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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey,
+D.D., by Orville Dewey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D.
+       Edited by his Daughter
+
+Author: Orville Dewey
+
+Editor: Mary Dewey
+
+Release Date: July 31, 2006 [EBook #18956]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF ORVILLE DEWEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Edmund Dejowski
+
+
+
+
+
+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 father
+began to write some of the memories of his own life, of the friends whom
+he loved, and of the noteworthy people he had known; and it is by
+the help of these autobiographical papers, and of selections from his
+letters, that I am enabled to attempt a memoir of him. I should like to
+remind the elder generation and inform the younger of some things in the
+life of a man who was once a foremost figure in the world from which
+he had been so long withdrawn that his death was hardly felt beyond the
+circle of his personal friends. It was like the fall of an aged tree in
+the vast forests of his native hills, when the deep thunder of the crash
+is heard afar, and a new opening is made towards heaven for those who
+stand near, but when to the general eye there is no change in the rich
+woodland that clothes the mountain side.
+
+But forty years ago, when his church in New York was crowded morning and
+evening, and [8] eager multitudes hung upon his lips for the very bread
+of life, and when he entered also with spirit and power into the social,
+philanthropic, and artistic life of that great city; or nearly sixty
+years ago, when he carried to the beautiful town and exquisite society
+of New Bedford an influx of spiritual life and a depth of religious
+thought which worked like new yeast in the well-prepared Quaker
+mind,--then, had he been taken away, men would have felt that a tower of
+strength had fallen, and those especially, who in his parish visits had
+felt the sustaining comfort of his singular tenderness and sympathy in
+affliction, and of his counsel in distress, would have mourned for him
+not only as for a brother, but also a chief. Now, almost all of his own
+generation have passed away. Here and there one remains, to listen with
+interest to a fresh account of persons and things once familiar; while
+the story will find its chief audience among those who remember Mr.
+Dewey [FN My father always preferred this simple title to the more
+formal "Dr." and in his own family and among his most intimate friends
+he was Mr. Dewey to the last. He was, of course, gratified by the
+complimentary intention of Harvard University in bestowing the degree
+of D.D. upon him in 1839, but he never felt that his acquisitions in
+learning entitled him to it.] as among the lights of their own youth.
+Those also who love the study of [9] human nature may follow with
+pleasure the development of a New England boy, with a character of great
+strength, simplicity, reverence, and honesty, with scanty opportunities
+for culture, and heavily handicapped in his earlier running by both
+poverty and Calvinism, but possessed from the first by the love of truth
+and knowledge, and by a generous sympathy which made him long to impart
+whatever treasures he obtained. To trace the growth of such a life to
+a high point of usefulness and power, to see it unspoiled by honor and
+admiration, and to watch its retirement, under the pressure of nervous
+disease, from active service, while never losing its concern for the
+public good, its quickness of personal sympathy, nor its interest in the
+solution of the mightiest problems of humanity, cannot be an altogether
+unprofitable use of time to the reader, while to the writer it is a work
+of 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 fulfilment
+of this pious task, and who would have done it with a stronger and
+a steadier hand than mine, BELLOWS, was called first from that "fair
+companionship," while still in the unbroken exercise of the varied
+and remarkable powers which made his life one of such [10] large use,
+blessing, and pleasure to the world. None could make his place good to
+his elder friend, whose approaching death was visibly hastened by grief
+for the loss of the constant sympathy and devotion which had faithfully
+cheered his declining years. Many and beautiful tributes were laid upon
+my father's tomb by those whom he left here. Why should we not hope that
+that 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. My
+grandparents, Stephen Dewey and Aaron Root, were among the early
+settlers of the town, and the houses they built the one of brick, and
+the other of wood--still stand. They came from Westfield, about forty
+miles distant from Sheffield, on horseback, through the woods; there
+were no roads then. We have always had a tradition in our family that
+the male branch is of Welsh origin. When I visited Wales in 1832, I
+remember being struck with the resemblance I saw in the girls and young
+women about me to my sisters, and I mentioned it when writing home. On
+going up to London, I became acquainted with a gentleman, who, writing a
+note one day to a friend of mine and speaking of me, said: "I spell the
+name after the Welsh fashion, Devi; I don't know how he spells it." On
+inquiring of this gentleman, and he referred me also to biographical
+dictionaries,--I found that our name had an origin of unsuspected
+dignity, not to say sanctity, being no other than that of Saint David,
+the patron saint [12] of Wales, which is shortened and changed in the
+speech of the common people into Dewi.'
+
+Everyone tries, I suppose, to penetrate as far back as he can into his
+childhood, back towards his infancy, towards that mysterious and shadowy
+line behind which lies his unremembered existence. Besides the usual
+life of a child in the country,--running foot-races with my brother
+Chandler, building brick ovens to bake apples in the side-hill opposite
+the house, and the steeds of willow sticks cut there, and beyond the
+unvarying gentleness of my mother and the peremptory decision and
+playfulness at the same time of my father,--his slightest word was
+enough to hush the wildest tumult among us children, and yet he was
+usually gay and humorous in his family,--besides and beyond this, I
+remember nothing till the first event in my early childhood, and that
+was acting in a play. It was performed in the church, as part of a
+school exhibition. The stage was laid upon the pews, and the audience
+seated in the gallery. I must have been about five years old then, and I
+acted the part of a little son. I remember feeling, then and afterwards,
+very queer and shamefaced about my histrionic papa and mamma. It is
+striking to observe, not only how early, but how powerfully, imagination
+[13] is developed in our childhood. For some time after, I regarded
+those imaginary parents as sustaining a peculiar relation, not only
+to me, but to one another; I thought they were in love, if not to be
+married. 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 is
+worth noticing, too, the freedom with sacred things, of those days,
+approaching to the old fetes and mysteries in the church. We are apt to
+think of the Puritan times as all rigor and strictness. And yet here,
+nearly sixty years ago, was a play acted in the meeting-house: the
+church turned into a theatre. And I remember my mother's telling me that
+when she was a girl her father carried her on a pillion to the raising
+of a church in Pittsfield; and the occasion was celebrated by a ball
+in the evening. Now, all dancing is proscribed by the church there as a
+sinful amusement.
+
+[FN This was the reason why Mr. Dewey gave to the country home which
+he inherited from his father the name of "St. David's," by which it is
+known to his family and friends.--M. E. D.]
+
+The next thing that I remember, as an event in my childhood, was the
+funeral of General Ashley, one of our townsmen, who had served as
+colonel, I think, in the War of the Revolution. I was then in my
+sixth year. It was a military funeral; and the procession, for a long
+distance, filled the wide street. The music, the solemn march, the bier
+borne in the midst, the crowd! It seemed to me as if the whole world was
+at a funeral. The remains of Bonaparte borne to the Invalides amidst the
+crowds of Paris could not, [14] I suppose, at a later day, have affected
+me like that spectacle. I do not certainly know whether I heard the
+sermon on the occasion by the pastor, the Rev. Ephraim Judson; but at
+any rate it was so represented to me that it always seems as if I had
+heard it, especially the apostrophe to the remains that rested beneath
+that 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 very
+distinct, and I may say somewhat portentous, figure, tall, large-limbed,
+pale, ghostly almost, with slow movement and hollow tone, with eyes
+dreamy, and kindly, I believe, but spectral to me, coming into the house
+with a heavy, deliberate, and solemn step, making me feel as if the very
+chairs 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 tender
+nature; indeed, I afterwards came to think so; but at that time, and
+up 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 descended
+from the planet Jupiter, he could not have been a bit more preternatural
+and strange to me. Indeed, I well remember the occasion when the idea of
+his proper humanity first flashed upon [15] my mind. It was when I saw
+him, one day, beat the old black horse he always rode, apparently in
+a 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 the
+school-house, as indicating the rider's intent to visit us, I remember
+that the school was thrown into as much commotion as if an armed spectre
+were coming down the road. Our awe of him was extreme; yet he loved to
+be pleasant with us. He would say,--examining the school was always a
+part of his object, "How much is five times seven?" "Thirty-five," was
+the ready answer. "Well," replied the old man, "saying so don't make it
+so"; a very significant challenge, which we were ill able to meet. At
+the close of his visit he always gave an exact and minute account of
+the Crucifixion,--I think always, and in the same terms. It was a mere
+appeal to physical sympathy, awful, but not winning. When he stood
+before us, and, lifting his hands almost to the ceiling, said, "And so
+they reared him up!" it seemed as if he described the catastrophe of
+the world, not its redemption. Indeed, Mr. Judson appeared to think
+that anything drawn from the Bible was good, whether he made any moral
+application of it or not. I have heard him preach a whole sermon,
+giving the most precise and detailed description of the building of the
+Tabernacle, without one word of comment, [16] inference, or instruction.
+But he was a good and kindly man; and when, as I was going to college
+at the age of eighteen, he laid his hand upon my head, and gave me, with
+solemn form and tender accent, his blessing, I felt awed and impressed,
+as I imagine the Hebrew youth may have felt under a patriarch's
+benediction.
