not allinterests individual interests in [274] the "last analysis, " as thephilosophers say? But I am afraid you don't believe in analysis at all. Generality, combination, is everything with you. One part of the humanrace is rolled up into a great bundle of sickness, wounds, and misery;and the other is nothing but a benevolent blanket to be wrapped roundit. And if any one thread--videlicet I--should claim to have anyseparate existence or any little tender feeling by itself, immediatelythe manager of the Great Sanitary Fair says, "Hush! lie down! you arenothing but a part of the blanket. " But a truce to nonsense. Sincewriting the foregoing, the news has come from Atlanta. Oh! if Grantcould do the same thing to Lee's army, not only would the Rebellion bebroken, but the Copperhead party would be scattered to the winds! Doyou read anything this summer but reports from Borrioboola Gha? Thebest book I have read--Ticknor's "Prescott, " Alger's "FutureLife, " Furness's "Veil Partly Lifted, " etc. , notwithstanding--is DeTocqueville's "Ancient Regime and the Revolution. "

Your old friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

Nov. 9, 1864. 

CHARMING! I will be as bad as I can. Talk about being "useful tothe world"! If the people that do the most good, or get it to beclone, --same thing, --are to be sought for, are n't they the wicked ones?Where had been the philanthropists, heroes, martyrs, but for them? [275]Where had been Clark, and Wilberforce, but for the slave-catchers? WhereHoward, but for cruel sailors? Where Brace, but for naughty boys? Whereour noble President of the Sanitary, but for the wicked Rebels? And howshould I ever have known that Mrs. Lane was capable of such a fine andeloquent indignation, if, instead of being a bad boy, "neglectingthe opportunities" thrown in my way, I had been just a good sort ofmiddle-aged man, "in the prime of life, " doing as I ought? Really, thereought to be a society got up to make bad people, --they are so useful!I heard a man say of Bellows, the other day in the cars, "He is anoble man!" And it was an Orthodox, formerly a member and elder ofDr. Spring's church. And what do you think he said to me? "Don't youremember me?"--"No. "--"Don't you remember when you were a young man, in Dodge Sayre's bookstore, that Jasper Corning and I set up aSunday-school for colored people in Henry Street, and that you taught init for several months? And a good teacher you were, too. " Not a bit ofit. Oh, dear me! I hope there are some other good things which I havedone in the world that I don't remember. "A grand sermon, " you heardlast Sunday, hey? And then went to the "Century" Rooms, to see thedecorations of the Bryant Festival! It seems to me that was rather aqueer thing to do, after sermon! You will have to write a letter to meimmediately, to relieve my anxieties about your religious education. Was the text, "And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burntsacrifices and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eatand to drink, and rose up to play "? See the same, Exodus xxxii. 6. [276] There! I am not in deep waters, you see, but skimming on thesurface, except when I subscribe myself your abused, scolded, but

Faithful friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

My wife and people send their love and dire indignation to you. 

To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick. 

SHEFFIELD, Dec. 12, 1864. 

. . . It is not pleasant to think upon death. It would not be pleasantto any company of friends to think that the hour for parting was near. Death is a solemn and painful dispensation. I will have no hallucinationabout it. I "wait the great teacher, Death. " I do not welcome it. Itis a solemn change. It is a dread change to natures like ours. I do notbelieve that the Great Disposer meant that we should approach it witha smile, with an air of triumph, --with any other than feelings of lowlysubmission and trust. I do not want to die. I never knew anybody thatdid, except when bitter pain or great and irremediable unhappiness madethe release welcome. And yet, I would not remain forever in this world. And thus, like the Apostle, "I am in a strait betwixt two. " And Ibelieve that it is better to depart; but it is a kind of reluctantconclusion. It may be even cheerful; but it does not make it easy forme to tear myself from all the blessed ties of life. I submit to God'sawful will; but it is with a struggle of emotions, that is itselfpainful and trying, --that tasks all the fortitude and faith of whichI am capable. [277] Will you tell me that our Christian masters andmartyrs spoke of a "victory" over death? Yes, but is victory all joy?Ah, what a painful thing is every victory of our arms in these bloodybattles, though we desire it! Do you feel that I am not writing to youin the high Christian strain? Perhaps not. But I confess I am accustomedto bring all that is taught me--all that is said in exceptionalcircumstances like those of the apostles-into some adjustment with anatural, necessary, and universal experience. Besides, Jesus himself didnot approach death with a song of triumph upon his lips. What a union, in him, of sorrow and trust! No defying of pain, no boasting of calmnessor strength, no braving of martyrdom, --not half so fine and grand, to aworldly and superficial view, as many a martyr's death! But oh, whata blending in him of everything that makes perfection, --of pain andpatience, of trial and trust! But I am writing too long a letter for youto read. . . . K. Just came into my study, and says, "Do give my love. "I answer, "I give all our love always. " So I do now; and with thekindest regards to all around you, I am, as ever, Most affectionately your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

SHEFFIELD, Jan. 7, 1865. 

THANKS for a beautiful record of a beautiful festival [At the "Century, "New York, Nov. 5, 1864, in honor of Mr. Bryant's seventieth birthday. ]to a beautiful--but enough of this. You must have [278] had a surfeit. 'T was all right and due, but it must have been a hard thing tobear, --to be so praised to your very face. . . . Your reply wasadmirable, --simple, modest, quiet, graceful, --in short, I don't see howit could be better. For the rest, I think our cousin Waldo chiselled outthe nicest bit of praise that was done on the occasion. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 24, 1865. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --I was intending to write to you ten days ago, andshould have done so before now, but my mind has been engrossed witha great anxiety and sorrow; my grandson and namesake was taken witha fever, which went to the brain, and he died last Monday evening. Icannot tell you--you could hardly believe what an affliction it has beento me. He was five years old, a lovely boy, and, I think, of singularpromise, --of a fine organization, more than beautiful, and with a mindinquiring into the causes and reasons of things, such as I have rarelyseen. . . . We meant to educate this boy; I hoped that he would bear upmy name. God's will be done!

It was of the coming Convention that I was going to write to you; butnow, just now, I have no heart for it. But I feel great interest in themovement. Would that it were possible to organize the Unitarian Churchof America, --to take this great cause out of the hands of speculativedispute, and to put it on the basis of a working institution. To finda ground of union out of which may spring boundless freedom ofthought, --is it impossible? I should like to see a church which couldembrace and embody all sects. 

[279]To his Daughter Mary. 

SHEFFIELD, April 11, 1865. 

. . . BUT I feel as if it were profane to speak of common things in theseblessed days. Did you observe what the papers say about the manner inwhich they received the Great News yesterday in New York [The surrenderof the Rebel army], --not with any loud ebullition of joy, but ratherwith a kind of religious silence and a gratitude too deep for utterance?And I see that they propose to celebrate, not with fireworks and firingof cannon, but with an illumination, --the silent shining out of joy fromevery house. Last evening the locomotive of the freight train expresseditself in a singular way. Not shutting its whistle when it left thestation, it went singing all down through the valley. For my part, Ifeel a solemn joy, as if I had escaped some great peril, only that it ismultiplied by being that of millions. 

To Rev. Henry W Bellows, D. D. 

SHEFFIELD, April 15, 1865. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --We used to think that life in our country, under oursimple republican regime and peaceful order, was tame and uneventful;given over to quiet comfort and prosaic prosperity; never startled byanything more notable than a railroad disaster or a steamer burnt atsea. Events that were typified by the sun turning to darkness and themoon to blood, and stars falling from heaven, --distress of nations withperplexity of men's hearts, failing them for fear, --all this seemed tobelong to some far-off country and time. 

[280] But it has come to us. God wills that we should know all that anynation has known, of whatever disciplines men to awe and virtue. Thebloody mark upon the lintel, for ten thousands of first-born slain, --theanxiety and agony of the struggle for national existence, --thetax-gatherer taking one fourth part of our livelihood, and a derangedcurrency nearly one half of the remainder, --four years of the mostfrightful war known in history, --and then, at the very moment when ourhearts were tremulous with the joy of victory, and every beating pulsewas growing stiller and calmer in the blessed hope of peace, then theshock of the intelligence that Lincoln and Seward, our great namesborne up on the swelling tide of the nation's gratulation and hope, havefallen, in the same hour, under the stroke of the assassin, --these arethe awful visitations of God!. . . As I slowly awake to the dreadfultruth, the question that presses upon me--that presses upon the nationalheart--is, what is to become of us? If the reins of power were to fallinto competent hands, we could take courage. But when, in any view, wewere about to be cast upon a troubled sea, requiring the most skilfuland trusted pilots, what are we to do without them? Monday morning, 17th. Why should I send you this, --partly founded on mistake, for latertelegrams lead us to hope that Mr. Seward will survive, --and reading, too, more like a sermon than a letter? But my thoughts could run uponnothing else but these terrible things; and, sitting at my desk, I letmy pen run, not merely dash down things on the paper, as would have beenmore natural. But for these all-absorbing horrors, I should have [281]written you somewhat about the Convention. It was certainly a grandsuccess. I regretted only one thing, and that was that the young menwent away grieved and sad. . . . I think, too, that what they asked wasreasonable. That is, if both wings were to fly together, and bear on thebody, no language should have been retained in the Preamble which bothparties could not agree to. But no more now. Love to your wife and A. Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Mrs. David Lane. 

SHEFFIELD, Ally 19, 1865. 

BE it known to you, my objurgatory friend, that I have finished a sermonthis very evening, --a sermon of reasonings, in part, upon this verymatter on which you speak; that is, the difference of opinion in theConvention. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. " Radicalismand Conservatism. The Convention took the ground that both, as theyexist in our body, could work together; it accepted large contributionsin money from both sides, and it is not necessary to decide which sideis right, in order to see that a statement of faith should have beenadopted in which both could agree. I was glad, for my part, to find thatthe conservative party was so strong. I distrust the radical more thanI do the conservative tendencies in our church; still I hope we are toojust, not to say liberal, to hold that mere strength can warrant us indoing any wrong to the weaker party. [282] To be sure, if I thought, asI suppose--and--do, that the radical ground was fatal to Christianity, Ishould oppose it in the strongest way. But the Convention did not assumethat position. On the contrary, it said, "Let us co-operate; let us putour money together, and work together as brethren. " Then we should nothave forced a measure through to the sore hurt and pain of either party. 

As to the main question between them, --how Jesus is to be regarded, whether simply as the loftiest impersonation of wisdom and goodness, oras having a commission and power to save beyond that and different fromit, --one may not be sure. But of this I am sure, that he who takes uponhis heart the living impression of that divinest life and love is savedin the noblest sense. And I do not see but there is as much of thissalvation in those young men as in those who repel and rebuke them. 

There! let that sheet go by itself. Alas! the question with me is notwhich of them is right, but whether I am right, --and that in somethingfar more vital than opinion. It does seem as if one who has lived aslong as I have, ought to have overcome all his spiritual foes; but I donot find it so. I feel sometimes as if I were only struggling harder andharder with all the trying questions, both speculative and spiritual, that press upon our mortal frame and fate. 

To Miss Catherine ill Sedgwick. 

SHEFFIELD, Dec. 31, 1865. 

. . . I AM talking of myself, when I am thinking more of you, and howit is with you in these winter days, the [283] last of the year. I hopethat they do not find you oppressed with weakness or suffering; and ifthey do not, I am sure that your spirit is alert and happy, and that thebright snow-fields and the lovely meteor of beauty that hangs in the airin such a morning as this was, are as charming to you as they ever were. It is-a delight to your friends to know that all things lovely are, if possible, more lovely to you than ever. Are there not bright raysshining through our souls, --streaming from the Infinite Light, --thatmake us feel that they are made to grow brighter and brighter forever?Ah! our confidence in immortality must be this feeling, and never athing to be reasoned out by any logical processes. 

Jan. 1, 1866. I have stepped, you see, from the old year to the new. I wish all the good wishes to you, and take them from you in return assurely as if you uttered them. 

This year is to be momentous to us, if for no other reason, that K. Isto be married. And we are to be no more together much, perhaps, in thisworld. It is an inconceivable wrench in my existence. This marryingis the cruellest thing; and it is a perfect wonder and mystery ofProvidence that parents give in to it as they do. 

To Rev. Henry W Bellows, D. D. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 20, 666. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --I wonder if you can understand how happy I am in mynook, --you who have so much of another sort of happiness, but not this, (no nook for you!) with my winter's task done, "with none to hurt nordestroy, " that is, my time, "in all the holy [284] mountain, " that is, the Taghkonic. Dear old Taghkonic, --quiet, happy valley, --blessed, undisturbed fireside, -what contrast could be greater than New York toall this! "Ahem! not so fast, my friend, " say you; "other places areblessed and happy besides valleys and mountains. " Yes, I know. And Iconfess my late experience inclines me to think that, for the mind'shealth and sharpening, cities are desirable places to be in, for a partof the year, notwithstanding all the notwithstandings. Of course, strongand collected thought works free and clear everywhere, or tends thatway; but it did seem to me that the whirl of the great maelstrom leftbut few people in a condition to think, or to form well-consideredopinions, or to meditate much upon anything. Yes, I know it, --"The mindis its own place, " (nothing was ever better said), and it may be frettedand frittered away to nothing in country quiet, and it may be strong andcalm and full in the city throng. . . . And more and more do I feelthat this nature of mine is the deep ground-warrant for faith in God andimmortality. Everywhere in the creation there is a proportion betweenmeans and ends, --between all natures and their destinies. And can it bethat my soul, which, in its few days' unfolding, is already stretching()LA its hands to God and to eternity, and which has all its being andwelfare wrapped up in those sublime verities, is made to strive and sighfor them in vain, to stretch out its hands to--nothing? This day risesupon us fair and beautiful, --the precursor, [285] I believe, of endlessdays. If not, I would say with Job, "Let it be darkness; let not Godregard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it; for darknessand the shadow of death stain it. " But what a different staining wasupon it this morning! As I looked out upon the mountain just beforesunrise, it showed like a mountain-rose blossoming up out of theearth, --covered all over with the deepest rose-color. . . . 