+
+With such an example and teacher of religion before me, whose goodness
+I did not know, and whose strangeness and preternatural character only
+I felt; and indeed with all the ideas I got of religion, whether from
+Sunday-keeping or catechising, my early impressions on that subject
+could not be happy or winning. I remember the time when I really feared
+that if I went out into the fields to walk on Sunday, bears would come
+down from the mountain and catch me. At a later day, but still in my
+childhood, I recollect a book-pedler's coming to our house, and when he
+opened his pack, that I selected from a pile of story-books, Bunyan's
+"Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners." Religion had a sort of
+horrible attraction for me, but nothing could exceed its gloominess. I
+remember looking down from the gallery at church upon the celebration of
+the Lord's Supper, and pitying the persons engaged in it more than any
+people 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 mere
+child--and having thoughts and words injected into my mind, which I
+[17]imagined were that sin, and shuddering, and trembling, and saying
+aloud, "No, no, no; I do not,--I will not." It is the grand mystery of
+Providence that what is divinest and most beautiful should be suffered
+to be so painfully, and, as it must seem at first view, so injuriously
+misconstrued. 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 a
+picture of the universal mind,--of the world's mind. The steps are
+the same, ignorance, fear, superstition, implicit faith; then doubt,
+questioning, struggling, long and anxious reasoning; then, at the
+end, light, more or less, as the case may be. Can it, in the nature
+of things, be otherwise? The fear of death, for instance, which I had,
+which all children have, can childhood escape it? Far onward and upward
+must be the victory over that fear. And the fear of God, and, indeed,
+the whole idea of religion,--must it not, in like manner, necessarily
+be imperfect? And are imperfection and error peculiar to our religious
+conceptions? What mistaken ideas has the child of a man, of his parent
+when correcting him, or of some distinguished stranger! They are
+scarcely less erroneous than his ideas of God. What mistaken notions
+of life, of the world, the great, gay, garish world, all full of
+cloud-castles, ships laden with gold, pleasures endless and entrancing!
+What mistaken impressions [18]about nature; about the material world
+upon which childhood has alighted, and of which it must necessarily
+be ignorant; about clouds and storms and tempests; and of the heavens
+above, sun and moon and stars! I remember well when the fable of the
+Happy Valley in Rasselas was a reality to me; when I thought the sun
+rose and set for us alone, and how I pitied the glorious orb, as it sunk
+behind the western mountain, to think that it must pass through a sort
+of Hades, through a dark underworld, to come up in the east again. It is
+a curious fact, that the Egyptians in the morning of the world had the
+same ideas. Shall I blame Providence for this? Could it be otherwise? If
+earthly things are so mistaken, is it strange that heavenly things are?
+And especially shall I call in question this order of things,--this
+order, whether of men's or of the world's progress, when I see that it
+is not only inevitable, the necessary allotment for an experimenting and
+improving nature, which is human nature, but when I see too that each
+stage of progress has its own special advantages; that "everything
+is beautiful in its time;" that fears, superstitions, errors, quicken
+imagination and restrain passion as truly as doubts, reasonings,
+strugglings, strengthen the judgment, mature the moral nature, and lead
+to 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 in
+particular just now to do, at the age of sixty-three, I have time and
+am disposed to look back into my early life and to reason upon it; and
+although I have nothing uncommon to relate, yet what pertains to me has
+its own interest and significance, just as if no other being had ever
+existed, and therefore I set down my experience and my reflections
+simply as they present themselves to me.
+
+In casting back my eyes upon this earliest period of my life, there are
+some things which I recall, which may amuse my grandchildren, if they
+should ever be inclined to look over these pages, and some of which they
+may find curious, as things of a bygone time.
+
+Children now know nothing of what "'Lection" was in those days, the
+annual 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 corn
+planted before that time! The playing could not be had till the work was
+done. The sports and the entertainments were very simple. Running about
+the village street, hither and thither, without much aim; stands erected
+for the sale of gingerbread and beer,--home-made beer, concocted
+of sassafras roots and wintergreen leaves, etc.; games of ball, not
+base-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 any
+suspicion of its being wrong, and seen it abroad in later days, in
+respectable company, I was led, very innocently, when I was a clergyman
+in New York, into what was thought a great misdemeanor. I was invited by
+some gentlemen, and went with them, to the races on Long Island. I met
+on the boat, as we were returning, a parishioner of mine, who expressed
+great surprise, and even a kind of horror, when I told him what I had
+been to see. He could not conceal that he thought it very bad that I
+should have been there; and I suppose it was. But that was not the worst
+of it. Some person had then recently heard me preach a sermon in which I
+said, that, in thesis, I had rather undertake to defend Infidelity
+than Calvinism. In extreme anger thereat, he wrote a letter to some
+newspaper, in which, after stating what I had said, he added, "And this
+clergyman was lately seen at the races!" It went far and wide, you may
+be sure. I saw it in newspapers from all parts of the country; yet some
+of my friends, while laughing at me, held it to be only a proof of my
+simplicity.
+
+There were worse things than sports in our public gatherings; even
+street fights,--pugilistic fights, hand to hand. I have seen men thus
+engage, and that in bloody encounter, knocking one another down, and the
+fallen man stamped upon by his adversary. The people gathered round, not
+to interfere, but to see them fight it out. [21] Such a spectacle has
+not been witnessed in Sheffield, I think, for half a century. But as to
+sports and entertainments in general, there were more of them in those
+days than now. We had more holidays, more games in the street, of
+ball-playing, of quoits, of running, leaping, and wrestling. The militia
+musters, now done away with, gave many occasions for them. Every year we
+had one or two great squirrel-hunts, ended by a supper, paid for by
+the losing side, that is, by the side shooting the fewest. Almost every
+season we had a dancing-school. Singing-schools, too, there were
+every winter. There was also a small band of music in the village, and
+serenades were not uncommon. We, boys used to give them on the flute
+to our favorites. But when the band came to serenade us, I shall never
+forget the commotion it made in the house, and the delight we had in
+it. We children were immediately up in a wild hurry of pleasure, and my
+father always went out to welcome the performers, and to bring them into
+the house and give them such entertainment as he could provide.
+
+The school-days of my childhood I remember with nothing but pleasure. I
+must have been a dull boy, I suppose, in some respects, for I never got
+into scrapes, never played truant, and was never, that I can remember,
+punished for anything. The instruction was simple enough. Special stress
+was laid upon spelling, and I am inclined to think that every one of my
+fellow-pupils [22] learned to spell more correctly than some gentlemen
+and ladies do in our days.
+
+Our teachers were always men in winter and women in summer. I remember
+some of the men very well, but one of them especially. What pupil of his
+could ever forget Asa Day,--the most extraordinary figure that ever I
+saw, 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, and
+a head big enough for a giant. He might have sat for Scott's "Black
+Dwarf;" yet he was not ill-looking, rather handsome in the face. And I
+think I never saw a face that could express such energy, passion, and
+wrath, as his. Indeed, his whole frame was instinct with energy. I see
+him 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, in
+a large open fireplace; for he did everything about the school. In fact,
+he took possession of school, schoolhouse, and district too, for that
+matter, as if it were a military post; with the difference, that he
+was to fight, not enemies without, but within,--to beat down
+insubordination and enforce obedience. And his anger, when roused, was
+the 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 more
+respectful than I was.
+
+To turn, for a moment, to a different scene, and to much humbler
+persons, that pass and repass in the camera obscura of my early
+recollections. The only Irishman that was in Sheffield, I think, in
+those days, lived in my father's family for several years as a hired
+man,--Richard; I knew him by no other name then, and recall him by no
+other now,--the tallest and best-formed "exile of Erin" that I have ever
+seen; prodigiously strong, yet always gentle in manner and speech to us
+children; with the full brogue, and every way marked in my view, and set
+apart from every one around him,--"a stranger in a strange land." The
+only thing besides, that I distinctly remember of him, was the point he
+made every Christmas of getting in the "Yule-log," a huge log which he
+had doubtless been saving out in chopping the wood-pile, big enough for
+a yoke of oxen to draw, and which he placed with a kind of ceremony
+and respect in the great kitchen fireplace. With our absurd New England
+Puritan ways, yet naturally derived from the times of the English
+Commonwealth, when any observance of Christmas was made penal and
+punished with [24] imprisonment, I am not sure that we should have known
+anything of Christmas, but for Richard's Yule-log.
+
+There was another class of persons who were frequently engaged to do
+day's work on the farm,--that of the colored people. Some of them had
+been slaves here in Sheffield. They were virtually emancipated by our
+State Bill of Rights, passed in 1783. The first of them that sought
+freedom under it, and the first, it is said, that obtained it in New
+England, was a female slave of General Ashley, and her advocate in the
+case was Mr. Sedgwick, afterwards Judge Sedgwick, who was then a lawyer
+in Sheffield.
+
+There were several of the men that stand out as pretty marked
+individualities in my memory, Peter and Caesar and Will and Darby; merry
+old fellows they seemed to be,--I see no laborers so cheerful and gay
+now,--and very faithful and efficient workers. Peter and his wife, Toah
+(so was she called), had belonged to my maternal grandfather, and were
+much about us, helping, or being helped, as the case might be. They both
+lived and died in their own cottage, pleasantly situated on the bank of
+Skenob 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 the
+finest damask roses in the world, and her house, and all around it, was
+the pink of neatness."
+
+In taking leave of my childhood, I must say [25] that, so far as my
+experience goes, the ordinary poetic representations of the happiness of
+that period, as compared with after life, are not true, and I must
+doubt whether they ought to be true. I was as happy, I suppose, as most
+children. I had good health; I had companions and sports; the school
+was not a hardship to me,--I was always eager for it; I was never hardly
+dealt with by anybody; I was never once whipped in my life, that I
+can remember; but instead of looking back to childhood as the blissful
+period 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 and
+melancholy; but since I entered on the threshold of manly life, of
+married and parental life, all these have disappeared. I have had
+inward struggles enough, certainly,--struggles with doubt, with
+temptation,--sorrows and fears and strifes enough; but I think I have
+been gradually, though too slowly, gaining the victory over them. Truth,
+art, religion,--the true, the beautiful, the divine,--have constantly
+risen clearer and brighter before me; my family bonds have grown
+stronger, friends dearer, the world and nature fuller of goodness and
+beauty, and I have every day grown a happier man.
+
+To take up again the thread of my story, I pass from childhood to my
+youth. My winters, up to the age of about sixteen, were given to [26]
+school,--the common district-school,--and my summers, to assisting my
+father on the farm; after that, for a year or two, my whole time was
+devoted to preparing for college. For this purpose I went first, for
+one year, to a school taught in Sheffield by Mr. William H. Maynard,
+afterwards an eminent lawyer and senator in the State of New York. He
+came among us with the reputation of being a prodigy in knowledge; he
+was regarded as a kind of walking library; and this reputation, together
+with his ceaseless assiduity as a teacher, awakened among us boys an
+extraordinary ambition. What we learned, and how we learned it, and how
+we lost it, might well be a caution to all other masters and pupils.
+Besides going through Virgil and Cicero's Orations that year, and
+frequent composition and declamation, we were prepared, at the end of
+it, for the most thorough and minute examination in grammar, in Blair's
+Rhetoric, in the two large octavo volumes of Morse's Geography, every
+fact committed to memory, every name of country, city, mountain, river,
+every boundary, population, length, breadth, degree of latitude,--and we
+could repeat, word for word, the Constitution of the United States. The
+consequence was, that we dropped all that load of knowledge, or rather
+burden upon the memory, at the very threshold of the school. Grammar
+I did study to some purpose that year, though never before. I lost two
+years of my childhood, I think, upon that study, absurdly [27] regarded
+as teaching children to speak the English language, instead of being
+considered as what it properly is, the philosophy of language, a science
+altogether beyond the reach of childhood.
+
+Of the persons and circumstances that influenced my culture and
+character in youth, there are some that stand out very prominently in my
+recollection, and require mention in this account of myself.
+
+My father, first of all, did all that he could for me. He sent me to
+college when he could ill afford it. But, what was more important as
+an influence, all along from my childhood it was evidently his highest
+desire and ambition for me that I should succeed in some professional
+career, I think that of a lawyer. I was fond of reading,--indeed, spent
+most of the evenings of my boyhood in that way,--and I soon observed
+that he was disposed to indulge me in my favorite pursuit. He would
+often send out my brothers, instead of me, upon errands or chores, "to
+save me from interruption." What he admired most, was eloquence; and I
+think he did more than Cicero's De Oratore to inspire me with a similar
+feeling. I well remember his having been to Albany once, and having
+heard 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 my
+interest in [28] him, and such my grief, that my schoolmates asked me,
+"What is the matter?" I said, "General Hamilton is dead." "But what is
+it? Who is it?" they asked. I replied that he was a great orator; but I
+believe that it was to them much as if I had said that the elephant in a
+menagerie had been killed. This early enthusiasm I owed to my father. It
+influenced all my after thoughts and aims, and was an impulse, though it
+may have borne but little appropriate fruit.
+
+For books to read, the old Sheffield Library was my main resource. It
+consisted of about two hundred volumes,--books of the good old fashion,
+well printed, well bound in calf, and well thumbed too. What a treasure
+was 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, than
+that which generally engages our youth nowadays,--the great English
+classics in prose and verse, Addison and Johnson and Milton and
+Shakespeare, histories, travels, and a few novels. The most of these
+books I read, some of them over and over, often by torchlight, sitting
+on 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 my
+boyhood. Why is it that all its volumes are scattered now? What is
+it that is coming over our New England villages, that looks like
+deterioration and running down? Is our life going out of us to enrich
+the great West? [29]I remember the time when there were eminent men in
+Sheffield. Judge Sedgwick commenced the practice of the law here; and
+there were Esquire Lee, and John W. Hurlbut, and later, Charles Dewey,
+and a number of professional men besides, and several others who were
+not professional, but readers, and could quote Johnson and Pope and
+Shakespeare; my father himself could repeat the "Essay on Man," and
+whole books of the "Paradise Lost."
+
+My model man was Charles Dewey, ten or twelve years older than
+myself. What attracted me to him was a singular union of strength and
+tenderness. Not that the last was readily or easily to be seen. There
+was not a bit of sunshine in it,--no commonplace amiableness. He wore no
+smiles upon his face. His complexion, his brow, were dark; his person,
+tall and spare; his bow had no suppleness in it, it even lacked
+something of graceful courtesy, rather stiff and stately; his walk was
+a kind of stride, very lofty, and did not say "By your leave," to the
+world. I remember that I very absurdly, though unconsciously, tried to
+imitate it. His character I do not think was a very well disciplined one
+at that time; he was, I believe, "a good hater," a dangerous opponent,
+yet withal he had immense self-command. On the whole, he was generally
+regarded chiefly as a man of penetrative intellect and sarcastic wit;
+but under all this I discerned a spirit so true, so delicate and
+tender, so touched [30] with a profound and exquisite, though concealed,
+sensibility, that he won my admiration, respect, and affection in an
+equal degree. He removed early in life to practise the law in Indiana.
+We seldom meet; but though twenty years intervene, we meet as though we
+had 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 he
+would doubtless have been sent to take part in the National Councils,
+but for an uncompromising sincerity and manliness in the expression of
+his political opinions, little calculated to win votes.
+
+And now came the time for a distinct step forward,--a step leading into
+future life.
+
+It was for some time a question in our family whether I should enter
+Charles Dewey's office in Sheffield as a student at law, or go to
+college. It was at length decided that I should go; and as Williams
+College was near us, and my cousin, Chester Dewey, was a professor
+there, that was the place chosen for me. I entered the Sophomore class
+in 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 of
+sight, and the gain, if I may say so, of insight.
+
+In my Junior year, my eyes, after an attack of measles, became so weak
+that 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 studies
+during the remainder of the college course. I hardly know now whether to
+be glad or sorry for this deprivation. But for this, I might have been a
+man of learning. I was certainly very fond of my studies, especially
+of the mathematics and chemistry. I mention it the rather, because the
+whole course and tendency of my mind has been in other directions. But
+Euclid's Geometry was the most interesting book to me in the college
+course; and next, Mrs. B.'s Chemistry: the first, because the intensest
+thinking is doubtless always the greatest possible intellectual
+enjoyment; and the second, because it opened to me my first glance into
+the wonders of nature. I remember the trembling pride with which, one
+day in the Junior year, I took the head of the class, while all the
+rest shrunk from it, to demonstrate some proposition in the last book of
+Euclid. At Commencement, when my class graduated, the highest part was
+assigned to me. "Pretty well for a blind boy," my father said, when I
+told him of it; it was all he said, though I knew that nothing in the
+world could have given him more pleasure. But if it was vanity then, or
+if it seem such now to mention it, I may be pardoned, perhaps, for it
+was 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 the
+loss of sight I thought I should have devoted myself to the pursuits of
+learning, his [32] reply was, "You were made for something better." I do
+not know how that may be; but I think that my deprivation, which lasted
+for some years, was not altogether without benefit to myself. I was
+thrown back upon my own mind, upon my own resources, as I should never
+otherwise have been. I was compelled to think--in such measure as I am
+able--as I should not otherwise have done. I was astonished to find how
+dependent I had been upon books, not only for facts, but for the very
+courses of reasoning. To sit down solitary and silent for hours, and to
+pursue a subject through all the logical steps for myself,--to mould the
+matter in my own mind without any foreign aid,--was a new task for me.
+Ravignan, the celebrated French preacher, has written a little book on
+the Jesuit discipline and course of studies, in which he says that the
+one or two years of silence appointed to the pupil absolute seclusion
+from society and from books too were the most delightful and profitable
+years of his novitiate. I think I can understand how that might be true
+in more ways than one. Madame Guyon's direction for prayer to pause upon
+each petition till it is thoroughly understood and felt had great wisdom
+in it. We read too much. For the last thirty years I have read as much
+as I pleased, and probably more than was good for me.