Ever your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

SHEFFIELD, March 12, 1866. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --I should like to know whether you propose, fromyour own pen, to provide me with all my reading. Look which way Iwill, --towards the "Inquirer, " the "Monthly, " or the "Examiner, "--andH. W. B. Is coming at me with an article, and sometimes with both handsfull. You must write like a horse in full gallop. And yet you don't seemto. Those articles in the "Examiner, " and the letter in the "Inquirer, "seem to be thoroughly well considered; the breadth of view in them, the penetration, the candor and fairness, the sound judgment, please meexceedingly. Only one thing I questioned; and that is, putting theplea for universal suffrage on the ground that it is education for thepeople. One might ask if it were well to put a ship in the hands ofthe crew because it would be a good school for them. And looking atour popular elections, one, may doubt whether they are a good school. I should be inclined to say that if the people could consent that onlyproperty holders who could read [286] and write should vote, it wouldbe better. But they will not consent; we are on the popular tide, andsuffrage must be universal, and the freedmen eventually must and willhave the franchise. 

But with the general strain of your writing I agree entirely. What yousay of the exceptional character of the Southern treason is true, andit has not been so distinctly nor so well said before. I had thought thesame myself, and, of course, you must be right! Yet we must take carelest the concession go too far. Treason must forever be branded as thegreatest of crimes. It aims not to murder a man, but a people. And asto opinion and conscience, I suppose all traitors have an opinion and aconscience. 

I have read this time the whole of the "Examiner, " which I seldom do. It is all very good and satisfactory. Osgood's article on Robertson isexcellent; it appreciates him and his time. One laments that his mindhad so hard a lot; but every real man must, in one way or another, fighta great battle. . . . Especially I feel indebted to Abbot's article. Truly he 'says, that the great question of the coming days is, --theism, or atheism? Not whether Jesus is our Master, the chief among men, but whether the God in whom Jesus believed really exists; and, byconsequence, whether the immortality which lay open to his vision is buta dream of weary and burdened humanity? Herbert Spencer believes in nosuch God and Father, and his religion, which he vaunts so much, is buta hard and cold abstraction. On other subjects he is a great writer; andin his volume of essays there is not one which is not marked with strongand original thought. It is a prodigious intellect, certainly, andstruggling hard with the greatest questions. [287] May it find its wayout to light! Thus far its light is, to my thinking, the profoundestdarkness. With our house's love to your house, Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick. 

SHEFFIELD, March 28, 1866. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --To-day I am seventy-two years old. If I write to anyone to-day, it must be to some one whose friendship is nearly as old asmyself. Looking about me, I find no such one but you. Fifty years I haveknown you. Fifty years ago, and more, I saw you in your father's house;and charming as you were to my sight then, you have never--youth'sloveliness set at defiance--been less so since. Forty years I think Ihave known you well. Thirty years we have been friends; and that wordneeds no epithet nor superlative to make it precious. This morning Icalled my wife to come and sit down by me, saying, "I will read you anold man's Idyl. " And I read that in the March number of the "Atlantic. "I believe Holmes wrote it; but whoever did, it is beautiful, and morethan that it was to us--for it was true. 

The greatest disappointment that I meet in old age is that I am not sogood as I expected to be, nor so wise. I am ashamed to say that I wasnever so dissatisfied with myself as I am now. It seems as if it couldnot be a right state of things. My ideal of old age has been somethingvery different. And yet seventy years is still within the infancy of theimmortal life and progress. Why should it not say with the Apostle, "Notas though [288] I had attained, neither were already perfect. " I can saywith him, in some respects, "I have fought a good fight. " I have foughtthrough early false impressions of religion. I have fought through manylife problems. I have fought, in these later years, through Mansel andHerbert Spencer, as hard a battle as I have ever had. But I have come, through all, to the most rooted conviction of the Infinite Rectitudeand Goodness. Nothing, I think, can ever shake me from this, -that allis well, and shall be forever, whatever becomes of me. . . . Ever yourfriend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Mrs. David Lane. 

SHEFFIELD, July 9, 1866. 

DEAR FRIEND, --I am etonne, as the French have it; at least Moliere andCorneille--whom I have been reading by and large of late, having readall the new things I could get hold of-are continually havingtheir personages etonned. Or, I feel like Dominie Sampson, and say, "Pro-di-gi-ous!" Not as he said it to Meg Merrilies, but rather to MissJulia Mannering, when he was confounded with her vivacity. What! twoletters to my one! I do believe you are going to be literary. 

And then, --was ever seen such an ambitious woman! Reading Mill, andgoing to read Herbert Spencer! And I suppose Kant will come next. But bravo! I say. I am very much pleased with you. And don't say, "Iwish, --but what 's the use!" You are through with the great absorbingmother's cares, and can undertake studies, and I believe there is nostudy so worthy of our attention as our literature. I confess that Ihave come [289] to a somewhat new thought of this matter of late. Whatis there on the earth upon which we stand, --what is there that offers tohelp us, to lift and build us up, that can compare with the productionsof the greatest minds which are gathered up in our literature? Whetherwe would study human nature or the Nature Divine, -whether we would studyreligion, science, nature in the world around us, in the life withinus, --these are the lights that shine upon our path. For those who havetime to read, it seems a deplorable mistake not to turn their thoughtsdistinctly to what the greatest minds have said; that is, upon as manysubjects as they can compass. 

If I were to undertake anything in the way of education, I would set upin New York an Institute of English Literature. I do not know but--mightdo something of the kind, --have a house and receive classes thatshould come once or twice in a week and read in the mean time under herdirection, and teach them by reading to them, by commenting, talking, pointing out and opening up to them the best things in the best authors, the poets, the essayists, the historians, the fiction-writers, and thusmaking them acquainted with the finest productions of the English mind;and, what is better, inspiring them with an enthusiasm and taste forpursuing, for reading such things, instead of sensation novels and suchstuff. 

Moliere and Corneille have struck me much on this reading, --the firstwith the tenuity of his thought, the slender thread on which he weaveshis entertaining and life-like drama, making it to live through the agessimply by sticking to nature, making his personages speak so naturally;and the second, with the real dramatic [290] grandeur of his genius. Ifeel that I have never done justice to Corneille before, I have beenso dissatisfied with the formal rhyme, the want of the natural dramaticplay of language in his work, the stilted rhetoric. And when I heardRachel in the Cid, I thought, by the rapid, undramatic way in which shehurried through his declamations, while, in a few exclamatory bursts, she swept everything before her, that she justified my criticism. Butthis was the misfortune of Corneille; he walked in shackles imposedby the taste of his time. Yet it was a lofty stride. I am particularlystruck with his grand moral ideals. I wish I had a good life of him. Hemust have been a good man. Like Beethoven and Michael Angelo, he doesnot seem to have liked flattery, court, or ceremony. But I guess that isthe case with most men of the higher genius. . . . 

As ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Miss Catherine M. Sea'gwitk. 

SHEFFIELD, Aug. 27, 1866. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --It is some time since I have written to you, and Iam almost afraid you are glad of it, not having to answer. You mustacknowledge, however, that I have always offered you the easiest termsof exchange; two for one, three, four, anything you liked. . . . I havebeen lately with Mr. Bryant, in his great affliction, staying with mysisters, who occupy one of his cottages, but spending all the time Icould with him. It was very sad, --talking upon many things as we did, and much upon those things that were pressing upon his mind, for he feltthat he was losing his chief earthly [291] treasure. His wife wasthat to him, by her simplicity, her simple truthfulness, her perfectsincerity and heart-earnestness, latterly of a very religious character, and by her good judgment also; he told me that he always consulted herupon everything he published, and found that her opinion was alwaysconfirmed by that of the public, that is, as to the relative merit ofhis writings. He was bound to her the more, because his ties of closeaffection with others are so very few. Sometimes he could not represshis tears in our talking; and they told me that in the morning, whenhe went to her bedside, he often sat weeping, saying, "You have beensuffering all night, and I have been sleeping. " In the last days shelonged to depart, and often said to him, "You must let me go; I want togo" And so she went, peacefully to her rest. 

We have had a very pleasant visit from Mr. R. . . . His visits arealways a great pleasure to us, both for the talk we have, and the music. It is really a great thing to know anything as he knows music. As Ilistened to him last evening, I could not help feeling that I knewnothing as he knows that, and thinking that if there are infant schoolsin the next world, I should certainly be put into one of them. 

I hope the weather will allow you to sit often on the piazza in thecoming month. It is what we have not been able to do in the presentmonth at all, --by a fire, rather, in the parlor, half the time. 

. . . With our affectionate remembrances to those around you, hold me tobe, as ever, Yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[292] To his Daughter Mary. 

ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 28, 1866. 

DEAREST MOLLY, --I have the pleasure to be seated at my desk to writeto you, in my new gown and slippers, and with my new sermon, finished, before me. A "combination and a form, " indeed, but I say no more. "Buthow is the sermon?" you 'll say. Why, as inimitable as the writer. Butreally, I think it is worth something. I did think, indeed, when I tookmy pen, that I could write a stronger argument for immortality than Iever saw, that is, in any one sermon or thesis. And if I have failedentirely, and shall come to think so, as is very likely, it will beno worse, doubtless, than my presumption deserved. You and K. , whoare satisfied with your spiritual instincts, would think it no better, probably, than a belt of sand to bolster up a mountain. Well, every onemust help himself as he can. This meditation certainly has strengthenedmy own faith in the immortal life. 

I should like to go to church with you this morning, where you areprobably going; but the places are very few where I should want togo. More and more do all public services dissatisfy me, --all devoututterances, my own included. Communion with the Highest, with the Unseenand Unspeakable, seems to me to consist of breathings, not words, andrequires a freedom of all thoughts and feelings, --of awe and wonder, ofadoration and thanksgiving, of meditations and of stirrings of the deepswithin us, such as can with difficulty be brought into a regular prayer. 

[293] To the Same. 

Nov. 21, 1866. 

THE last "Register" has a sermon in it of Abbot's upon the SyracuseConference, which I thought so excellent, that I told the editor it wasitself worth a quarter's payment. Your mother admires it, too. Thoughshe has no sympathy, as you well know, with Abbot's Left-Wing views, herrighteous nature warmly takes part with his argument. The fact is, theConference is wrong. If it expects the young men to act with it, it should adopt a platform on which they can conscientiously andcomfortably stand. The conduct of the majority, in my opinion, isinconsistent and ungenerous. Either take ground upon which allcan stand, --and I think there is such ground, --or else say to theultra-liberals, "We cannot consent that any part of our common meansshall be used for the spread of your views, influence, and preaching, and we must part. "

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, March 20, 1867. 

COME up here, my anxious friend, and I'll read my Concio to you; for itis written, as I preferred to do, before the warm and cold, wet and drymeslin of April weather comes, which always breaks me up in my studies. I will read it to you, and I rather think you will like it. . . . But donot make yourself uneasy. There will be nothing in the address of whatyou call "a defection to the radical side, " simply because, in opinion, I cannot take that ground. I do not and cannot give up the miraculouselement in Christianity. But I [294] embrace our whole denomination inmy sympathies and do not think our differences so important as you do. That religion has its roots in our nature, if that is radicalism, Istrongly hold and always have. And in its development and culture I havenever given that exclusive place to Christianity that many do. I confessthat I always disliked and resisted the utterances of the extremeconservatives on this point, more than those of their opponents. So yousee that M. Was mainly right. And certainly I think the minority in theConference has had hard measure from the majority; and I liked Abbot'ssermon as much as you heard I did. 

Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Mrs. David Lane. 

ST. DAVID'S, April 14, 1867. 

DEAR FRIEND, --Why should I write to you about the things you speak ofin your letter which crossed mine? How vain to attempt to discuss suchmatters on note-paper!

But, without discussing, I will tell you, in few words, what I think. 

The vitality of the Christian religion lies deeper than the miraculouselement in it. The miraculous is but an attestation to that. That isauthority to me. The authority of God is more clearly and unquestionablyrevealed to me, than in anything else, in the inborn spiritualconvictions of my nature, without which, indeed, I could not understandChristianity, nor anything else religious. These convictions accord withthe deepest truths of Christianity, else I could not receive it. Jesushas strengthened, elevated, and purified these natural [295] convictionsin such a way, --by such teachings, by such a life, by such anunparalleled beauty of character, -that I believe God has breathed agrace into his soul that he never-has [given] in the same measure andperfection to any other. Effects must have causes, and such an effectseems to me fairly to indicate such a cause. 

But there are those who cannot take this view; who look upon the gospelas simply the best exposition of national religion ever given, withoutany other breath of inspiration upon the record than such as wasbreathed upon the pages of Plato or Epictetus. Now, if they wentfurther, and disowned the very spirit of Jesus, rejected the veryessence of the gospel, certainly they would not be Christians. But thisthey do not; on the contrary, they reverently and heartily accept it, and seek to frame their lives upon this model. Am I to hold such personsas outcasts from the Christian fold, to refuse them my sympathy, toaccord them only my "pity "? Certainly, I can take no such ground. 

The peculiarities of certain individuals--the "cold abstractions" ofone, and the rash utterances of another--have nothing essentially todo with the case; nor has the hurt they may be thought to do to ourUnitarian cause anything to do with the essential truth of things. Nordo I know that extreme Radicalism does us any more harm than extremeConservatism. I belong to neither extreme; and my business is, withoutregard to public cause or private reputation, to keep, as far as I can, my own mind right. 

The fact is, you are so conservative on every subject, --society, politics, medicine, religion, --that it is very difficult for you to dojustice to the radical side. But consider that such men as Martineau, Bartol, Stebbins, [296] Ames, and Abbot are mainly on that side, andthat it will not do to cast about scornful or pitying words concerningsuch. As to __ I give him up to you, for I don't like his writing anybetter than you do. 

I think the great Exposition which you are soon to see may give you aliberalizing hint. There, the industry of all nations will be exhibited. All are bent, honestly and earnestly, upon one point, --the developmentof the human energies in that direction. And it will infer nothingagainst their good character, or their titles to sympathy and respect, that they differ more or less with regard to the modes and means ofarriving at the end. 

Well, you will go before I come to New York. God bless and keep you, andbring you safely back!

Ever your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

There are some passages in an unpublished sermon, preached by my fatherat Church Green, in 1858, which I will quote presently, as illustrativeof the same tone of thought shown in these letters. His clinging tothe miraculous element in the life of Jesus, while refusing to base anypositive authority upon it, is equally characteristic of him, arisingfrom the caution, at once reverent and intellectual, which made himextremely slow to remove any belief, consecrated by time and affection, till it was proved false and dangerous, and from his thorough convictionthat every man stands or falls by so much of the Infinite Light and Loveas he is able to receive directly into his being. He was conservativeby [297] feeling, and radical by thought, and the two wrought in hima grand charity of judgment, far above what is ordinarily calledtoleration. 