+
+The disease in my eyes was in the optic nerve; there was no external
+inflammation. Under the [33] best surgical advice I tried different
+methods of cure,--cupping, leeches, a thimbleful of lunar caustic on
+the back of the neck, applied by Dr. Warren, of Boston; and I remember
+spending 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 a
+person whose eyes had been cured of the same disease, and who gave me
+this advice: "Every evening, immediately before going to bed, dash on
+water with your hands, from your wash-bowl, upon your closed eyes; let
+the water be of about the temperature of spring-water; apply it till
+there is some, but not severe, pain, say for half a minute; then, with a
+towel at hand, wipe the eyes dry before opening them, and rub the parts
+around smartly; after that do not read, or use your eyes in any way, or
+have a light in the room." I faithfully tried it, and in eight months I
+began 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 five
+years, to know what that means. Afterwards I neglected the practice, and
+my eyes grew weaker; resumed it, and they grew stronger.
+
+The other event to which I have referred as occurring in my college
+life was of a far different character, and compared to which all this is
+nothing. It is lamentable that it ever should be an event in any human
+life. 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 me
+before; now it became the highest. Doubtless the change in its form
+partook of the popular character usually attendant upon such changes at
+the time, but the form was not material. A new day rose upon me. It was
+as if another sun had risen into the sky; the heavens were indescribably
+brighter, and the earth fairer; and that day has gone on brightening
+to 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; I
+have known friendship and love and family ties; but it is certain that
+till we see GOD in the world--GOD in the bright and boundless universe
+we never know the highest joy. It is far more than if one were
+translated to a world a thousand times fairer than this; for that
+supreme and central Light of Infinite Love and Wisdom, shining over this
+world and all worlds, alone can show us how noble and beautiful, how
+fair and glorious, they are. In saying this, I do not arrogate to myself
+any unusual virtue, nor forget my defects; these are not the matters
+now in question. Nor, least of all, do I forget the great Christian
+ministration of light and wisdom, of hope and help to us. But the
+one thing that is especially signalized in my experience is this, the
+Infinite Goodness and Loveliness began to be [35] revealed to me, and
+this 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 to
+be, in early and unconscious childhood, like knowledge, like social
+affection, like the common wisdom of life. To some, it comes as the
+consoler of grief; to others, as the deliverer from terror and wrath
+To me it came as filling an infinite void, as the supply of a boundless
+want, and ultimately as the enhancement of all joy. I had been somewhat
+sad and sombre in the secret moods of my mind, read Kirke White and knew
+him by heart; communed with Young's "Night Thoughts," and with his prose
+writings 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 a
+kind of pride and sadness; I had indeed the full measure of the New
+England boy's reserve in my early experience, and did not care whether
+others understood me or not. And for a time something of all this flowed
+into my religion. I was among the strictest of my religious companions.
+I was constant to all our religious exercises, and endeavored to carry
+a sort of Carthusian silence into my Sundays. I even tried, absurdly
+enough, to pass that day without a smile upon my countenance. It was
+on the ascetic side only that I [36] had any Calvinism in my religious
+views, for in doctrine I immediately took other ground. I maintained,
+among my companions, that whatever God commanded us to do or to be, that
+we had power to do and be. And I remember one day rather impertinently
+saying to a somewhat distinguished Calvinistic Doctor of Divinity: "You
+hold that sin is an infinite evil?" "Yes." "And that the atonement is
+infinite?" "Yes." "Suppose, then, that the first sinner comes to have
+his sins cancelled; will he not require the whole, and nothing will
+be left?" "Infinites! infinites!" he exclaimed; "we can't reason about
+infinites!"
+
+In connection with the religious ideas and impressions of which I have
+been speaking, comes before me one of the most remarkable persons that
+I knew in my youth, Paul Dewey, Uncle Paul, we always called him. He was
+my father's cousin, and married my mother's half-sister. His religion
+was marked by strong dissent from the prevailing views; indeed, he
+was commonly regarded as an infidel. But I never heard him express any
+disbelief of Christianity. It was against the Church construction of it,
+against the Orthodox creed, and the ways and methods of the religious
+people about him, that he was accustomed to speak, and that in no
+doubtful language. I was a good deal with him during the year before I
+went to college, for he taught me the mathematics; and one day he
+said to me, "Orville, you are going to college, and you will [37] be
+converted there." I said, "Uncle, how can you speak in that way to me?"
+"Nay," he replied, "I am perfectly serious; you will be converted, and
+when you are, write to me about it, for I shall believe what you say."
+When that happened which he predicted,--when something had taken place
+in my experience, of which neither he, nor I then, had any definite
+idea, I wrote to him a long letter, in which I frankly and fully
+expressed 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. I
+learned from his family afterwards that my letter seemed to make a good
+deal of impression on him. He was true to what he had said; he did take
+my testimony into account, and from that time after, spoke with less
+warmth and bitterness upon such subjects. Doubtless his large sagacity
+saw an explanation of my experience, different from that which I then
+put upon it. But he saw that it was at least sincere, and respected
+it accordingly. Certainly it did not change his views of the religious
+ministrations of the Church. He declined them when they were offered to
+him 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 who
+called, as he thought obtrusively, to talk and pray with him, "Sir, I
+desire neither your conversation nor your prayers." All this while, it
+is to be remembered that he was a man, not only of [38] great sense,
+but of incorruptible integrity, of irreproachable habits, and of
+great tenderness in his domestic relations. Whatever be the religious
+judgments 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 testify
+concerning one of his parishioners, against whom it was sought to be
+proved that he was a very irascible, violent, and profane man; and as
+this man was, in regard to religion, what was called in those days "a
+great opposer," it was expected that the Doctor's testimony would be
+very convincing and overwhelming. "Well," said Bellamy, "Mr. X is
+a rough, passionate, swearing man,--I am sorry to say it; but I do
+believe," he said, hardly repressing the tears that started, "that there
+is more of the milk of human kindness in his heart than in all my parish
+put together!"
+
+I may observe, in passing, that I heard, in those days, a great deal of
+dissent expressed from the popular theology, beside my uncle's. I heard
+it often from my father and his friends. It was a frequent topic in our
+house, especially after a sermon on the decrees, or election, or
+the sinner's total inability to comply with the conditions on which
+salvation was offered to him. The dislike of these doctrines increased
+and spread here, till it became a revolt of nearly half the town, I
+think, against them; and thirty years ago a Liberal [39] society might
+have been built up in Sheffield, and ought to have been. I very
+well remember my father's coming home from the General Court [The
+Massachusetts Legislative Assembly is so called.--M. E. D.], of which he
+was a member, and expressing the warmest admiration of the preaching of
+Channing. The feeling, however, of hostility to the Orthodox faith,
+in his time, was limited to a few; but somebody in New York, who was
+acquainted with it,--I don't know who,--sent up some infidel books. One
+of them was lying about in our house, and I remember seeing my mother
+one day take it and put it into the fire. It was a pretty resolute act
+for one of the gentlest beings that I ever knew, and decisively showed
+where she stood. She did not sympathize with my father in his views of
+religion, but meekly, and I well remember how earnestly, she sought and
+humbly found the blessed way, such as was open to her mind.
+
+As my whole view of religion was changed from indifference or aversion
+to a profound interest in it, a change very naturally followed in my
+plan for future life, that is, in my choice of a profession,--very
+naturally, at least then; I do not say that it would be so now. I
+expected to be a lawyer; and I have sometimes been inclined to regret
+that I was not; for courts of law always have had, and have still, a
+strange fascination for me, and I see now that a lawyer's or physician's
+life may be [40] actuated by as lofty principles, and may be as noble
+and holy, as a clergyman's. But I did not think so then. Then, I felt
+as if the life of a minister of religion were the only sacred, the only
+religious life; as, in regard to the special objects with which it
+is engaged, it is. But what especially moved me to embrace it, I will
+confess, was a desire to vindicate for religion its rightful claim and
+place 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 been
+something strange and repulsive, and even unreal,--something conjured
+up by fear and superstition. I came to see it as the divinest, the
+sublimest, and the loveliest reality, and I burned with a desire that
+others should see it.
+
+This "divine call" I had, whether or not it answers to what is commonly
+meant by that phrase, and I am glad that I obeyed it.
+
+But now, how was I to prosecute this design? how carry on the
+preparatory studies, when my eyes did not permit me to read more than
+half an hour a day? I hesitated and turned aside, first to teach a
+school in Sheffield for a year, and next, for another year, to try
+a life of business in New York. At length, however, my desire for my
+chosen profession became so irrepressible, that I determined to enter
+the Theological Seminary at Andover, and to pursue my studies as well as
+I could without my eyes, expecting afterwards to preach without notes.
+[41] At Andover I passed three years, attending to the course of studies
+as well as I was able. I gave to Hebrew the half-hour a day that I was
+able to study; with the Greek Testament I was familiar enough to go on
+with my room-mate, Cyrus Byington, [FN] who since has spent his life as
+a missionary among the Choctaws; and for reading I was indebted to his
+unvarying kindness and that of my classmates and friends. Still, I was
+left, some hours of every day, to my own meditations. But the being
+obliged to think for myself upon the theological questions that daily
+came before [42] the class, instead of reading what others had said
+about them, seemed to me not without its advantages.
+
+[FN Byington was a young lawyer, here in Sheffield, of good abilities
+and prospects, but under a strong religious impression he determined
+to quit the law and study theology. He was a man of ardent temperament,
+whose thoughts were all feelings as well, which, though less reliable
+as thought, were strong impulses, always directed, consecrated to
+good ends. A being more unselfish, more ready to sacrifice himself for
+others, could not easily be found. This spirit made him a missionary.
+When our class was about leaving Andover, the question was solemnly
+propounded to us by our teachers, who of us would go to the heathen--I
+well remember the pain and distress with which Byington examined
+it,--for no person could be more fondly attached to his friends and
+kindred,--his final decision to go, and the perfect joy he had in it
+after his mind was made up. He went to the Choctaw and Cherokee
+Indians in Florida, and, on their removal to the Arkansas reservation,
+accompanied them, and spent his life among them. He left, as the fruit
+of one part of his work, a Choctaw grammar and dictionary, and a yet
+better result in the improved condition of those people. Late in life,
+on a visit here, he told me that the converted Indians in Arkansas owned
+farms around him, laboring, and living as respectably as white people
+do. Here was that very civilization said to be impossible to the
+Indian.]
+
+Andover had its attractions, and not many distractions. I liked it, and
+I disliked it. I liked it for its opportunities for thorough study,--our
+teachers were earnest and thorough men,--and for the associates in
+study that it gave me. I could say, "For my companions' sake, peace be
+within thy walls." I disliked it for its monastic seclusion. Not that
+this was any fault of the institution, but for the first time in my life
+I boarded in commons; the domestic element dropped out of it, and I
+was persuaded, as I never had been before, of the beneficence of that
+ordinance that "sets the solitary in families." It was a fine situation
+in which to get morbid and dispirited and dyspeptic. On the last point I
+had some experiences that were somewhat notable to me. We were directed,
+of course, to take a great deal of exercise. We were very zealous about
+it, and sometimes walked five miles before breakfast, and that in winter
+mornings. It did not avail me, however; and I got leave to go out and
+board in a family, half a mile distant. I found that the three miles a
+day in going back and forth, that regular exercise, was worth more to me
+than all my previous and more violent efforts in that way. But I imagine
+that was not all. I had the misfortune to scald my foot, and was obliged
+for three weeks to sit perfectly still. [43] When I came back, Professor
+Stuart said to me, "Well, how is it with your dyspepsia?" "All gone,"
+was the reply. "But how have you lived?" for his dietetics were very
+strict. "Why, I have eaten pies and pickles,--and pot-hooks and trammels
+I might, for any harm in the matter." Here was a wonder,----no exercise
+and no regimen, and I was well! The conclusion I came to, was, on the
+whole, that cheerfulness first, and next regularity, are the best guards
+against the monster dyspepsia. And another conclusion was, that exercise
+can 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 dulness
+constantly arose among us! And there was other dulness, too,--physical,
+moral, social. I remember, at one time, the whole college fell into a
+strange and unaccountable depression. The occasion was so serious that
+the professors called us together in the chapel to remonstrate with us;
+and, after talking it all over, and giving us their advice, one of them
+said: "The evil is so great, and relief so indispensable, that I
+will 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 the
+first in it say 'Haw!' and the second 'Haw!' and so let it go round; and
+if 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 it
+must have been to the people without, but the spell was broken.
+
+But more serious matters claim attention in connection with Andover. I
+was to form some judgment upon questions in theology. I certainly was
+desirous of finding the Orthodox system true. But the more I studied it,
+the more I doubted. My doubts sprung, first, from a more critical study
+of the New Testament. In Professor Stuart's crucible, many a solid text
+evaporated, and left no residuum of proof. I was startled at the small
+number of texts, for instance, which his criticism left to support the
+doctrine of "the personality of the Holy Spirit." I remember saying to
+him in the class one day, when he had removed another prop,--another
+proof-text: "But this is one of the two or three passages that are left
+to establish the doctrine." His answer was: "Is not one declaration of
+God enough? Is it not as strong as a thousand?" It silenced, but it did
+not satisfy me. In the next place, I found difficulties in our theology
+from 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 terms
+we used and the actual conceptions we entertained, or between the
+abstract thesis and the living sense of the matter. Thus with regard to
+the latter point, I found that the more I believed in the doctrine of
+literally eternal punishments, the more [45] I doubted it. As the living
+sense of it pressed more and more upon my mind, it became too awful to
+be endured; it darkened the day and the very world around me. At length
+I could not see a happy company or a gay multitude without falling into
+a sadness that marred and blighted everything. All joyous life, seen in
+the light of this doctrine, seemed to me but a horrible mockery. It is
+evident that John Forster's doubts sprung from the same cause. And then,
+I had been accustomed to use the terms "Unity" and "Trinity" as in
+some vague sense compatible; but when I came to consider what my actual
+conceptions were, I found that the Three were as distinct as any
+three personalities of which I could conceive. The service which
+Dr. Channing's celebrated sermon at the ordination of Mr. Sparks in
+Baltimore 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 Choctaw
+Indians; most remained at home, some to hold high positions in our
+churches and colleges, Wheeler, President of the Vermont University, a
+liberal-minded and accomplished man; Torrey, Professor in the same,
+a man of rare scholarship and culture; Wayland, President of Brown
+University, in Rhode Island, well and widely [46] known; and Haddock,
+Professor in Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and recently our charge
+d'affaires in Portugal. Haddock, I thought, had the clearest head among
+us. Our relations were very friendly, though I was a little afraid of
+him, 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 comparatively
+retired and studious man: "Haddock I should like to have always with
+me; 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 constant
+companion."
+
+I left Andover, then, in the summer of 1819, and in a state of mind
+that did not permit me to be a candidate for settlement in any of the
+churches. I therefore accepted an invitation from the American Education
+Society 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 to
+preach in the old Congregational Church, and was invited to become its
+pastor. I replied that I was too unsettled in my opinions to be settled
+anywhere. The congregation then proposed to me to come and preach [47]
+a year to them, postponing the decision, both on their part and mine, to
+the end of it. I was very glad to accept this proposition, for a year of
+retired and quiet study was precisely what I wanted. I spent that year
+in examining the questions that had arisen in my mind, especially
+with regard to the Trinity. I read Emlyn's "Humble Inquiry," Yates and
+Wardlaw, Channing and Worcester, besides other books; but especially I
+made the most thorough examination I was able, of all the texts in both
+Testaments that appeared to bear upon the subject. The result was an
+undoubting rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity. The grounds for
+this, and other modifications of theological opinion, I need not give
+here; 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 about
+my personal hold upon heart-sustaining truth. It was emphatically a year
+of prayer, if I may without presumption or indelicacy say so. Humbly
+and earnestly I sought to the God of wisdom and light to guide me; and
+I never felt for a moment that I was perilling my salvation. I had a
+foundation of repose, stronger than mere theology can give, deep and
+sure beneath me. I had indeed my anxieties. I felt as if I were putting
+in peril all my worldly welfare. All the props which a man builds up
+around him in his early studies, all the props of church relationship
+and religious friendship, seemed to be suddenly falling away, and I
+was [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 coldness
+and the withdrawal of friends, all natural enough, I suppose, and
+conscientious, no doubt, but in the summons of the Presbytery of the
+city of New York, from which I had taken out my license to preach, to
+appear before it and answer to the charge of heresy. The summons was
+made in terms at war, I thought, with Christian liberty, and I refused
+to obey it. The terms may have been in consonance with the Presbyterian
+discipline, and perhaps I ought not to have refused. What I felt was,
+and this, substantially, I believe, was what I said, that, if "the
+Presbytery propose to examine me simply to ascertain whether my opinions
+admit 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 to
+assume a right and authority over my opinions to which I cannot submit."
+
+At the end of the year passed in Gloucester, it appeared that the
+congregation was about equally divided on the question of retaining me
+as pastor; at any rate, the circumstances did not permit me to think
+of it, and I went up to Boston to assist Dr. Channing in his duties as
+pastor of the Federal Street Church.
+
+But I must not pass over, yet cannot comment upon, the great event of
+my 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 family
+being then in attendance upon his church. As in the annals of nations
+it is commonly said that, while calamities and disasters crowd the page,
+the happy seasons are passed over in silence and have no record, so let
+it be here.
+
+My going up to Boston, to be acquainted with Channing, and to preach in
+his church, excited in me no small expectation and anxiety. I approached
+both the church and the man with something of trembling. Of Channing,
+of his character, of his conversation, and the great impression it made
+upon me, as upon everybody that approached him, I have already publicly
+spoken, in a sermon [FN 2] which I delivered on my return from Europe
+after his death, and in a letter to be inserted in Dr. Sprague's "Annals
+of the American Pulpit." In entering the pulpit of Dr. Channing, as
+his assistant for a season, I felt that I was committing myself to an
+altogether new ordeal, I had been educated in the Orthodox Church;
+I knew little or nothing about the style and way of preaching in the
+Unitarian 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 to
+Dr. Channing, was reprinted in 1831, on the occasion of the Channing
+Centennial Celebration at Newport, R. I.--M. E. D.]