These are the extracts referred to:

"Society as truly as nature, nay, as truly as the holy church, is agrand organism for human culture. I say emphatically, --as truly as theholy church; for we are prone to take a narrow view of man's spiritualgrowth, and to imagine that there is nothing to help it, out of the paleof Christianity. We make a sectarism of our Christian system, even asthe Jews did of the Hebrew, though ours was designed to break down allsuch narrow bounds; so that I should not wonder if some one said tome, --Are you preaching the Christian religion when you thus speak ofnature and society?' And I answer, 'No; I am speaking of a religionelder than the Christian. ' . . . 

"There was a righteousness, then, before and beside the Christian. Am Ito be told that Socrates and Plato, and Marcus Antoninus and Boethius, had no right culture, no religion, no rectitude? and they were cast uponthe bosom of nature and of society for their instruction, and of thatlight which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. '"

To his Daughter Mary. 

ST. DAVID'S, Sept. 20, 1867. 

. . . THINK of my having read the whole of Voltaire's "Henriade" lastweek! But think especially of eminent French critics, and Marmontelamong them (in the preface), praising it to the stars, saying that someof the [298] passages are superior to Homer and Virgil! However, it isreally better than I expected, and I read on, partly from curiosity andpartly for the history. The French would have been very glad to findit an epic worthy of the name, for they have n't one. Voltaire franklyconfesses that the French have not a genius for great poetry, --too muchin love, he says, with exactness and elegance. 

I have--read--through--"Very Hard Cash;" and very hard it is to read. Reade has some pretty remarkable powers, --powers of description and ofcharacterization; but the moment he touches the social relations, andshould be dramatic, he is struck with total incapacity. Indeed, what onenovelist has been perfect in dialogue, making each person say just whathe should and nothing else, but glorious Sir Walter?

To the Same. 

SHEFFIELD, Sept. 20, 1867. 

DEAR MARY, --"Live and learn. " Next time, if it ever come, I shall putup peaches in a little box by themselves. But the fact is, peaches can'ttravel, unless they are plucked so early as nearly to spoil them of alltheir "deliciarunz, "--which we are enjoying in those we eat here. AndBryant with us, --fruity fellow that he is!--I am glad we have some goodfruit to give him. Yesterday we had a very good cantelope, and pears areon hand all the while. I am sorry that I could not get the pears to youjust in eating condition, and the Hurlbut apples too; but they'll allcome right. 

Yes, fruity, --that 's what Bryant is; but rather of the quality of driedfruits, --not juicy, still less gushing, but [299] with a good deal ofconcentrated essence in him (rather "frosty, but kindly "), exudingoften in little bits of poetical quotations, fitly brought in fromeverywhere, and of which there seems to be no end in his memory. 

The woods are beginning to show lovely bits of color, but the greatburden of leaves remains untouched. Bryant and I walked out to the PineGrove, and on to Sugar-Maple Hill. Your mother admires him for his muchwalking; but I insist that he is possessed and driven about by a demon.. . . By the bye, just keep that "article" for me; I have no othercopy. Bryant commended it, and said he thought the argument against theIncomprehensible's being totally unintelligible, was new. 

To his Daughter, Mrs. C. 

ST. DAVID'S, July 22, 1868. 

DEAR KATE, --I am going to have no more to do with the weather. You needn't expostulate with me. It 's no use talking. My mind is made up. You may tell M. So. It will be hardest for her to believe it. She haspartaken with me in that infirmity of noble minds, --a desire to lookthrough the haze of this mundane atmospheric environment, and predictthe future. But, alas I there is an infirmity of vision; we see througha glass darkly. We can't see through a millstone. The firmament hasbeen very like that, for some days, --all compact with clouds. We thoughtsomething was grinding for us. "Now it is coming!" we said last evening. But no. It was no go, --or no come, rather. And this morning, at thebreakfast table, sitting up [300] there, clothed, and in my right mind, I said to my sister, "I am not a-going to predict about the weather anymore!"

Ask my dear M. , pray her, to try to come up to the height of that greatresolution. I know the difficulty, -the strain to which it will put allher faculties; but ask her, implore her, to try. 

To his Daughters, then living in London Terrace, New York. 

 1868. 

Sr. DAVID'S sends a challenge to all the Terrace birds. 

Show us a bird that sings in the night. We have a nightingale, --a birdthat has sung, for two evenings past, between ten and twelve, as gaylyas the nightingales of Champel. It is the cat-bird, the same thatcomes flying and pecking at our windows. What has come over the littlecreature? I suppose the season of nest-building and incubation is oneof great excitement, --the bird's honeymoon. And then, the full moonshining down, and the nights warm as summer, and thoughts of the nicenew house and the pretty eggs, and the chicks that are coming, --it couldnot contain itself. 

Well, as I sit in my porch and look at the birds, they seem to me arevelation, as beautiful, if not so profound, as the Apocalypse. Whatbut Goodness could have made a creature at once so beautiful and sohappy? Mansel and Spencer may talk about the incomprehensibility ofthe First Cause; I say, here is manifestation. The little TurdusFelivox, --oho! ye ignorant children, that is he of the cat, --it sitson the bough, ten feet from me, and sings and trills and whistles, andsends [301] out little jets of music, little voluntaries, as if it werefreely and irrepressibly singing a lovely hymn. 

This morning there is the slightest little drizzle, a mere tentativeexperimenting towards rain, no more, -I keep to facts. Well, all thetownship is saying, no doubt, "Now it is coming!" Catch me a-doing so! Iwas left to say, in an unguarded moment, "If C. Had mowed his meadowtwo or three days ago, he would have got it all in dry. " I feel a littleguilty. I am afraid that incautious observation was the nuance of theshadow of an intimation of an opinion, bearing the faintest adumbrationof a prediction: I am sorry for it. I am very sorry. I ought to havekept my lips shut. I ought to have put sealing-wax upon them the momentI got up. I won't, --I won't speak one word again. 

Yours, wet or dry, O. D

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

ST. DAVID'S, July 27, 1868. 

FRIEND BRYANT, --I am a Quaker. I have just joined the sect. Thee won'tbelieve it, because thee will think I lack the calmness and staidnessthat fit me for it. But I am a Quaker of the Isaac T. Hopper sort;though, alas! here the resemblance fails also, for I do no good. Dearme! I wish sometimes that I could have been one of the one-sided men;it is so easy to run in one groove! and it 's all the fashion in thesedays. But, avaunt expediency! Let me stick to my principles, and be arounded mediocrity, pelted on every hand, and pleasing [302] nobody. Bythe bye, Mrs. Gibbons [Mrs. James Gibbons of New York, daughter ofIsaac T. Hopper] I has just sent me a fine medallion of her, father, beautifully mounted. It is a remarkable face, for its massive strengthand the fun that is lurking in it. Hopper might have been a great man inany other walk, --the statesman's, the lawyer's; he was, in his own. 

. . . I want to say something, through the "Post, " of the abominablenuisance of the railroad whistle. I wrote once while you were gone, andNordhoff (how do you spell him?) did n't publish my letter, but onlyintroduced some of it in a paragraph of his own. If I write again, Ishall want your imprimatur. This horrible shriek, which tears all ournerves to pieces, and the nerves of all the land, except Cummington andsuch lovely retirements, is altogether unnecessary; a lower tone wouldanswer just as well. It does on the Hudson River Road. 

To his Daughters. 

ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 15, 1868. 

. . . YOUR letter came yesterday, and was very satisfactory in theupshot; that is, you got there. But, pest on railroad cars I they aremere torture-chambers, with the additional chance, as Johnson said ofthe ship, of being land-wrecked. Some people like 'em, though. And thereare dangers everywhere. The other day-a high windy day--a party went tothe mountain, and had like to have been blown off from the top. Butthey said it was beautiful. I don't doubt, if the whole bunch had beentumbled over and rolled down to the bottom, they would all have jumpedup, exclaiming, "Beautiful! [303] beautiful!" People so like to have itthought they have had a good time. One day they went up and all got aswet as mountain--no, as marsh--rats; and that was the most "lovely time"they have had this summer. 

Girls, I have a toothache to-day! It 's easier now, or I should not bewriting. But pain, what a thing it is! The king of all misery, I think, is pain. It is a part of you, and does n't lie outside; a thing to bemet and mastered with healthy faculties. You can't fight with it, as youcan with poverty, bankruptcy, mosquitoes, a smoky chimney, and the like. I can't be thankful enough that I have had, through my life, so littlepain. What I shall do with it, if it comes, I don't know. Perhaps I needit for what Heine speaks of; that is, to make me "a man. " I am afraid Iam a chicken-hearted fellow. But I cannot help thinking that differentconstitutions take that visitation very differently. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 18, 1869. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --. . . It is the audible, the uttered prayer, to which Ifeel myself unequal. The awfulness of prayer to me inclines me more andmore to make it silent, speechless. It is so overwhelming, that I amlosing all fluency, all free utterance. What it is fit for a creatureto say to the Infinite One--to that uncomprehended Infinitude ofBeing--makes me hesitate. My mind addressing a fellow mind is easy; andyet addressing the highest mind in the world would cause me anxiety. I should feel that my thoughts were too poor to express to him. But mymind addressing itself, its [304] thought and feeling, to the Infinite, Infinite Mind, --I faint beneath it. It is higher than heaven; what canI do? I am often moved to say with Abraham, "Lo! now I, who am but dust, have taken upon me to speak unto God. Oh! let not the Lord be angry, andI will speak. " And indeed, so much praying, -this imploring the love andcare of the Infinite Providence and Love, of which the universe is theboundless and perpetual evolution, --can that be right and fit? I oftenrecall what Mrs. Dwight, of Stockbridge, said of the public devotionsof old Dr. West, --one of the most saintly beings I ever knew, --that shehad observed that they consisted less and less of prayers, and more andmore of thanksgivings. 

Last evening my wife read to us your article on the Mission of America. It is a grand, full stream of thought, and original, too, and ought tohave a wider flow than through the pages of the "Examiner. " It ought tobe read not by two thousand, but by two million persons. I wish therewere a popular organ, like the "Ledger" (in circulation), for thediffusion of the best thoughts, where the best minds among us couldspeak of the country to the country, for never was there a people thatmore needed to be wisely spoken to. And you are especially fitted tospeak to it. Your conservative position in our Unitarian body, howeverit may fare among us, would help you with the people. 

As to your position, I don't know but I am as conservative as you are. That is, I don't know but I believe in the miracles as much as you do. The difference between us is, that I do not feel the miraculous to be soessential a part of Christianity. Yet I see and feel the force of whatyou say about it. And the argument is [305] put in that article of yourswith great weight and power. For myself, I cannot help feeling that atlength the authority of Jesus will be established on clearer, higher, more indisputable and impregnable grounds than any historic, miraculousfacts. 

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 26, 1869. 

. . . I AM thankful, every day of my life, that I have my own roof overme, and can keep it from crumbling to the ground. Do not be proud, Sir, when you read this, nor look down from your lordliness, --of owning adozen houses, and three of them your own to live in, --down, I say, uponmy humble gratitude. Can it be, by the bye, that Cicero had fourteenvillas? I am sure Middleton says so. I should think they must have beenfourteen of what Buckminster, in a sermon, called "bundles of cares andheaps of vexations. "

. . . I read a letter of Cicero's to his friend Valerius, this morning, in which he urges him to come and see him, saying that he wants to havea pleasant time with him, --tecum jocari, -and says, "When you come thisway, don't go down to your Apulia, "--to wit, Cummington. Nam si illoveneris, tanquam Ulysses, cognosces tuorum neminem. Now don't quoteHomer to me when you answer, for I am nearly overwhelmed with my ownlearning. 

I wish you could have seen the world here for the last three weeks. Never was such a splendid winter season. I think it 's something greatand inspiring to see the whole broad, bright, white, crystal world, andthe whole [306] horizon round, instead of looking upon brick houses. Butyou will say, the human horizon widens in cities. Yes; but if there aresix bright points in it you are fortunate, while here, the whole horizonround is sapphire and purple and gold. 

Well, peace be with you wherever you are, and with your house. My wifeand Mary send love to you all, as I do, [who] am, as ever. 

Yours faithfully, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To his Daughters. 

ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 23, 1869. 

. . . WE are going on very nicely, neither sick nor sad. Our winterevening readings have been very fortunate this season. First, "LordJeffrey's Life and Letters, " and now, "Draper's Intellectual Developmentin Europe. " I had read it before, but it is a greater book than I hadthought. I must say that I had rather pass my evenings as we do, --somewriting, some reading, then a quiet game, and then at my deskagain, --than to take the chances of society, in town or country. If Ican get you to think as I do, we shall pass a happy life here. Heavengrant that I may not fall into a life of pain! With our good spirits, asthey now are, we every day fall into a quantity of dramatic capers thatare enough to make a cat laugh, --no bigger animal. 

Hoping you may have as much folly, for what saith Paley? "He that is nota fool sometimes, is always one, "--and wishing you all merry, I am asever, Your loving father, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[307] Nothing can be imagined more peaceful than the retirement ofSheffield. Removed from the main lines of traffic and travel, even nowthat a railroad passes through it, the village remains, as it has beenfor a hundred and fifty years, the quiet centre of the quiet farmsspread for four or five miles about it. The Housatonic wanders at itsown sweet and lazy will among the meadows, turning and returning uponitself till it has loitered twenty miles in crossing the eight-miletownship, but never turning a mill or offering encouragement to anyindustry but that of the muskrats who burrow in its banks, or thekingfishers who break its glassy surface in pursuit of their prey. Nobusy factories are there; no rattle of machinery or feverish activityof commerce disturbs the general placidity; and the still valley liesbetween its enclosing hills as if it were, indeed, that happy Abyssinianvale my father fancied it in his childhood. 

The people share the calm of the landscape. Like many New England townswhere neither water-power nor large capital offers opportunity formanufactures, and where farming brings but slow returns, the villagehas been gradually drained of the greater part of its active andenterprising younger population, and is chiefly occupied by retired andquiet persons who maintain a very gentle stir of social life, save fora month or two in summer, when the streets brighten with the influx ofguests from abroad. 