+
+[50] Channing occupied, both as writer and preacher, and I naturally
+felt some anxiety about my reception. I will only say that it was kind
+beyond my expectation. After some months Dr. Channing went abroad, and I
+occupied his pulpit till he returned. In all, I was in his pulpit about
+two years. On my taking leave of it, the congregation presented me with
+a thousand dollars to buy a library. It was a most timely and welcome
+gift.
+
+During my residence in Boston, I made my first appearance, but
+anonymously, in print, in an essay entitled "Hints to Unitarians." How
+ready this body of Christians has always been to accept sincere and
+honest criticism, was evinced by the reception of my adventurous essay.
+My gratification, it may be believed, was not small on learning that it
+had been quoted with approbation in the English Unitarian pulpits; and
+Miss Martineau told me, when she was in this country, then learning that
+I was the author, that she, with a friend of hers, had caused it to be
+printed as a tract for circulation. She would say now that it was in her
+nonage that she did it.
+
+The most remarkable man, next to Channing, that I became acquainted with
+during this residence of two years in Boston, was Jonathan Phillips.
+He was a merchant by profession, but inherited a large fortune, and was
+never, that I know, engaged much in active business. He led, when I
+knew him, a contemplative life, was an assiduous reader, and a deeper
+thinker. He had [51] a splendid library, and spent much of his time
+among his books. If he had had the proper training for it, I always
+thought he would have made a great metaphysician. His conversation was
+often profound, and always original, always drawn from the workings
+of his own mind, and was always occupied with great philosophical and
+religious themes. It was born of struggle, more, I think, than any
+man's I ever talked with. For he had a great moral nature, and great
+difficulties within, arising partly from his religious education,
+but yet more from the contact with actual life of a very sensitive
+temperament and much ill health. He had worked his way out independently
+from the former, and stood on firm ground; and when some of his family
+friends charged Channing with having drawn him away from Orthodoxy,
+Channing replied, "No; he has influenced me more than I have influenced
+him."
+
+In London, in 1833, I met Mr. Phillips with Dr. Tuckerman, well known as
+the pioneer in the "Ministry to the Poor in Cities," about to take the
+tour on the Continent. He invited me to join them, and we travelled
+together on the Rhine and in Switzerland. It was on this journey that
+I became acquainted with the sad effect produced upon him by great
+and depressing indisposition. His case was very singular, and explains
+things in him that surprised his acquaintances very much, and, in fact,
+did him much wrong with them. It was a scrofulous condition of the
+stomach, and [52] when developed by taking cold, it was something
+dreadful to hear him describe. The effect was to make entirely another
+man of him. He who was affluent in means and disposition became suddenly
+not only depressed and melancholy, but anxious about expenses, sharp
+with the courier upon that point, and not at all agreeable as a
+travelling companion. But when the fit passed off, which seemed for
+the time to be a kind of insanity, his spirits rose, and his released
+faculties burst out in actual splendor. He became gay; he enjoyed
+everything, and especially the scenery around him. I never knew before
+that his aesthetic nature was so fine. He said so many admirable things
+while we were going over Switzerland, that I was sorry afterwards that
+I had not noted them down at the time, and written a sheet or two of
+Phillipsiana. His countenance changed as much as his conversation, and
+its expression became actually beautiful. There was a miniature likeness
+taken of him in London. I went to see it; and when I expressed to the
+artist 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 congregation
+was Josiah Quincy, who, during his life, occupied high positions in the
+country, and of a very dissimilar character,--
+
+[FN: the point in this is that Mr. Phillips' features were of singular
+and almost repellent homeliness till irradiated by thought or emotion.
+M. E. D.]
+
+[53] Member of Congress, Mayor of Boston, and President of Harvard
+University, 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, and
+deserves for that a statue in Boston.
+
+When Mr. Quincy was a very old man, I asked him one day how he had come
+to live so long, and in such health and vigor. He answered: "For forty
+years I have taken no wine; and every morning, before dressing myself,
+I have spent a quarter of an hour in gymnastic exercises." I adopted
+the practice, and have found it of great benefit, both as exercise, and
+inuring against colds. It is really as much exercise as a mile or two
+of walking. President Felton said: "After that, I can let the daily
+exercise take care of itself, without going doggedly about it." I find
+that a good many studious men are doing the same thing. I asked Bryant
+how much time he gave, and he said, "Three quarters of an hour." After
+that, at least in his summer home, he is upon his feet almost as much
+as a cat, and about as nimbly. With his thin and wiry frame, and simple
+habits, 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 other
+almost from boyhood, and their friendship had matured with time.
+The sudden death of the poet in 1878, from causes that seemed almost
+accidental, was a great and unexpected blow to the survivor, then
+himself 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 my
+experience. It is true one cannot argue for everybody from his own case.
+Nevertheless, I am persuaded that this morning exercise and the inuring
+would greatly promote the general health. "Catching cold" is a serious
+item in the lives of many people. One, two, or three months of every
+year they have a cold. For thirty years I have bathed in cold water and
+taken the air-bath every morning; and in all that time, I think, I have
+had but three colds, and I know where and how I got these, and that they
+might have been avoided.
+
+But I have wandered far from my ground, Boston, and my first residence
+there. I was Dr. Channing's guest for the first month or two, and then
+and afterwards knew all his family, consisting of three brothers and
+two sisters. They were not people of wealth or show, but something much
+better. Henry lived in retirement in the country, not having an aptitude
+for business, but a sensible person in other respects. George was
+an auctioneer, but left business and became a very ardent missionary
+preacher; and Walter was a respectable physician. William was placed in
+easy circumstances by his marriage. Their sister Lucy, Mrs. Russel of
+New York, told me that she was very much amused one day by something
+that her brother William said to Walter. "Walter," he said, "I think
+we are a very [55] prosperous family. There is Henry, he is a very
+excellent man. And George, why, George has come out a great spiritual
+man. And you, you know how you are getting along. And as for me, I do
+what I can. I think we are a very prosperous family."
+
+Mrs. Russel was a person of great sense, of strong, quiet thought
+and feeling; and some of her friends used to say that, with the same
+advantages and opportunities her brother had, she would have been his
+equal.
+
+On a day's visit which Henry once made me in New Bedford, I remember we
+had a long conversation on hunting and fishing, in which he condemned
+them, and I defended. Pushed by his arguments, at length I said, "for
+I went a-fishing myself sometimes with a boat on the Acushnet; yes, and
+barely escaped once being carried out to sea by the ebb tide," I said,
+"My fishing is not a reckless destruction of life; somebody must take
+fish, and bring them to us for food, and those I catch come to my
+table." "Now," said he, "that is as if you said to your butcher, You
+have 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 killing
+them 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 in
+print. His conversation struck me most; more [56] even than any of his
+writings 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 or
+wearisome. Edward Everett said, he had just returned from Europe, where
+doubtless he had seen eminent persons, "I have never met with anybody to
+whom it was so interesting to listen, and so hard to talk when my
+turn came." There was, indeed, a grand and surprising superiority in
+Channing's talk, both in the topics and the treatment of them. There
+was no repartee in it, and not much of give and take, in any way. People
+used to come to him, his clerical brethren, I remember Henry Ware
+and others speaking of it, they came, listened to him, said nothing
+themselves, 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 down
+a note or two on a bit of paper, and throw it into a pigeon-hole, which
+eventually became quite full.
+
+It would appear from all this that Channing was not a genial person, and
+he was not. He was too intent upon the subjects that occupied his
+mind for that varied and sportive talk, that abandon, that sympathetic
+adjustment of his thoughts to the moods of people around him, which
+makes the agreeable person. His thoughts [57] moved in solid battalions,
+but they carried keen weapons. It would have been better for him if he
+had had more variety, ease, and joyousness in society, and he felt it
+himself. He was not genial either in his conversation or letters. I
+doubt if one gay or sportive letter can be found among them all. His
+habitual 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-minded
+man, Dr. Follen, and in them both he always felt the strongest interest.
+Let any one compare Channing's letters with those of Lord Jeffrey, for
+instance. The ease and freedom of Jeffrey's letters, their mingled
+sense and playfulness, but especially the hearty grasp of affection and
+familiarity in them, make one feel as if he were introduced into some
+new and more charming society. Jeffrey begins one of his letters to Tom
+Moore 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 the
+claims of universal equality.
+
+In the autumn of 1823, on Dr. Channing's return to his pulpit, I went
+to New Bedford to preach in the Congregational Church, formerly Dr.
+(commonly called Pater) West's, was invited to be its pastor, and was
+ordained to that charge [58] on the 17th of December, Dr. Tuckerman
+giving the sermon. An incident occurred at the ordination which showed
+me that I had fallen into a new latitude of religious thought and
+feeling. After the sermon, and in the silence that followed, suddenly we
+heard the voice of prayer from the midst of the congregation. At first
+we were not a little disturbed by the irregularity, and the clergymen
+who 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 blessing
+on it, that when it closed, all said, "Amen! Amen!" It was a pretty
+remarkable conquest over prejudice and usage, achieved by simple and
+self-forgetting earnestness. Indeed, it seemed to have a certain before
+unthought-of fitness, as a response from the congregation, which is not
+given in our usual ordination services. The ten years' happy, and, I
+hope, not unprofitable ministration on my part that followed, and of
+fidelity on the part of the people, were perhaps some humble fulfilment
+and answer to the good petitions that it offered, and to all the
+brotherly exhortations and supplications of that hour.
+
+The congregation was small when I became its pastor, but it grew; a
+considerable number of families from the Society of Friends connected
+[59] themselves with it, and it soon rose, as it continues still, to be
+one of the wealthiest and most liberal societies in the country.
+
+My duties were very arduous. There was no clergyman with whom I could
+exchange within thirty miles; [FN] relief from this quarter, therefore,
+was rare, not more than four or five Sundays in the year. I was most of
+the time in my own pulpit, sometimes for ten months in succession. In
+addition to this, I became a constant contributor to the "Christian
+Examiner," for some years, I think as often as to every other number. It
+was not wise. The duties of the young clergyman are enough for him.
+The lawyer, the physician, advances slowly to full practice; the whole
+weight falls upon the clergyman's young strength at once. Mine sunk
+under it. I brought on a certain nervous disorder of the brain, from
+which I have never since been free. Of course it interfered seriously
+with my mental work. How many days hundreds and hundreds did one hour's
+study in the morning paralyze and prostrate me as completely as if I had
+been knocked on the head, and lay me, for hours after, helpless on my
+sofa! After the Sunday's preaching, the effect of which upon me was
+perhaps singular, making my back and bones ache, and my sinews as if
+they had been stretched on the rack, making me [60] feel as if I wanted
+to lie on the floor or on a hard board, if any one knows what that
+means, after all this, it would be sometimes the middle of the week,
+sometimes Thursday or Friday, before I could begin to work again, and
+prepare for the next Sunday. My professional life was a constant
+struggle; and yet I look back upon it, not with pain, but with pleasure.
+
+[FN: This distance, which now seems so trifling, then involved the hire
+of a horse and chaise for three days, and two long days' driving through
+deep, sandy roads. M. E. D.]
+
+Besides all this, subjects of great religious interest to me constantly
+pressed themselves upon my attention. I remember Dr. Lamson, of Dedham,
+a very learned and able man, asking me one day how I "found subjects to
+write 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 sermons
+have possibly a somewhat peculiar character; what, I do not know, but
+I remember William Ware's saying, when my first volume of Discourses
+appeared, "that they were written as if nobody ever wrote sermons
+before," and something so they were written. I do not suppose there
+is much originality of thought in them, nor any curiosa felicitas of
+language, I could not attend to it; it was as much as I could do to
+disburden myself, but original in this they are, that they were wrought
+out in the bosom of my own meditation and experience. The pen was dipped
+in my heart, I do know that. With burning brain and bursting tears I
+wrote. Little fruit, perhaps, for so much struggle; be it so, though it
+could not be so [61] to me. But so we work, each one in his own way; and
+altogether something comes of it.
+
+Early in my professional life, too, I met certain questions, which every
+thinking man meets sooner or later, and which were pressed upon my mind
+by the new element that came into our religious society. The Friends are
+trained up to reverence the inward light, and have the less respect for
+historical Christianity. The revelation in our nature, then, and the
+revelation in the Scriptures; the proper place of each in any just
+system of thought and theology; what importance is to be assigned to
+the primitive intuitions of right and wrong, and what to the
+supernaturalism, to the miracles of the New Testament, these were the
+questions, and I discussed them a good deal in the pulpit, as matters
+very practical to many of the minds with which I was dealing. I admitted
+the full, nay, the supreme value of the original intuitions, of the
+inward light, of the teachings of the Infinite Spirit in the human
+soul; without them we could have no religion; without them we could not
+understand the New Testament at all, and Christianity would be but as
+light to the blind; but I maintained that Christ's teaching and living
+and dying were the most powerful appeal and help and guidance to the
+inward nature, to the original religion of the soul, that it had ever
+received. And I believed and maintained that this help, at once most
+divine and most human, was commended to the world by miraculous
+[62] attestations. Not that the miracle, or the miracle-sanctioned
+Christianity, was intended to supersede or disparage the inward light;
+not that it made clearer the truth that benevolence is right, any more
+than 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 the
+seal of a mission, this was what I insisted on. And certainly a being
+who appeared before me, living a divine life, and assuring me of God's
+paternal care for me and of my own immortality, would impress me far
+more, 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 late
+work on "The Progress of Religious Ideas" it has been made to appear,
+that in the old systems there were foreshadowings of that which I
+receive as the most true and divine; that the light had been shining on
+brighter and brighter through all ages, that would not make it any
+the less credible or interesting to me, that Jesus should be the
+consummation 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's
+day. Nay, it would be more grateful to me to believe that all religions
+have had in them something supernaturally and directly from above, than
+that none have.
+
+[63] But time went on, and work went on, reason as I might; though time
+would have lost its light and life, and work all cheer and comfort, if I
+had not believed. But work grew harder. I was obliged to take longer and
+longer vacations, one of them five months long at the home in Sheffield.
+After this I went back to my work, preaching almost exclusively in
+my own pulpit, seldom going away, unless it was now and then for an
+occasional sermon.
+
+I went over to Providence in 1832, to preach the sermon at Dr. Hall's
+installation as pastor of the First Church. Arrived on the evening
+before, some of us of the council went to a caucus, preparatory to
+a Presidential election, General Jackson being candidate for the
+Presidency and Martin Van Buren for Vice-President. Finding the
+speaking rather dull, after an hour or more we rose to leave, when a
+gentleman touched my arm and said, "Now, if you will stay, you will hear
+something worth waiting for." We took our seats, and saw John Whipple
+rising to speak. I was exceedingly grateful for the interruption of our
+purpose, for I never heard an address to a popular assembly so powerful;
+close, compact, cogent, Demosthenic in simplicity and force, not a word
+misplaced, not a word too many, and fraught with that strange power over
+the 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 to
+think of himself.
+
+Mr. Whipple was in the opposition, and his main charge against Van Buren
+especially, was, that it was he who had introduced into our politics the
+fatal principle of "the spoils to the victors," a principle which, as
+the orator maintained, with prophetic sagacity, threatened ruin to the
+Republic. Still there was no extravagance in his way of bringing the
+charge. I remember his saying, "Does Mr. Van Buren, then, wish for the
+ruin of his country? No; Caesar never wished for the glory of Rome more
+than 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 of
+that party cry, "The spoils to the victors." It has made our elections
+scrambles for office, and our parties "rings." Mr. Whipple portrayed
+the consequences which we are now feeling, and powerfully urged that his
+State, small though it was, should do its utmost to ward them off. As
+he went on, and carried us higher and higher, I began to consider how he
+was to let us down. But the skilful orator is apt to have some clinching
+instance 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 who
+once stood up in the revolutionary battles for his country. In one of
+them, he told me, [65] when the little American army, ill armed, ill
+clad, and with bleeding feet, was drawn up in front of the disciplined
+troops of England, General Washington passed along our lines, and when
+he came before us, he stopped, and said, 'I place great confidence in
+this Rhode Island regiment.' And when I heard that," said he, "I clasped
+my musket to my breast, and said, Damn 'em; let 'em come!" "The immortal
+Chieftain" [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 found
+cultivated and interesting society there. I made friends, who are
+such to me still. In the pastoral relation, New Bedford was, and long
+continued 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, so
+I expressly told the church in New York (the Second Church); but I
+consented, in order to accomplish what they thought a great good,
+provided my congregation in New Bedford would give their consent. They
+would not give it; and I remained. I believe that I should have lived
+and died among them, if my health had not failed.