[308] It must have been very different seventy years ago. Instead ofthree slenderly attended churches, divided by infinitesimal differencesof creed, and larger variations of government and discipline, all thepeople then were accustomed to meet in one well-filled church; and theminister, a life resident, swayed church and congregation with largeand unquestioned rule. There were several doctors with their trains ofstudents, and lawyers of county celebrity, each with young men studyingunder his direction; and all these made the nucleus of a society thatwas both gay and thoughtful, and that received a strong impulse toself-development from the isolated condition of a small village in thosedays. Railroads and telegraphs have changed all this, and scarcely ahamlet is now so lonely as not to feel the great tides of the world'slife sweep daily through it, bringing polish and general informationwith them, but washing away much of the racy individuality andconcentrated mental action which formerly made the pith of its being. Sheffield has gained in external beauty and refinement year by year, but, judging from tradition, has lost in intellectual force. There ismore light reading and less hard reading, much more acquaintance withnewspapers and magazines, and less knowledge of great poets, than in myfather's youth; but his love for his birthplace remained unchanged, and his eyes and his heart drank repose from its peaceful and familiarbeauty. 

[309] To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 6, 1869. 

DEAR BRYANT, THE BOUNTIFUL, --You are something like grapes yourself. By the bye, it 's no matter what you call me; "my dear Doctor" is wellenough, if you can't do better; only "my dear Sir" I do hate, betweengood old friends such as we are, as much as Walter Scott did. But, as Iwas saying, you are like grapes yourself, --fair, round, self-contained, hanging gracefully upon the life-vine, still full of sap; shining underthe covert of leaves, but more clearly seen, now that the frosts of ageare descending, and causing them to fall away; while I am morelike--but I have so poor an opinion of myself, that I won't tell youwhat. This is no affected self-depreciation. I can't learn to be old, but am as full of passion, impatience, foolishness, blind reachingsafter wisdom, as ever. Instance: I am angry with the expressman becausehe did not bring the grapes to-day; angry with the telegraph because itdid not bring a despatch to tell how a sick boy was, under ninehours. . . . 

Here I am, Thursday morning, on a second sheet, waiting for the grapes. What else, in the mean time, shall I entertain you with? The flood! Ithas been prodigious, the highest known for many years; water, water allaround, from beside the road here to the opposite hill. It is curious tosee men running like rats from the deluge, up to their knees in water, on returning from a common walk (fact, happened to the S--s), trying todrive home one way and could n't, --going round to a bridge and findingthat swept away, --dams torn down and mills toppled over, and half the"sure and firm-set earth" turned into water-courses andflood-trash. . . . 

[310] The afternoon train has arrived, and no grapes. Very angry. 

The faithless express, you see, is a great plague to you as well as me;for not only does it not bring me the grapes, but is the cause of yourhaving this long dawdling letter. Why don't you show up its iniquities?What is a "Post" made and set up for, if not, among other things, tobear affiches testifying to the people of their wickedness? The expressis the most slovenly agent and the most irresponsible tyrant in thecountry. What it brings is perhaps ruined by delay, --plants, forinstance. No help. "Pay, " it says to the station-master, "or we don'tleave it. " Oh, if I had the gift and grace to send articles to the"Post, " from time to time, upon abuses!

Friday. No grapes. More angry. 

Saturday. No grapes. I 'm furious. 

This last was the record of the afternoon; but in the evening, athalf-past nine, they were sent down from the station, --and in remarkablygood order, considering, and in quantity quite astonishing. The basketseemed like the conjurer's hat, out of which comes a half-bushel offlowers, oranges; and what not. We are all very much obliged to you;and, judging from the appearance of the six heaped-up plates, I am sure, when we come to eat them, that every tooth will testify, if it does notspeak. 

To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 28, 1870. 

MY DEAR BRYANT, --The volume has not come, but the kindness has, and Iwill acknowledge the one without [311] waiting for the other; especiallyas it is not a case where one feels it expedient to give thanks fora book before he has read it. We all know the quality of this, frompassages of the work printed in advance. It will be the translation intoEnglish of the Iliad, I think, though not professing to be learned intranslations of Homer, still less in the original. 

I read your preface in the "Post. " Nothing could be better, unless itis your speech at the Williams dinner, which was better, and better thanany occasional speech you have given, me judice. 

Great changes are projected in Sheffield, --you will have to come and seethem and us, --a widening of the village on the east, towards the meadowand pine knoll, and--what do you think?--a railroad to the top ofTaghkonic! 'T is even so-proposed. An eastern company has bought theEgremont Hotel, and the land along the foot of the mountain down asfar as Spurr's ( a mile), and they talk seriously of a railroad. So theTaghkonic is to be made a watering-place, if the thing is feasible, inquite another sense than that in which it has long sent its streams andcast its lonely shadows upon our valley. 

We are having winter at last, and our ice-houses filled with the best ofice, and the prospect is fair for the wood-piles. The books you sent areturning to great account with us. In that and in every way I am obligedto you; and am, as ever, Yours truly, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[312] To Mrs. David Lane. 

ST. DAVID'S, Dec. 20, 1870. 

DEAR FRIEND, --I think I must take you into council, --not to sit upon thecase, nor to get up a procession, nor to have the bells rung, if wewin; but just to sympathize, so far as mid-life vigor can, with an agedcouple, who have lived together half a century, and would much ratherlive it over again than not to have lived it at all; who have lived inthat wonderful connection, which binds and blends two wills into one;who do not say that no differences or difficulties have disturbed them, an attainment beyond human reach, --but who have grown in the esteem andlove of each other to this day (at least one of them has); one of whomfinds his mate more beautiful than when he married her, though theother's condition, in that respect, does n't admit of more or less, being a condition of obstinate mediocrity; and who, both of them, lookwith mingled wonder and gratitude to their approaching Golden WeddingDay. 

So you can look upon us with pleasure, on the day after Christmas, andthink of us as surrounded by all our children and grandchildren. And that is all we shall make, except in our thoughts, of our greatanniversary. 

Adieu. I shall not descend in this letter to meaner themes, but with ourlove to you all, am ever, Your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

From a Note-Book. 

April 13, 1871. 

FATHER TAYLOR, of Boston, has just died, -a very remarkable person. Hewas a sailor, and more than [313] forty years ago he came from beforethe mast into the pulpit. He brought with him, I suppose, something ofthe roughness of his calling; for I remember hearing of his preachingin the neighborhood of New Bedford when I first went there, and of hisinveighing against paid preachers as wretched hirelings, "rocked uponfive feather-beds to hell. " This, I was told, was meant for me, as I hadjust been settled upon the highest salary ever paid in those parts. In after years I became acquainted with him, and a very pleasant andcordial acquaintance it was. His preaching improved in every way as hewent on; the pulpit proved the best of rhetorical schools for him, and he became one of the most powerful and impressive preachers in thecountry. He was one of nature's orators, and one of the rarest. It wassaid of him that he showed what Demosthenes meant by "action. " Thewhole man, body and soul, was not only in action, but was an actionconcentrated into speech. His strongly built frame, --every limb, muscle, and fibre, --his whole being, spoke. 

Waldo Emerson took me to his chapel the first time I ever heard himpreach. As we went along, speaking of his pathos, he said, "You 'll haveto guard yourself to keep from crying. " So warned, I thought myself safeenough. But I was taken down at the very beginning of the service. Theprayers of the congregation were asked by the family of a young man, --asailor, who had been destroyed by a shark on the coast of Africa. In'the prayer, the scene was touchingly depicted, --how the poor youth wentdown to bathe in the summer sea, thoughtless, unconscious of any danger, when he was seized by the terrible monster that lay in wait for him. And then the preacher prayed that none of us, going [314]down into thesummer sea of pleasure, might sink into the jaws of destruction thatwere opened beneath. I think the prayer left no dry eyes. 

Father Taylor was a man of large, warm-hearted liberality. He was aMethodist; but no sect could hold him. He often came to our Unitarianmeetings and spoke in them. In addressing one of our autumnalconventions in New York, I recollect his congratulating us on ourfreedom from all trammels of prescription, creed, and church order, andexhorting us to a corresponding wide and generous activity in the causeof religion. He was always ready with an illustration, and for hispurpose used this: "We have just had a visit in Boston, " he said, "froman Indian chief and some of his people. They were invited to the houseof Mr. Abbot Lawrence. As Mr. Lawrence received them in his splendidparlor, the chief, looking around upon it, said, It is very good; itis beautiful; but I--I walk large; I go through the woods andhunting-grounds one day, and I rise up in the morning and go throughthem the next, --I walk large. "Brethren, " said the speaker, "walklarge. "

Taylor's great heart was not chilled by bigotry; neither was it bytheology, nor by philosophy. His prayer was the breathing of a child'sheart to an infinitely loving father; it was strangely free andconfiding. I remember being in one of the early morning prayer-meetingsof an anniversary week in Boston, and Taylor was there. As I rose tooffer a prayer, I spoke a few words upon the kind of approach which wemight make to the Infinite Being. Something like this I said, --that aswe were taught to believe that we were made in the image of God, and were his children, emanations from the Infinite Perfection, [315]partakers of the divine nature; as the Infinite One had sent fortha portion of His own nature to dwell in these forms of frail mortalityand imperfection, and no darkness, no sorrow, nor erring of ours couldreach to Him; might we not think, --God knows, I said, that I would beguilty of no irreverence or presumption, -but might we not think thatwith infinite consideration and pity he looks down upon us strugglingwith our load; upon our weakness and trouble, upon our penitence andaspiration?

As the congregation was retiring, and I was passing in the aisle, I sawFather Taylor sitting by the pulpit, and he beckoned me aside. "BrotherDewey, " he said, in his emphatic way, "did you ever know any one to saywhat you have been saying this morning?"-"Why, " I replied, "does notevery one say it?"--"No, " he answered; "I have talked with a thousandministers, and no one of them ever said that. "

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

ST. DAVID'S, Sept. 12, 1871. 

DEAR AND VENERABLE, --For it seems you grow old, and count thediminishing days, as a bankrupt his parting ducats. I never heard yousay anything of the sort before, and have only thought of you as growingricher in every way. I don't in any way; but though well, considering, Ifind myself losing strength and good condition every year. That is whyI move about less and less, sticking closer to my own bed and board, furnace and chimney-nook, --shelf for shoes, and pegs for coat andtrousers. [316] I am very glad to hear from you, and that you will comeand see us on your way home. Don't slip by us. Don't be miserly abouttime. Odysseus took a long time for his wanderings; take a hint from thesame, not to be in a hurry. 

To Mrs. David Lane. 

ST. DAVID'S, Nov. 25, 1871. 

DEAR me! and dear you, yet more. If I should write to you "often, " whatwould be the condition of us both? I very empty, and you with a greatclatter in your ears. Think of a hopper, with very little grain in it, to keep shaking! It would be a very impolitic hopper. 

I am laughing at myself, while I write this, for I am not an emptyhopper, and if I could "find it in my heart to bestow all my tediousnessupon you, " you would laugh at me too. Ay, but in what sense would youlaugh? That is the question. I laugh at myself, proudly, for callingmyself empty; and you, perhaps, would laugh at me piteously, on findingme so. 

But a truce with this nonsense. Anybody will find enough to write whowill write out what is within him. Did you ever read much of Germanletters, --those, for instance, of Perthes and his friends? They are fullof religion, as our American letters, I think, are not. We seem tohave been educated, especially we Unitarians, to great reserve on thissubject. I remember Channing's preaching against so much reserve. It ispartly, I believe, a reaction against profession. But there is anotherreason; and that is, in religion's having become, under a more rationalculture, so a part of our whole life and thought [317] and being, thatformally to express our feelings upon it seems to us unnecessary, andin bad taste, as if we were to say how much we love knowledge orliterature, or how much we love our friends or our children. Much talkof this sort seems to bring a doubt, by implication, upon the very thingtalked about. Channing talked perpetually about religion, --that is, everything ran into that, --but never about his own religious feelings. 

Do get the life of Perthes, if you have never read it. That and "Palissythe Potter" are among the most interesting biographies I know. 

It is grim November weather up here, and I like it. Everything in itsplace; and we are having considerable rain, which is more in place, as winter is approaching, than anything else could be. Wife and I arebunged up with colds. No, I am; that ugly epithet can't attach to thegrace and delicacy of her conditions and proportions. But alas! I amlosing my old and boasted security against colds. I but went out oneevening, to give a lecture at the Friendly Union [The Sheffield FriendlyUnion is the name of an association for purposes of social entertainmentand culture, which meets one evening in the week, during winter, ata hall in the village, to enjoy music, lectures, reading, dramas, or whatever diversion its managers can procure or its members offer. Dancing and cards are forbidden, but other games are played in thelatter part of the evening; and there is a small but good library, slowly enlarging, and much used and valued by the members. Thesubscription fee is small, and the meetings are seldom of less thanone hundred or two hundred people, many coming three or four miles. Thesociety was started in 1871, and Dr. Dewey took a great interest init from the first. It was he who chose its name; and while his healthlasted, he was a frequent attendant, and always lectured or read a playof Shakespeare before it two or three times every winter. ] and this isthe way I [318]pay for it. If there is any barrel in town bigger than myhead, I should like to buy it, and get in. 

I was sorry not to see Coquerel, and pleased to hear that he had thegrace to be disappointed at not seeing me. But I don't seek peopleany more. Why, I don't think I should run in the mud to see Alexis Ihimself. And to a New York lady I suppose that is about the strongestthing I could say. 

All send their love to you and yours. 

Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, March 7, 1872. 

DEAR FRIEND--OF ALL MANKIND, --I see you have let them make you Presidentof the Bellevue Local Visiting Association. Was there nobody elsethat could take that charge? Was it not enough for you to have theForty-ninth Street Hospital to look after? But M. Says, "Let her; lether work. " And she talks about "living while you live, " and comes at mewith such saws. Saws they may well be called, for they sever prudencefrom virtue, instead of making them a rounded whole. The fact is, nobodyhas any sense--I mean the perfect article--but me. For I say, what if"living while you live" comes to not living at all? Is that what youcall working? And why not let other people work? Is Mrs. Lane to be madethe queen bee of New York philanthropy, and to become such an enormousconglomeration of goodness [319] that she can't get out of her hospitalhive to visit her friends, nor let them visit her, with any chance ofseeing her? And is nobody worth caring for unless he has been knockeddown in the street, and has got a broken leg or a fever?

I am quite serious, though you may not think so. I do not like yourtaking another hospital, or the visitation of it, in charge. It mustdevolve an immense deal of care and thinking upon somebody. There 'sreason in all things, or ought to be. Your brains and eyes ought to bespared from overwork. We shall hear of you as blind or paralytic next. 

Tell your mother that we have to "stand to our colors" for the climateof New England nowadays, else they would be all blown away. It 's awfulweather in New York too, I hope. I don't go out much. Really, if thisMarch were not-a march to spring, it would be a hard campaign. With loveto all your house, I am, as affectionately and warmly as the weatherwill permit, Yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 21, 1873. 

DEAR FRIEND, --I need not say we shall be rejoiced to see you. Don't beproud, but it is "real good" of you. If "a saint in crape is twicea saint in lawn, " a friend in winter is twice a friend of any otherseason. "If I shall be away?" Only by being beside myself could I beaway in winter. "Or have other guests. " No, indeed, they don't fly likedoves to our winter [320]windows. But the white snowflakes do, and itwill do your eyes good to see the driven and drifted snow. We have had avery quiet winter, and few drifts, but to-night, I see, is blowing themup. I should not wonder if they blocked the road and kept my letter backa day or two. 

To the Same. 

March 5, 1873. 

. . . WE thought you might be stopped somewhere, and not to go at allwould be the worst "go" that could be. All Sunday we kept speaking aboutit, with a sort of feeling as if we were guilty of something; so thatI felt it necessary to calm the family distress by setting up a new andoriginal view of the whole matter, to this effect: "Well, if he has beenstopped over Sunday at the State Line, or Chatham Four Corners, itmay be the most profitable Sunday he ever passed. What a time for calmmeditation and patience!--better things than preaching. You know helives in a throng; this will be a blessed 'retreat, ' as the Catholicscall it. He is stomach-full of prosperity; perhaps he needed analterative. Introspection is a rare thing in our modern outward-boundlife. He is accustomed to preach to great admiring audiences; to-day hewill preach to his humble, non-admiring self. "

Well, I am glad, --so ready, alas! are we to escape from discipline, --butI am glad that you got through, though by running a gauntlet that weshivered to read of. But you did get through, and got home, havingaccomplished what you went for. Any way, you did us so much good that itpaid, on the great scale of disinterested [321] benevolence, for a greatdeal of trouble on your part. 

"Shall we be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease?"

 With our love to the entire quaternity of you, Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

On his eightieth birthday my father was surprised and touched by thegift acknowledged in the next letter to the old friend through whosehands it was conveyed to him. It will be seen, that in the privateletter accompanying this response, he was under the mistaken impressionthat Mr. Bryant was writing a history of the United States, while, infact, he was merely editing one written by Mr. Gay. 

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

SHEFFIELD, March 30, 1874. 

MY DEAR SIR AND FRIEND, --Your letter, which came to me to-day, crownsthe birthday tokens and expressions of regard which I have receivedfrom many. It takes me entirely by surprise, only exceeded by thegratification I feel at having s: a generous gift from my friends in NewYork and elsewhere. I thank them, and more than thank them, and you, forbeing the medium of it. I am alike honored by both. Thanks is a littleword, and dollars is called a vulgar one; but two thousand two hundredand sixty-two of the latter, and [322]the sense I have of the former, make up, I feel, no vulgar amount. 

I don't know how you will convey to my old parishioners and friends mysense of their good will and good esteem, but I pray you will-do soas largely as you can; and to Dr. Osgood particularly for the care andtrouble I cannot but suppose he has taken in this matter. I am sure itwill please them to know, that on account of the increased expensesof living, and the failure of some stocks, this gift is especiallyconvenient to me, and will help to smooth--for the steps now, perhaps, but few-my remaining path in life. 

I am, as ever, with great regard, Your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, March 30, 1874. 

DEAR BRYANT, --I send you enclosed my formal answer to your letter onbehalf of my kind friends in New York and elsewhere, but I must have alittle private word with you. . . . That speech of yours at the Cooper[A meeting at the Cooper Institute] was one of the best, if not the verybest, of the little speeches that you have ever made. But good gracious!to think of your undertaking a Popular History of the United States! Theonly thing that troubles me for you is the taskwork of investigation. Supposing you to have the whole subject in your mind, nobody can writethe story better than you can. Put fire into it, my dear Senior; orrather do what you can do, --for I have seen it, --so state things in yourcalm way as to put fire into others. 

[323] This is a great work that you have in hand; everybody will readit, and will be instructed by it, I trust, in sound politics, andstirred to holy patriotism. 

Ever yours, faithfully, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same, ST. DAVID'S, Aug. 6, 1874. 

WE have had a good deal of conference together, you and I, old friend, but I do not know that we ever discussed the subject of bores. You haveraised questions about it, both for the next world and this, which, though I said nothing about them in my book, as you facetiously remark, it may surprise you to know are quite serious with me. Thus, if there isto be society in the next world, what can save it from the weariness ofsociety in this, --save it, in other words, from bores? The spiritistssay that Theodore Parker gives lectures there to delighted audiences. And, truth to say, I do not know of any other social occupation thatwould be so satisfactory as that of teaching or learning. What isall the highest conversation here, but that by which we help oneanother--teaching or being taught--to higher and juster thoughts? Thatwould shake off the yoke of boredom under which so many groan now. If, instead of eternal surface-talk, we could strike down to reality, tosomething that interested our minds and hearts, fresh streams wouldflow over the arid waste of commonplace. Real thoughts would be adivining-rod. If, when a man calls upon me, he could, teach me somethingupon which he knows more than I do, or I could do the same for him, neither of us would be bored. [324] Do I not talk like a book? But, tobe serious, so much am I bored with general society, that I am inclinedto say I had rather live as I do here in Sheffield. Is n't Cummington ablessed place for that?

But alas! it don't save you from being bored with letters, --vide, forexample, this, perhaps, which I am now writing. 

But, O excellent man! though you never bored me in talk, you have latelybored into me; I will tell you how. 

A month or two ago a book agent came to me, asking me to subscribe for"Bryant's Pictorial America. " I was astonished, and said, "Do you meanto say that Mr. Bryant's name will appear on the title page of thiswork, and that it was written by him?"--"Certainly, " was the reply;"not that he has written the whole, but much of it. " I could n't believethat, and was declining to subscribe, when my wife--that woman has agreat respect for you--called me aside and said, "I wish you would takethis book. " So I turned back and said, "My wife wants this book, and Iwill subscribe for it. " Well, yesterday the first volume came to hand;and, turning to the title page, I found edited by W. C. B. , which meansnot that you wrote the book, but seem to father it. Next year a manwill come along with "Bryant's Popular History of the United Statesof America, " and the year after, for aught I know, with "Specimens ofAmerican Literature, " by W. C. B. I do seriously beseech you, my friend, to look into this. These people take advantage of your good-nature; andill-nature will spring up about it, if this kind of thing goes on. Withlove to J. , and hoping to see you, Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[325] To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, Sept. 14, 1874. 

DEAR FRIEND, --It was very amiable in you to write to me on getting home;and, not to be outdone, I am going to write to you; and for the both sadand amusing story you repeated of Mr. G. , I will give you a recital ofthe same mixed character. 

I have been this evening to hear the Hampton Singers. Two of them, bythe bye, are our guests, --for we offered to relieve the company of allexpenses if they would come down here, --and very well behaved youngmen they are. The tunes they sing, remember, come from the tobacco andcotton fields of the South. I asked them how many they had. They said, two hundred, and that there were a great many more which were sung bythe slaves of the old time. Is it not an extraordinary thing? I do notbelieve that more than ten are ever heard from the farms of New England. I don't remember more than five. What a musical nature must these peoplehave I imagine that no such musical development, no such number ofsongs, can be found among any other people in the world, The chief interest with me in hearing them was thinking where they camefrom, what was the condition that gave birth to them. Their singing isboth sad and amusing, but partakes more of aspiration than of dejection;and it has not a particle of hard or revengeful feeling towards theirmasters. But here again, --what sort of a people it is! The words oftheir songs are of the poorest; not a soul among them has arisen to giveus anything like the German folk-songs, or like Burns's. Still, theirsongs are a wonderful revelation from the house of [326] bondage; suchsadness, such domestic tenderness, such feeling for one another, suchhopes and hallelujahs lifted above this world, where there was no hope

Heartily yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, Nov. 24, 1874. 

DEAR FRIEND, --I have read and read again what you have written upon theGreat Theme. What a subject for a letter! And yet the most we can sayseems to avail no more than the least we can say. Some one, or more, of the old Asiatics--I forget who--says he "would have no word used todescribe the Infinite Cause. " I suppose no word can be found that isnot subject to exceptions. The final words that I fall back upon arerighteousness and love. Even the word intelligence is perhaps morequestionable. If it implies anything like attention to one person andthing or another, anything like imagination, comparison, reasoning, wemust pause upon the use of it. To say knowledge would perhaps be better, for there must be something that knows its own works and creatures. Tosuppose the cause of all things to be ignorant of all things seems likea contradiction in terms. It would be, in fact, to deny a cause; tosay that the universe is what it is without any cause. Even thatawful supposition, the only alternative to theism, comes over the mindsometimes; but if I were to accept it, "the very stones would cry out"against me. 

Oh, my friend, I lie down in my bed every night thinking of God; andI say sometimes, is it not a false idea of greatness, to suppose theInfinite Greatness cannot [327] regard me? Worldly great men shrink fromlittle things, from little people. But it is not so with the most trulygreat. They come down in art, in poetry, in eloquence, in true learning, to instruct and lift up the lowly and ignorant. 

And again I say, when trying to reckon up the account with myself beforeI sink into unconsciousness, thinking of this bodily frame, with itsmillion harmonious agencies, and the mind more wonderful still; or whenI sit down in my daily walk, and sink into the bosom of nature, withlight and life and beauty all around me, --surely the author of all thisis good. It would be monstrous fatuity to question it, utter blindnessnot to see it. 

And yet again, I say, there are relations between the finite and theInfinite, between my mind and the Infinite mind, between my weaknessand the Infinite power. And why should conscious Omnipresence in ourconception localize it? Presence is not limited to contact. I am presenthere in my room; I am present in the field where I sit down. Why, withthe whole universe, should not the Infinite Being thus be present?

What a wonderful chapter is the twenty-third of Job! There are manythings in that book which touch upon our modern experience. "Oh! that Iknew where I might find him, that I might come near even to his seat. I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceivehim; on the left hand where he cloth work, but I cannot behold him; forhe hideth himself on the right hand that I cannot see him. " But I comewith undoubting faith to Job's conclusion: "But he knoweth the way thatI take; when he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold. " There aredeep trials, at times, in the approach to God, in lifting the weakthoughts of our minds to the [328] Infinite One; there are struggles andtears which none may ever witness; but still I say, "0 God, thou art myGod, early will I seek thee, "--ever will I seek thee. Let him who will, or must, walk out from this fair, bright, glowing world, thrilling allthe world in us with joy, upon the cold and dreary waste of atheism; Iwill not. I should turn rebel to all the great instincts within me, andall the great behests of nature and life around me, if I did. Ah! theconfounding, ever-troubling difficulty is not to believe, but to feelthe great Presence all the day long. This is what I think of, and longhave, with questioning and pain. What beings should we become--what toone another--under that living and loving sense of the all-good, theall-beautiful and divine within us and around us! And, for ourselves, what a perfect joy it is to feel that, in this seemingly disturbeduniverse, all is order, all is right, all is well, all is the bestpossible!

Yours ever, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

From a Note-Book. 

THE pain of erring, --the bitterest in the world, --is it not strange thatit should be so bitter? Is it not strange that growth must be attainedon such hard terms? Nay, but is it not simply applying the sharpestinstrument to the cutting and carving of the finest and grandest form ofthings on earth, --a noble character?

The work is but begun on earth. Man is the only being in this worldwhose nature is not half developed, whose powers are in their infancy;the ideal in whose constitution is not yet, and never on earth, realized. The animal arrives at animal perfection here, --becomes all[329] that it was made to be. The beetle, the dragon-fly, the eagle, is as perfect as it can be. But man comes far short of the ideal thatpresided over his formation. Any way it would be unaccountable, not tosay incredible, that God's highest work on earth should fail of its end, fail of realizing its ideal, fail of being what it was made for. Butwhen the process, unlike that in animals, which is all facility andpleasure, is full of difficulty and pain, then for the unfinished workto be dropped would be, not as if a sculptor should go on blockingout marble statues only to throw them away half finished, but as if heshould take the living human frame for his subject, and should cut andgash and torture it for years, only to fling it into the ditch. 

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

ST. DAVID'S, Dec. 22, 1874. 

THANK you, my friend, and three times over, for Allibone's volumes. Idid want and never expected to have them. But I had no idea Allibone wassuch a big thing. All the bigger are my thanks. What an ocean of drownedauthors it is, --only here and there one with masts up and the flagsflying!

My little oracular, pro-Indians admonition was correctly printed, andthe changes you made were good. 

Do you know that to-day sol stat? I don't believe that you mind it inthe city as we do in the country. To-day the glorious orb pausesand rests a little, to turn back and march up and along the mountaintop, -about a mile and a half a month on the same, --and bring us summer. And there is cheer and comfort in [330] that, though the proverb aboutthe cold strengthening holds for a couple of months. 

With our Merry Christmas to you all, I am, all days of the year, Yours heartily, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, May 9, 1875. 

MY DEAR FELLOW (of the Royal Society, I mean), --I have had it upon mymind these two or three weeks past to write to you; and I really believethat what most hindered me was that I had so many things to say. Andyet, I solemnly declare that I cannot remember now what they were. Theywere things of evanescent meditation, phases of the Great Questions; butfor a week or two I have been saying, I will not weary myself so muchwith them. So you have escaped this time. One thing, however, I dorecall, though not of those questions; and that is, reading the Psalmsthrough for my pillow-book. And it is with a kind of astonishment thatI have read them. Did you ever look into them with the thought ofcomparing them with the old Hindoo and Persian or Mohammedan or Greekutterances of devotion? How cold and formal these are, compared withthe earnestness, the entreaty, the tenderness of David and Asaph, -theswallowing up of their whole souls into love, trust, and thankfulness!What is this, whence came it, and what does it mean? This phenomenonin Judaa, how are you to explain it, without supposing a specialinspiration breathed into the souls of men from the source of allspiritual life and light? The Jewish nature was not [331] more keen thanthe Greek, or perhaps the Arabians, yet all their religious utterancesare but apothegms in presence of the Jewish vitality and experience. I do not deny their grandeur and beauty; but the Bible brings me intoanother world of thought and feeling, --into a new creation. And when wetake into the account the Gospels, we seem to be brought alike out ofthe old philosophy and the new, --out both from the old formalism and thevast inane and unknown, which the science of to-day conceives of, intonew and living relations with the Infinite Love and Goodness. In this, for my part, I rest. 

To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, Jury 24, 1875. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --Thank you for one of your good, long, thoughtfulletters. My thoughts in these days run in other directions. I cannottell you what they are; no language can; at least, I never used any thatdid. Almost all human experience has been described; but what are thethoughts and feelings of a man who says with himself as he walks alongupon the familiar path, "A few more steps and I shall be gone;--what andwhere shall I be then?" No mortal speech can tell. Meditations come, youmay imagine, at such a crisis in one's being, too vast, too trying forutterance. Wearied and weighed down by them, I sometimes say, "I willthink no more about it; all my thinking will alter nothing that is tobe; what can I do but lay myself on the bosom of that Infinite Goodness, in which, without doubting, I believe? What would I have other than whatGod appoints?" [332] Yet, after all, I am far from losing my interestin the world I am leaving. I am much struck with what you say aboutthe press, --the money interest involved, and the direction which thatinterest is likely to give it. I wish there were a distinct educationfor editorship, as there is for preaching, or for the lawyer orphysician. There is an article of Greg's in the last "ContemporaryReview, " following out his "Rocks Ahead, " that it has distressed me toread. The great danger now is the rise of the lower and laboring classesagainst capital and intelligence. And nothing will save the world, but for the higher classes to rouse themselves to do their duty, --inpolitics, in education, and in consideration and care for the lower. Have you seen the pamphlet of Miss Octavia Hill, of England? That isthe spirit, and one kind of work that is wanted. O women! instead ofclamoring for your rights, come up to this!

This is the most beautiful summer that I remember. I am glad to hear ofyour enjoying it, and of the bevy of young people around you. Such I seeevery day in the street and the grounds, as if Sheffield were the veryparadise of the young and gay. 

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

ST. DAVID'S, Dec. 30, 1875. 

DEAR FRIEND, --. . . I am glad to have your opinion of Emerson's andWhittier's verse Collections, and especially your good opinion ofCranch's translation, `or I am much interested in him. . . . 

My own reading runs very much in another direction, among those who"reason of" the highest things. Especially I have been interested inwhat those old [333] atheists, Lucretius and Omar Khayyam, say. Have youseen the "Rubaiyat" of the latter? And, by the bye, have you an Englishtranslation of Lucretius's "De Rerurn Natura"? It must be a smallvolume, only six books; and if it is not too precious an edition, I prayyou to lend and send it to me by mail. 

What atheism was to the minds of these two men amazes me. Lucretiuswas an Epicurean in life, perhaps, as well as philosophy, but I want tounderstand him better. I want to see whether he anywhere laments overthe desolation of his system. That a man of his power and genius shouldhave accepted it calmly and indifferently, is what I cannot understand. As for Omar, he seems to turn it all into sport. "Don't think at all, "is what he says; "drown all thought in wine. " But he writes verydeftly, and I cannot but think that his resort is something like thedrunkard's, --to escape the great misery. 

To Rev. Henry W Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 11, 1876. 

. . . IT is n't everybody that can turn within, and ask such questions asyou do. But though I laughed at the exaggeration, I admire the tendency. I suppose nobody ever did much, or advanced far, without more or less ofit. But your appreciation of others beats your depreciation of yourself. For me, I am so poor in fact and in my own opinion, that, --what do yousuppose I am going to say?--that I utterly reject and cast away the kindthings you say of me? No, I don't; that is, I won't. I am determined tomake the most of them. For, to be serious, I have poured out my mind and[334] heart into my preaching. I have written with tears in my eyesand thrills through my frame, and why shall I say, it is nothing? Nay, though I have never been famed as a preacher, I do believe that what Ihave preached has told upon the hearts of my hearers as deeply, perhaps, as what is commonly called eloquence. But when you speak of my work as"put beyond cavil and beyond forgetfulness, " I cover my face with myhands, with confusion. 

But enough of personalities, except to say that I think you exaggerateand fear too much the trials that old age, if it come, will bring uponyou. Not to say that your temperament is more cheerful and hopeful thanmine, you are embosomed in interests and friendships that will clingabout you as long as you live. I am comparatively alone. . . . 

But after all, the burden of old age lies not in such questions asthese. It is a solemn crisis in our being, of which I cannot write now, and probably never shall. 

"Wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore. "

That is all I can do, except reasonably to enjoy all the good I have andall the happiness I see. Of the latter, I count A. 's being "better, " andof the former, your friendship as among the most prized and dear. 

With utmost love to you all, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq. 

ST. DAVID'S, March 14, 1876. 

MY DEAR FRIEND, --I have begun to look upon myself as an old man. I neverdid before. I have felt so [335] young, so much at least as I alwayshave done, that I could n't fairly take in the idea. The giftie has n'tbeen gi'ed me to see myself as others see me. Even yet, when they get upto offer me the great chair, I can't understand it. But at length I haveso far come into their views as seriously to ask myself what it is fitfor an old man to do, or to undertake. And I have come to the conclusionthat the best thing for me is to be quiet, to keep, at least, to myquiet and customary method of living, -in other words, to be at home. My wife is decidedly of that opinion for herself, and, by parity ofreasoning, for me; and I am inclined to think she is right. 

This parity, however, does not apply to you. You are six months youngerthan I am, by calendar, and six years in activity; you go back and forthlike Cicero to his country villas; pray stop at my door some day, andlet me see you. 

You see where all this points. I decide not to go to New York atpresent, notwithstanding all the attractions which you hold out to me. I don't feel like leaving home while this blustering March is roaringabout the house. And from the mild winter we have had, I expect it togrow more like a lion at the end. 

With love to J. And Miss F. , Your timid old friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

Aug. 7, 1876. 

DEAR FRIEND, --I can't be quite still, though I have nothing to say buthow good you must be, to see so much good in others! That is whatalways strikes me [336] in your oraisons funebres, and equally, the finediscrimination you always show. And both appear in your loving noticeof my volume. ' Well, I take it to heart, and accept, though I cannotaltogether understand it. Such words, from such a person as you, are agreat thing to me. It is to me a great comfort to retire from the scenewith such a testimony, instead of a bare civil dismissal, which is all Iwas looking for from anybody. 

Mr. Dewey was urged to the publication of this last volume of sermonsby several of his most valued friends; and its warm acceptance by thepublic justified their opinion, and gave him the peculiar gratificationof feeling that in his old age and retirement his words could yet havepower and receive approbation. 

Rev. J. W. Chadwick wrote a delightful review of the book in the"Christian Register;" and, supposing that the notice was editorial, myfather wrote to Mr. Mumford, then editor, as follows:

SHEFFIELD, Nov. 22, 1876. 

MY DEAR SIR, --It is taking things too much au serieux, perhaps, to writea letter of special thanks for your notice of my volume in last week's"Register. " If I ought to have passed it over as the ordinary editorialcourtesy, I can only say that it did not seem to me as such merely, butsomething heartier, --and finer, by itself considered. I was glad to havepraise from such a pen. You will better understand the pleasure [337]that it gave me, when I tell you that I set about the publication ofthat volume with serious misgiving, feeling as if the world had hadenough of me, and it would be fortunate for me to be let off withoutcriticism. And now, you and Bellows and Martineau (in a private letter)come with your kind words, and turn the tables altogether in my favor. 

I once wrote a review of Channing, and, on speaking with him about it, Ifound that he had n't read the praise part at all. His wife told me thathe never read anything of that sort about himself. Well, he washalf drowned with it; but for me, I think it is right to express myobligation to you, and the good regard with which I am, Very truly your

ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 16, 1877. 

DEAR FRIEND, --A New Year's word from you should have had an answerbefore now, but I have had little to tell you. Unless I tell you of ourremarkable snow season, snow upon snow, till it is one or two feet deep;or of the woodpeckers that come and hammer upon our trees as if theywere driving a trade; or of our sunsets, which flood the south mountainwith splendor, and flush the sky above with purple and vermilion, as ifthey said, "We are coming, we are coming to bring light and warmth andbeauty with us. " You can hardly understand, in your city confines, howlovely are these harbingers of spring. And see! it is only two monthsoff. And withal we are ploughing through the winter in great [338]comfort and health. No parties here, to be sure; no clubs, no oystersand champagne, but pleasant sitting around the evening fire, with loudreading, --Warner's "Mummies and Moslems" just now, very pleasantlywritten. . . . Have you seen Huidekoper's "Judaism in Rome"? It hasinterested me very much. The Jews, as a people, present the greatest ofhistoric problems. A narrow strip of land, that "scowl upon the faceof the world, "--a small people, no learning, no art, no military power;yet, by the very ideas proceeding from it, -Christianity included, -hasinfluenced the world more than Greece or Rome. Huidekoper's book is verylearned. I am glad to see such a book from our ranks. We have done toolittle elaborate work in learning or theology. Your Ministers' Institutepromises well for that. 

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey. 

ST. DAVID'S, March 26, 1877. 

YOUR letter has come this afternoon, astonishing us with its date, andleading us to wonder where your whereabouts are now. Such an 4, -nisfatuus you have proved for the month past! With plans of goings andcomings, with engagements and disengagements, you have slipped by usentirely, so that the kind of assurance I have had that you would comeand pass two or three weeks with us before going eastward has comeutterly to nought. You should have come; our chances of seeing oneanother are narrowing every year. But we will not dwell gloomily uponit. We may live three or four years longer, --people do; and I think Iam more afraid of a longer than of a shorter term. [339] The "pain atheart, " of which you speak at putting a wider space between us, is whatI, too, have felt; and your thoughts, taken literally, are pleasant, while spiritualized, they are our only resource. Yes, the heavenlyspaces unite us, while the earthly separate. Oh! could we know that weshall meet again when the earthly scene closes! But what we do not know, we hope for, and I think the supports of that hope increase with me. Development for every living creature, up to the highest it can reach, is the law of its nature; and why, according to that law, should not thepoorest human creatures--the very troglodytes, the cave-dwellers--rise, till all that is infolded in their being should be brought forth?Where and how, is in the counsels and resources of infinite power andgoodness. Where and how creatures should begin to exist would be as muchmysterious to us as where and how they should go on. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, April 22, 1877. 

DEAR HOSPITALITY, --I minded much what you said about my coming down inMay, but I have been so discouraged about myself for six weeks past, that I have not wanted to write to you;--besieged by rheumatism from topto toe; in my ankle, so that I could not walk, only limp about; in myleft arm, so that I could not lift it to my head, and, of course, apretty uncomfortable housekeeper all that time. Nevertheless, I expectMay to bring me out again, and do think sometimes that I may take C. With me, and run down for two or three days. . . . I am reading theMartineau book, skippingly. . . . It seems that Miss M. Was not anatheist, [340] after all. She believed in a First Cause, only denyingthat it is the God of theology, --which who does not deny?-denying, indeed, with Herbert Spencer, that it is knowable. But if they say thatit is not knowable, how do they know but it is that which they deny?

Miss Martineau's passing out of this world in utter indifference asto what would become of her, seems to me altogether unnatural, on herground or any other. Any good or glad hold on existence implies thedesire for its continuance. She had no hope nor wish for it, as well asno belief in it. 

As to belief in it, or hope of it, why should not the law of developmentlead to such a feeling? The plant, having within it the power to produceflower and fruit, does not naturally die till it comes to that maturity. The horse or ox attains to its full strength and speed before its lifeis ended. Why should it not be so with man? His powers are not half, rather say not one-hundredth part, developed, when he arrives at thatpoint which is called death. Development is impossible to him, unlesshe continues to exist, and to go onward. And why should not the sameargument apply to what may trouble some people to think of, --that is, tothe three hundred and fifty millions of China, or even the troglodytes, the cave-dwellers? To our weakness and ignorance, it may seem easier tosweep the planet clean every two or three generations. But of the realmsand resources of Infinite Power, what can we know or judge?

Until this spring, my father's health had been exceptionally good, notwithstanding his allusions to increasing infirmities. Indeed, apartfrom his [341] brain trouble, he had always been so well that anyinterruption to his physical vigor astonished and rather dismayed him. His sleep was habitually good, and his waking was like that of a child, frolicsome in the return to life. He was never merrier than early in themorning, and his toilet was a very active one. He took an air-bath forfifteen minutes, during which he briskly exercised himself, --and thiscustom he thought of great importance in hardening the body againstcold. Then, after washing, dressing, and shaving, breakfast must comeat once, --delay was not conducive to peace in the household; andimmediately after breakfast he sat down to his desk for one, two, orthree hours, as the case might be. He was singularly tolerant of littleinterruptions, although he did not like to have any one in his roomwhile he was writing, and when his morning's task was done, especiallyif he were satisfied with it, he came out in excellent spirits, andready for outdoor exercise. He walked a great deal in New York, butnever without an errand. It was very seldom, either in town or country, that he walked for the walk's sake; but at St. David's he spent an houror two every day at hard work either in the garden or at the wood-pile, and made a daily visit in all weathers to the village and thepost-office. 

After his early dinner he invariably took a nap; and after tea, wentagain to his desk for an hour, and then came to the parlor for theevening's [342] amusement, whether reading, or music, or talk, or a gameof whist, of which he was very fond; and in all these occupations hisanimation was so unfailing, his interest so cordial, that family andguests gladly followed his leadership. 

But in this spring of 1877 the rheumatic attack of which he speaks wasthe beginning of a state of languor which in July became low biliousfever. He was not very ill; kept his bed only one day, and by theautumn recovered sufficiently to walk out; but from that time he was aninvalid, and he never again left his home. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, May 4, 1877. DEAR FRIEND, AND FRIENDS, --I see that I cannotdo it. You ought to be glad, not that I cannot, and indeed that wouldnot be strictly true, but that I do not judge it best. I really thinkthat I myself should be afraid of a man, that is, of a man-visitor, inhis eighty-fourth year. But what decides me now is that my rheumatismstill holds on to me, and does not seem inclined to let me go, or ratherto let go of me. This weather, chilly and penetrating to the bones andmarrow, is a clencher. I do not walk, but only creep about the house, and can't easily dress myself yet; all which shows where I ought to be. What a curious thing it is! I had n't a bit of rheumatism all wintertill March came, and never had any before. Was n't it the Amalekitesthat were smitten "hip and thigh"? Well, I am an Amalekite, and no moreexpected to be knocked over so than they did. [343] I have read withextraordinary pleasure Frank Peabody's sermon on "Faith and Freedom. " Isaw it in the "Index. " I don't know when I have read anything so fine, from any of our young men. . . . As to the limitations of free-will, evenmore marked than those of heredity and association are those imposedby the law of our nature. I am not free to think that two and two makefive, or that a wicked action is good and right. But am I not freeto pursue the worst as well as the best? But I am not fit to discussanything. 

To the Same. 

Dec. 13, 1877. 

YESTERDAY the mail brought me Furness's new book, "The Power of Spirit, "and I have already read half of it. It seems to be the finishing upof what may be called his life-work, that is, the setting forth of thecharacter of the Master. The book is very interesting, and not merelya repetition of what he has said before. To be sure, I cannot go alongwith him when he maintains that the power of Christ's spirit naturallyproduced those results which are called miracles. You know what Stetsonsaid, --that if that were true, Channing ought to be able to cure acut finger. But the earnestness, the eloquence, the spirit of faithpervading the book are very charming. Look into it, if you can get holdof it. The chapter on Faith in Christ is very admirable, and that onEaster is a very curious and adroit piece of criticism. I wish thatFurness would not be so confident, considering the grounds he goes upon, and that he would not write so darkly upon the materialism of the age. 

[344]To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 1, 1878. 

How I should like to take such a professional bout as you have had! NowI wish you could sit down by my side and tell me all about it. I thinkpreaching was always my greatest pleasure; and in my dreams now I thinkI am oftenest going to preach. People try to sum up the good that lifeis to them. I think it lies most in activity. Bartol, and that grandsoul, Clarke, discussed it much. 

To the Same. 

May 13, 1878. 

DEAR FRIEND, -I am so much indebted to your good long letters, that I amashamed to take my pen to reply. . . . 

Your Sanitary Commission Report came to hand two days ago, and I beganat once to read it, and finished it without stopping, greatly interestedin all the details, and greatly pleased with the spirit. What aprivilege to be allowed to take such a part in our great struggle! Icannot write about it, nor anything else, as I want to. I don't know whyit is, but I have a strange reluctance to touch my pen. I see that thedeath of Miss Catherine Beecher is announced. There were fine thingsabout her. What must she not have suffered, of late years! But I amdisposed to say of the release of every aged person, "Euthanasia. "

6th. I will finish this and get it off to you before Sunday. You havea great deal to do before vacation. Let me enjoin it upon you to have avacation when the [345] time comes. Don't spend your strength and lifetoo fast. Live to educate those fine boys. Thank you for sending ustheir picture. See what Furness does. That article on Immortality is asgood as anything he ever wrote. Did you read the paper on the Radiometerin the last "Popular Science"? What a (not world merely) but universe dowe live in! I am not willing to go out of the world without knowing allI can know of these wonders that fill alike the heavens above and everyinch of space beneath. What a glorious future will it be, if we mayspend uncounted years in the study of them! And, notwithstanding theweight of matter-of-fact that seems to lie against it, I think my hopeof it increases. This blessed sense of what it is to be, --this sweetnessof existence, -why should it be given us to be lost forever?

To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, June 16, 1878. 

. . . ONE point in your letter strikes very deep into myexperience, --that in which you speak of my "standing so long uponthe verge. " To stand as I do, within easy reach of such stupendouspossibilities, --that of being translated to another sphere of existence, or of being cut off from existence altogether and forever, --doesindeed fill me with awe, and make me wonder that I am not depressed oroverwhelmed by it. Habit is a stream which flows on the same, no matterhow the scenery changes. It seems as if routine wore away the very senseof the words we use. We speak often of immortality; the word slideseasily over our lips; but do we consider what it means? Do you everask yourself whether, after having lived a hundred thousands or [346]millions of years, you could still desire to go on for millionsmore?--whether a limited, conscious existence could bear it?

I read the foregoing, and said, "I don't see any need of consideringmatters so entirely out of our reach;" but the question is, can we helpit? Fearfully and wonderfully are we made, but in nothing, perhaps, morethan this, --that we are put upon considering questions concerning God, immortality, the mystery of life, which are so entirely beyond our reachto comprehend. 

To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, July 19, 1879. 

DEAR FRIEND, --After our long silence, if it was the duty of the ghost tospeak first, I think it should have been me, who am twenty years nearerto being one than you are; but it would be hardly becoming in a ghostto be as funny as you are about Henry and the hot weather. A change hascome now, and the dear little fellow may put as many questions as hewill. It is certainly a very extraordinary season. I remember nothingquite so remarkable. 

Have you Professor Brown's "Life of Choate" by you? If you have, do readwhat he says of Walter Scott, in vol. I. , from p. 204 on. I often turnto Scott's pages now, in preference to almost anything else, as I shouldto the old masters in painting. 

Good-by. Cold morning, --cold fingers, --cold everything, but my love foryou and yours. 

ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[347] To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, April 14, 1880. 

MY DEAREST YOUNG FRIEND, --For three or four years I have thought your mind was having a newbirth, and now it is more evident than ever. Everybody will tell youthat your Newport word is not only finer than mine, but finer, I think, than anything else that has been said of Channing. The first part wasgrand and admirable; the last, more than admirable, --unequalled, Ithink. . . . 

Take care of yourself. Don't write too much. Your long, pleasant letterto me shows how ready you are to do it. May you live to enjoy thebudding life around you. . . . 

My writing tells you that I shan't last much longer. Then keep fresh thememory of

Your loving friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To the Same. 

June 15, 1880. 

DEAR FRIEND, --To think of answering such a letter as yours of June 5this too much for me, let alone the effort to do it. It seems absurd forme to have such a correspondent, and would be, if he were not of thedearest of friends. For its pith and keenness, I have read over thislast letter two or three times. . . . I see that you won't come here inJune. Don't try. That is, don't let my condition influence you. I shallprobably, too probably, continue to live along for some time, as I havedone. No pain, sound sleep, good [348] digestion, --what must follow fromall this, I dread to think of. Only the weakness in my limbs--in thebranches, so to say--admonishes me that the tree may fall sooner than Iexpect. 

Love to all, O. D. 

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey. 

ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 13, 1880. 

DEAREST SISTER, --Why do you tell me such "tells, " when I don't believe abit in them? However, I do make a reservation for my preaching ten yearsin New Bedford and ten in New York. They could furnish about the only"tells" in my life worth telling, if there were anybody to tell 'em. Nobody seems to understand what preaching is. George Curtis does hisbest two or three times a year. The preacher has to do it every Sunday. 

I agree with you about Bryant's "Forest Hymn. " I enjoy it more thananything he ever wrote, except the "Waterfowl. "

Yours always, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, Dec. 24, 1880. 

DEAR FRIEND, --My wife must write you about the parcel of books whichcame to hand yesterday and was opened in the midst of us with dueadmiration, and with pleasure at the prospect it held out for thewinter. My wife, I say; for she is the great reader, while I am, incomparison, like the owl, which the showman said kept up-you rememberwhat sort of a thinking. But, comparisons [349] apart, it is reallyinteresting to see how much she reads; how she keeps acquainted withwhat is going on in the world, especially in its philanthropic andreligious work. 

Then, in the old Bible books she is the greatest reader that I know. Iwish you could hear her expatiate on David and Isaiah; and she is inthe right, too. They leave behind them, in a rude barbarism of religiousideas, Egypt and Greece. By the bye, is it not strange that the twogreat literatures of antiquity, the Hebrew and Grecian, should haveappeared in territories not larger than Rhode Island? This is contraryto Buckle's view, who says, if I remember rightly, that the literatureof genius naturally springs from a rich soil, from great wealth andleisure demanding intellectual entertainment. 

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey. 

ST. DAVID'S, April 4, 1881. 

DEAREST RUSHE, --. . . I am glad at what you are doing about the "Helps, "and especially at your taking in the "Bugle Notes. " Of course it givesyou trouble, but don't be anxious about it; 't will all come out right. The book has met with great favor, whereat I am much pleased, as youmust be. 

Yes, Carlyle's "Reminiscences" must be admired; but it will take all thesweets about his wife to neutralize his

"Helps to Devout Living" is the name of a collection of beautiful andvaluable passages, in prose and verse, compiled by Miss J. Dewey, inthe second edition of which she included, at her brother's request, Mr. Wasson's "Bugle Notes, " a poem which had been for years one ofhis peculiar favorites. [350] supreme care for himself, and carelessdisparagement of almost everybody else. Genius is said to be, in itsvery nature, loving and generous; it seems but the fit recognition ofits own blessedness; was his so? I have been reading again "Adam Bede, "and I think that the author is decidedly and unquestionably superior toall her contemporary novel-writers. One can forgive such a mind almostanything. But alas! for this one--. . . It is an almost unpardonableviolation of one of the great laws on which social virtue rests. . . . 

Ever yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D. D. 

ST. DAVID'S, June 30, 1881. 

. . . SINCE reading Freeman Clarke's book, I have been thinking of thesteps of the world's religious progress. The Aryan idea, so far as weknow anything of it, was probably to worship nature. The Greek idolatrywas a step beyond that, substituting intelligent beings for it. Farhigher was the Hebrew spiritualism, and worship of One Supreme, and farhigher is Isaiah than Homer, David than Sophocles; and no Hebrew prophetever said, "Offer a cock to Esculapius. " So is Christianity far beyondBuddhism; and far beyond Sakya Muni, dim and obscure as he is, are theconcrete realities of the life of Jesus. Whether anything further is tocome, I tremble to ask; and yet I do ask it. [351] To the Same. 

July 23, 1881. 

DEAR, NAY, DEAREST FRIEND, --What shall I say, in what language expressthe sense of comfort and satisfaction which, first your sermon yearsago, ' and now your letter of yesterday, have given me? Ah! there is aspot in every human soul, I guess, where approbation is the sweetestdrop that can fall. I will not imbitter it with a word of doubt ordebate. . . . 

Come here when you can. With love to all, Ever yours, O. D. 

To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, Sept. 23, 1881. 

DEAR FRIEND, --I am waiting with what patience I can, to hear whetheryou have been to Meadville or not. . . . In that lovely but just picturewhich you draw of my wife, and praise her patience at the expenseof mine, I doubt whether you fairly take into account the differencebetween the sexes, not only in their nature, but in their functions. We men take a forward, leading, decisive part in affairs, the womenan acquiescent part. The consequence is that they are more yielding, gentler under defeat, than we. When I said, yesterday, "It costs menmore to be patient, to be virtuous, than it costs you, "--"Oh! oh!" theyexclaimed. But it is true. . . . 

Sept. 26. 1881

WHAT a day is this! A weeping nation [See p. 358], in all its thousandchurches and million homes, participates in the [352] mournfulsolemnities at Cleveland. A great kindred nation takes part in oursorrow. Its queen, the Queen of England, sends her sympathy, deeper thanwords, to the mourning, queenly relict of our noble President. Nevershall I, or my children to the fourth generation, probably, see such aday. Never was the whole world girdled in by one sentiment like this ofto-day. 

To the Same. 

ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 1, 1882. 

. . . FOR a month or two I have been feeling as if the year would neverend. But it has come, and here is the beginning of a new. And of whatyear of the world? Who knows anything about it? Do you? does anybody?What is, or can be, known of a human race on this globe more than 4, 000years ago--or 4, 000, 000? Oh! this dreadful ignorance! Fain would I go toanother world, if it would clear up the problems of this. 

. . . . 

All I can do is to fall upon the knees of my heart and say, "0 God, letthe vision of Thy glory never be hidden from my eyes in this world orany other, but forever grow brighter and brighter!"

We have had some bad and some sad times here. M. Must tell you aboutthem. 

Happy New Year to you all. 

ORVILLE DEWEY. 

It was now nearly five years that my father had trod the weary path ofinvalidism, slowly weaning him from the familiar life and ties he lovedso [353] well. The master's interest was as large, as keen as ever;friendship, patriotism, religion, were even dearer to him than when hewas strong to work in their service; but the ready servants that had solong stood by him, --the ear, always open to each new word of hope andpromise for humanity; the eye, that looked with eager pleasure onevery noble work of man and on every natural object, seeing in all, manifestations of the Divine Goodness and Wisdom; the feet, that hadcarried him so often on errands of kindness; the hands, whose clasp hadcheered many a sad heart, and whose hold upon the pen had sent strongand stirring words through the land, -these gradually resigned theirfunctions, and the active but tired brain, which had held on so bravely, notwithstanding the injury it had received in early life, began to sharein the general decline of the vital powers. There was no disease, nodeflection of aim nor confusion of thought, but a gentle failure offaculties used up by near a century's wear and tear. 

He was somewhat grieved and harassed by the spiritual problemswhich were always the chief occupation of his mind, and which he nowperceived, without being able to grapple with them; and life, withsuch mental and physical limitations, became very weary to him. But hisconstitution was so sound, and his health so perfect, that he might havelingered yet a long time, but for his grief and disappointment in theunexpected death [354] of Dr. Bellows, Jan. 30, 1882. When that belovedfriend, upon whose inspiring ministrations he had counted to soothe hisown last hours, was called first, the shock perceptibly loosened hisfeeble hold on life; and truly it seemed as if the departing spirit didhis last service of love by helping to set free the elder friend whomhe could no longer comfort on earth. He "Allured to brighter worlds, andled the way;" nor was my father long in following him. For a few weeksthere was little outward change in his habits; he ate as usual thefew morsels we could induce him to taste; he slept several hours everynight, and, supported by faithful arms, he came to the table for eachmeal till within four days of his death. But he grew visibly weaker, andwould sit long silent, his head bent on his breast. We gathered togetherin those sad days, and read aloud the precious series of Dr. Bellows'sletters to us all, but principally to him, -letters radiant with beauty, vigor, wit, and affection; we read them with thankfulness and withsorrow, with laughter and with tears, and he joined in it all, but grewtoo weary to listen, and never heard the whole. He was confined to hisbed but three days. A slight indigestion, which yielded to remedies, left him too weak to rally. He was delirious most of the time whenawake, and was soothed by anodynes; but though he knew us all, he wastoo sick and restless for talk, trying [355] sometimes to smile inanswer to his wife's caresses, but hardly noticing anything. At oneo'clock in the morning of March 21st, his sad moans suddenly ceased, andhe opened his sunken eyes wide, --so wide that even in the dim light wesaw their clear blue, --looked forward for a moment with an earnest gaze, as if seeing something afar off, then closed them, and with one or twoquiet breaths left pain and suffering behind, and entered into life. 

For a few days his body lay at rest in his pleasant study, surrounded bythe flowers he loved, and the place was a sweet domestic shrine. A grandserenity had returned to the brow, and all the features wore a look ofpeace and happiness unspeakably beautiful and comforting. Then, with aquiet attendance of friends and neighbors, it was borne to the grave inthe shadow of his native hills. 

In those last weeks he wrote still a few letters, almost illegible, andwritten a few lines at a time, as his strength permitted. 

To Rev. John W. Chadwick. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 2, 1882. 

MY DEAR BROTHER CHADWICK, --A few lines are all that I can write, though many would hardly sufficeto express the feeling of what I owe you for your kind letter, and thesympathy it expresses for the loss of my friend. [356] You will betterunderstand what that is, when I tell you that for the last two or threeyears he has written me every week. 

I have also to thank you for the many sermons you have directed to besent to me. Through others, I know their extraordinary merit, though mybrain is too weak for them. 

Do you remember a brief interview I had with you and Mrs. Chadwick atthe "Messiah" on the evening of the [Semi-] Centennial? It gave me somuch pleasure that it sticks in my memory, and emboldens me to send mylove to you both. 

Ever yours truly, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey. 

ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 7, 1882. 

DEAREST RUSHE, --Your precious, sweet little letter came in due time, and was all that a letter could be. I have not written a word since thatcame upon us which we so sorrow for, except a letter to his strickenpartner, from whom we have a reply last evening, in which she sayshis resignation was marvellous; that he soon fell into a drowse frommorphine, and said but little, but, being told there were letters fromme, desired them to keep them carefully for him, --which, alas! he wasnever to see. 

Dear, I can write no more. I am all the time about the same. Give mylove to Pamela. 

Ever your loving brother, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[357]To Rev. John Chadwick. 

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 26, 1882. 

MY DEAR CHADWICK, --When Mary wrote to you, expressing the feelings of usall concerning the Memorial Sermon, ' I thought it unnecessary to writemyself, especially as I could but so poorly say what I wanted to say. But I feel that I must tell you what satisfaction it gave me, --more thanI have elsewhere seen or expect to see. I feel, for myself, that I mostmourn the loss of the holy fidelity of his friendship. All speak rightlyof his incessant activity in every good work, and I knew much of what hedid to build up a grand School of Theology at Cleveland. 

You ask what is my outlook from the summit of my years. This remindsme of that wonderful burst of his eloquence, at the formation of ourNational Conference, against the admission to it, by Constitution, ofthe extremest Radicalism. I wanted to get up and shortly reply, --"Youmay say what you will, but I tell you that the movement of this body fortwenty years to come will be in the Radical direction. " In fact, I findit to be so in myself. I rely more upon my own thought and reason, myown mind and being, for my convictions than upon anything else. Againwarmly thanking you for your grand sermon, [on Dr. Bellows] I am, Affectionately yours, ORVILLE DEWEY. 

[358]I feel that I cannot close this memoir without reprinting thebeautiful tribute paid to my father by Dr. Bellows, in his addressat the fifty-fourth anniversary of the founding of the Church of theMessiah, in New York, in 1879. After comparing him with Dr. Channing, and describing the fragile appearance of the latter, he said:

"Dewey, reared in the country, among plain but not common people, squarely built, and in the enjoyment of what seemed robust health, had, when I first saw him, at forty years of age, a massive dignity ofperson; strong features, a magnificent height of head, a carriage almostroyal; a voice deep and solemn; a face capable of the utmost expression, and an action which the greatest tragedian could not have much improved. These were not arts and attainments, but native gifts of person andtemperament. An intellect of the first class had fallen upon a spiritualnature tenderly alive to the sense of divine realities. His awe andreverence were native, and they have proved indestructible. He didnot so much seek religion as religion sought him. His nature wascharacterized from early youth by a union of massive intellectual powerwith an almost feminine sensibility; a poetic imagination with a raredramatic faculty of representation. Diligent as a scholar, a carefulthinker, accustomed to test his own impressions by patient meditation, a reasoner of the most cautious kind; capable of holding doubtfulconclusions, however inviting, in suspense; devout and reverent bynature, --he had every qualification for a great preacher, in a timewhen the old foundations were broken up and men's minds were demandingguidance and support in the critical transition from the [359] days ofpure authority to the days of personal conviction by rational evidence. 

"Dewey has from the beginning been the most truly human of ourpreachers. Nobody has felt so fully the providential variety of mortalpassions, exposures, the beauty and happiness of our earthly life, the lawfulness of our ordinary pursuits, the significance of home, ofbusiness, of pleasure, of society, of politics. He has made himself theattorney of human nature, defending and justifying it in all the hostilesuits brought against it by imperfect sympathy, by theological acrimony, by false dogmas. Yet he never was for a moment the apologist ofselfishness, vice, or folly; no stricter moralist than he is to befound; no worshipper of veracity more faithful; no wiser or more tenderpleader of the claims of reverence and self-consecration! In fact, itwas the richness of his reverence and the breadth of his religion thatenabled him to throw the mantle of his sympathy over the whole of humanlife. He has accordingly, of all preachers in this country, been theone most approved by the few who may be called whole men, --men who riseabove the prejudice of sect and the halfness of pietism, --lawyersand judges, statesmen and great merchants, and strong men of allprofessions. He could stir and awe and instruct the students ofCambridge, as no man I ever heard in that pulpit, not even Dr. Walker, --who satisfied conscience and intellect, but was not wholly faireither to passion or to sentiment, much less to the human body and theworld. Of all religious men I have known, the broadest and most catholicis Dewey, --I say religious men, for it is easy to be broad and catholic, with indifference and apathy at the heart. Dewey has cared unspeakablyfor divine [360] things, -thirsted for God, and dwelt in daily reverenceand aspiration before him; and out of his awe and his devotion he haslooked with the tenderest eyes of sympathy, forbearance, and patienceupon the world and the ways of men; slow to rebuke utterly, alwaysfinding the soul of goodness in things evil, and never assuming anysanctimonious ways, or thinking himself better than his brethren. 

"Dewey is undoubtedly the founder and most conspicuous example of whatis best in the modern school of preaching. The characteristic feature isthe effort to carry the inspiration, the correction, and the riches ofChristian faith into the whole sphere of human life; to make religionpractical, without lowering its ideal; to proclaim our present world andour mortal life as the field of its influence and realization, trustingthat what best fits men to live and employ and enjoy their spiritualnature here, is what best prepares them for the future life. Dewey, likeFranklin, who trained the lightning of the sky to respect the safety, and finally to run the errands of men on earth, brought religion fromits remote home and domesticated it in the immediate present. He firstsuccessfully taught its application to the business of the market andthe street, to the offices of home and the pleasures of society. We areso familiar with this method, now prevalent in the best pulpits of allChristian bodies, that we forget the originality and boldness of thehand that first turned the current of religion into the ordinary channelof life, and upon the working wheels of daily business. The glory ofthe achievement is lost in the magnificence of its success. Practical preaching, when it means, as it often does, a mere prosaicrecommendation of ordinary duties, a sort of Poor Richard's prudential[361] maxims, is a shallow and nearly useless thing. It is a kind ofsocial and moral agriculture with the plough and the spade, but withlittle regard to the enrichment of the soil, or drainage from the depthsor irrigation from the heights. The true, practical preaching is thatwhich brings the celestial truths of our nature and our destiny, the powers of the world to come and the terrors and promises of ourrelationship to the Divine Being, to bear upon our present duties, toanimate and elevate our daily life, to sanctify the secular, to redeemthe common from its loss of wonder and praise, to make the familiar giveup its superficial tameness, to awaken the sense of awe in those whohave lost or never acquired the proper feeling of the spiritual mysterythat envelops our ordinary life. This was Dewey's peculiar skill. Poetshad already done it for poets, and in a sense neither strictly religiousnor expected to be made practical. But for preachers to carry `thevision and faculty divine' of the poet into the pulpit, and with theauthority of messengers of God, demand of men in their business anddomestic service, their mechanical labors, their necessary tasks, tosee God's spirit and feel God's laws everywhere touching, inspiring, andelevating their ordinary life and lot, was something new and glorious. Thus Dewey revitalized the doctrine of Retribution by bringing it fromthe realms a futurity down to the immediate bosoms of men; and nothingmore solemn, affecting, and true is to be found in all literaturethan his famous two sermons on Retribution, in the first volume of hispublished works. Spirituality, in the same manner, he called away fromits ghostly churchyard haunts, and made it a cheerful angel of God'spresence in the house and the shop, where the sense and feeling of God'sholiness [362] and love make every duty an act of worship, and everycommonest experience an opportunity of divine service. Under thethoughtful, tender yet searching, rational but profoundly spiritualpreaching of Dr. Dewey, --where men's souls found an holiest and powerfulinterpreter, and nature, business, pleasure, domestic ties, receiveda fresh consecration, -who can wonder that thousands of men and women, hitherto dissatisfied, hungry, but with no appetite for the bread'called of life, ' furnished at the ordinary churches, were, for the firsttime, made to realize the beauty of holiness and the power of the gospelof salvation?

"The persuasiveness of Dewey was another of his greatestcharacteristics. His yearning to convince, his longing to impart his ownconvictions, gave a candor and patient and sweet reasonableness to hispreaching, which has, I think, never been equalled in any preacher ofhis measure of intellect, height of imagination, and reverence of soul. For he could never lower his ideals to please or propitiate. He wasworking for no immediate and transitory effects. He could use no artsthat entangled, dazzled, or frightened; nothing but truth, and truthcautiously discriminated. His sermons were born of the most painfullabors of his spirit; they were careful and finished works, writtenand rewritten, revised, corrected, improved, almost as if they had beenpoems addressed to the deliberate judgment of posterity. They possessthat claim upon coming generations, and will, one day, rediscovered bya deeper and better spiritual taste, take their place among the noblestand most exquisite of the intellectual and spiritual products of thiscentury. There are thousands of the best minds in this country thatowe whatever interest they have in religion [363] to Orville Dewey. The majesty of his manner, the dramatic power of his action, the poeticbeauty of his illustrations, the logical clearness and fairness of hisreasoning, the depth and grasp of his hold on all the facts, human anddivine, material and spiritual, that belonged to the theme he treated, gave him a surpassing power and splendor, and an equal persuasiveness asa preacher. But what is most rare, his sermons, though they gained muchby delivery, lose little in reading, for those who never heard them. They are admirably adapted to the pulpit, none more so; but just aswonderfully suited to the library and to solitary perusal. I am notextravagant or alone in this opinion. I know that so competent a criticas James Martineau holds them in equal admiration. 

"I shall make no excuse for dwelling so long upon Orville Dewey's geniusas a preacher. No plainer duty exists than to commend his example tothe study and imitation of our own preachers; and no exaltation that theChurch of the Messiah will ever attain can in any probability equal thatwhich will always be given to it as the seat of Dr. Dewey's thirteenyears' ministry in the city of New York. Of the tenderness, modesty, truthfulness, devotion, and spotless purity of his life and character, it is too soon to utter all that my heart and knowledge prompt me tosay. But, when expression shall finally be allowed to the testimonywhich cannot very long be denied free utterance, it will fully appearthat only a man whose soul was haunted by God's spirit from early youthto extreme old age could have produced the works that stand in his name. The man is greater than his works. "

[364]In the August following my father's death, an appropriate servicewas held in his memory at the old Congregational Church in his nativevillage. It was the church of his childhood, from whose galleries he hadlooked down with childish pity upon the sad-browed communicants; [seep. 16] it was the church to which he had joined himself in the religiousfervor of his youth; from it he had been thrust out as a heretic, andfor years was not permitted to speak within its walls, the first timebeing in 1876, when the town celebrated the hundredth anniversary of theResolution that had marked its Revolutionary ardor, and called upon him, as one of its most distinguished citizens, to preach upon the occasion;and now the old church opened wide its doors in affectionate respect tohis memory, and his mourning townspeople met to honor the man they hadlearned to love, if not to follow. 

It was a lovely summer day, full of calm and sunny sweetness. Theearlier harvests had been gathered in, and the beautiful valley lay inperfect rest, -"Like a full heart, having prayed. "

Taghkonic brooded above it in gentle majesty, and the scarce seen riverwound its quiet course among the meadows. No touch of drought or decayhad yet passed upon the luxuriant foliage; but the autumnal flowers werealready glowing [365] in the fields and on the waysides, and, mingledwith ferns and ripened grain, were heaped in rich profusion by theloving hands of young girls to adorn the church. It was Sunday, andpeople and friends came from far and near, till the building was filled;and in the pervading atmosphere of tender respect and sympathy, thewarm-hearted words spoken from the pulpit seemed like the utteranceof the common feeling. The choir sang, with much expression, one of myfather's favorite hymns, -"When, as returns this solemn day;" and theprayer, from Dr. Eddy, the pastor of the church, was a true upliftingof hearts to the Father of all. The fervent and touching discourse whichfollowed, by Rev. Robert Collyer, minister of my father's old parish, the Church of the Messiah, in New York, recalled the early days of Dr. Dewey's life, and the influences from home and from nature that hadborne upon his character, and described the man and his work in termsof warm and not indiscriminate eulogy. The speaker's brow lightened, and his cheek glowed with the strength of his own feeling, and among hislisteners there was an answering thrill of gratitude and of aspiration. 

Dr. Powers, an Episcopal clergyman, then read a short and gracefuloriginal poem, and some cordial and earnest words were said by thetwo Orthodox ministers present. Another hymn was sung by the wholecongregation; and thus fitly closed the simple and reverentservice, typical throughout of the kindly human brotherhood which, notwithstanding inevitable differences of opinion, binds together heartsthat throb with one common need, that rest upon one Eternal Love andWisdom. 

So would my father have wished it. So may it be more and more!