+
+But it failed to that degree that I could no longer do the work, and I
+determined to go abroad and recruit, and recover it, if possible. [66]
+This was in 1833. The Messrs. Grinnell & Co., of New York, offered me
+a passage back and forth in their ships, one of the thousand kind and
+generous things that they were always doing, and I sailed from New York
+in the "George Washington" on the 8th of June. It was like death to
+me to go. I can compare it to nothing else, going, as I did, alone. In
+London I consulted Sir James Clarke, who told me that the disease was
+in the brain, and that I must pass three or four years abroad if I would
+recover from it. I believe I stared at his proposition, it seemed to me
+so 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 will
+probably bring on the same trouble again; and if you do, in all
+probability 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 no
+consciousness of a brain for three months before I left Europe. I went
+to work as usual; in one month the whole trouble was upon me again, and
+it became evident that I must leave New Bedford. I could write no more
+sermons; I had preached every sermon I had, that was worth preaching,
+five times over, and I could not face another repetition. I retired with
+my family to the home in Sheffield, and expected to pass some years at
+least in the quiet of my native village. [67] I should like to record
+some New Bedford names here, so precious are they to me. Miss Mary Rotch
+is one, called by everybody "Aunt Mary," from mingled veneration and
+affection. It might seem a liberty to call her so; but it was not, in
+her case. She had so much dignity and strength in her character and
+bearing that it was impossible for any one to speak of her lightly. On
+our going to New Bedford, she immediately called upon us, and when she
+went out I could not help exclaiming, "Wife, were ever hearts taken by
+storm like that!" Storm, the word would be, according to the usage
+of the phrase; but it was the very contrary, a perfect simplicity and
+kindliness. But she was capable, too, of righteous wrath, as I had more
+than one occasion afterwards to see. Indeed, I was once the object of
+it myself. It was sometime after I left New Bedford, that, in writing a
+review 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 happened
+to use the phrase, "He died and made no sign," without thinking of the
+miserable Cardinal Beaufort, to whom Shakespeare applies it. Aunt Mary
+immediately came down upon me with a letter of towering indignation for
+my 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 she
+and Blanco White would be, and they were not too far beyond me for me to
+have any communion with them, she would see that I was guilty of no such
+exclusiveness as she had ascribed to me. She was pacified, I think, and
+we went on, as good friends as ever. Her religious opinions were of the
+most catholic stamp, and in one respect they were peculiar. The Friends'
+idea of the "inward light" seemed to have become with her coincident
+with the idea of the Author of all light; and when speaking of the
+Supreme Being, she would never say "God," but "that Influence." That
+Influence was constantly with her; and she carried the idea so far as
+to believe that it prompted her daily action, and decided for her every
+question of duty.
+
+Miss Eliza Rotch had come from her English home shortly before my going
+to New Bedford, and had brought, with her English education and sense,
+more than the ordinary English powers of conversation. She, like all her
+family, had been bred in the Friends' Society; and she came with many
+of them to my church. She was a most remarkable hearer. With her bright
+face, and her full, speaking eye, and interested especially, no doubt,
+in the new kind of ministration to which she was listening, she gave me
+her whole attention, often slightly nodding her assent, unconsciously to
+herself and unobserved by others. She married Professor John Farrar of
+Harvard, and [69] able mathematician, and one of the most genial and
+lovable 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 more
+wit, in New Bedford than there was in Boston. To be sure, we could
+not pretend to compare with Boston in culture and in high and fine
+conversation, least of all in music, which was at a very low ebb with
+us. I remember being at an Oratorio in one of our churches, where the
+trump of Judgment was represented by a horn not much louder than a
+penny-whistle, blown in an obscure corner of the building!
+
+Charles H. Warren was the prince of humorists among us, and would have
+been so anywhere. Channing said to me one day, "I want to see your
+friend 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 a
+cathedral." I never knew a man quite so full of the power to entertain
+others in conversation as he was. Lemuel Williams, his brother lawyer,
+had perhaps a subtler wit. But the way Warren would go on, for a whole
+evening, letting off bon-mots, repartees, and puns, made one think of a
+magazine of pyrotechnics. Yet he was a man of serious thought and fine
+intellectual powers. He was an able lawyer, and, placed upon the bench
+at an uncommonly, early [70] age, he sustained himself with honor. I
+used to lament that he would not study more, that he gave himself up
+so much to desultory reading; but he had no ambition. Yet, after all, I
+believe that the physical organization has more to do with every man's
+career than is commonly suspected. His was very delicate, his complexion
+fair, and his face, indeed, was fine and expressive in a rare degree.
+The sanguine-bilious, I think, is the temperament for deep intellectual
+power, like Daniel Webster's. It lends not only strength, but
+protection, to the workings of the mind within. It is not too sensitive
+to surrounding impressions. Concentration is force. Long, deep,
+undisturbed thinking, alone can bring out great results. I have been
+accustomed to criticise my own temperament in this respect, too easily
+drawn aside from study by circumstances, persons, or things around me,
+external interests or trifles, the wants and feelings of others, or
+their sports, a playing child or a crowing cock. My mind, such as it
+is, has had to struggle with this outward tendency, too much feeling and
+sentiment, and too little patient thinking, and I believe that I should
+have accomplished a great deal more if I had had, not the sanguine
+alone, but the sanguine-bilious temperament.
+
+Manasseh Kempton had it. He was the deacon of my church. I used to think
+that nobody knew, or at least fairly appreciated, him as I did. Under
+that heavy brow, and phlegmatic aspect, [71] and reserved bearing,
+there was an amount of fire and passion and thought, and sometimes in
+conversation 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 this
+account of the New Bedford men. With great wealth, with the most
+beautiful situation in the town, and, yet more, with the aid of his
+wife, never mentioned or remembered but to be admired, his house was the
+acceptable resort of strangers, more than any other among us. Mr. Arnold
+was not only a man of unshaken integrity, but of strong thought; and
+if a liberal education had given him powers of utterance, the habit of
+marshalling his thoughts, equal to the powers of his mind, he would have
+been known as one of the remarkable men in the State.
+
+One other figure rises to my recollection, which seems hardly to belong
+to the modern world, and that is Dr. Whittredge of Tiverton. In his
+religious faith he belonged to us, and occasionally came over to attend
+our church. I used, from time to time, to pay him visits of a day or
+two, always made pleasant by the placid and gentle presence of his wife,
+and by the brisk and eager conversation of the old gentleman. He was
+acquainted in his earlier days with my predecessor, of twenty-five years
+previous date, Dr. West, himself a remarkable man in his day, [72] and
+almost equally so, both for his eccentricity and his sense. An eccentric
+clergyman, by the by, is rarely seen now; but in former times it was a
+character as common as now it is rare. The commanding position of the
+clergy the freedom they felt to say and do what they pleased brought
+that trait out in high relief. The great democratic pressure has passed
+like a roller over society: everybody is afraid of everybody; everybody
+wants something, office, appointment, business, position, and he is to
+receive it, not from a high patron, but from the common vote or opinion.
+
+Dr. West's eccentricity arose from absorption into his own thoughts, and
+forgetfulness of everything around him. He would pray in the family in
+the evening till everybody went to sleep, and in the morning till the
+breakfast was spoiled. He would preach upon some Scripture passage till
+some one went and moved his mark forward. He once paid a visit to the
+Governor in Boston, and, having got drenched in the rain, was supplied
+with a suit of his host's, which unconsciously, he wore home, and
+arrayed in which, he appeared in his pulpit on Sunday morning. At the
+same time he was a man of strong and independent thought. I have read
+a "Reply" of his to Edwards on the Will, in which the subject was ably
+discussed, but without the needful logical coherence, perhaps, to make
+its mark in the debate. [73] The conversations of West with his friend,
+Dr. Whittredge, as the latter told me, ran constantly into theological
+questions, upon which they differed. West was a frequent visitor at
+Tiverton, and, when the debate drew on towards midnight, Whittredge was
+obliged 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." He
+was vexed, he said, that he should thus seem to "cry quarter" in the
+controversy again and again, and he resolved that the next time he met
+West, he would not stop, be they where they might. It so happened that
+their next meeting was at the head of Acushnet River, three miles above
+New Bedford, where Whittredge was visiting his patients, and West his
+parishioners. This done, they set out towards evening to walk to New
+Bedford. Whittredge throwing the bridle-rein over his arm, they walked
+on slowly, every now and then turning aside into some crook of the
+fence, the horse meantime getting his advantage in a bit of green grass,
+and thus they talked and walked, and walked and talked, till the day
+broke!
+
+But the most remarkable thing about my venerable parishioner remains to
+be mentioned. Dr. Whittredge was an alchemist. He had a furnace, in a
+little building separate from his house, where he kept a fire for forty
+years, till he was more than eighty, visiting it every night, of summer
+and winter alike, to be sure of keeping it alive; [74] and melting
+down, as his family said, many a good guinea, and all to find the
+philosopher's stone, the mysterious metal that should turn all to gold.
+From delicacy I never alluded to the subject with him, I am sorry now
+that I did not. And he never adverted to it with me but once, and that
+was in a way which showed that he had no mean or selfish aims in his
+patient and mysterious search; and, indeed, no one could doubt that he
+was a most benevolent and kind-hearted man. The occasion was this: He
+had been to our church one day, indeed, it was his last attendance, and
+as we came down from the pulpit, where he always sat, the better to hear
+me, and as we were walking slowly through the broad aisle, he laid his
+hand 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 it
+will have it before long."
+
+While in Europe I had kept a journal, and I low published it under the
+title of "The Old World and the New," and about the same time, I forget
+which was first, a volume of sermons entitled, "Discourses on Various
+Subjects." The idea of my book of travels, I think, was a good me, to
+survey the Old World from the experience of the New, and the New from
+the observation of the Old; but it was so ill carried out hat what I
+mainly 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 health
+did not allow of it. I made many notes, but brought nothing into shape
+for publication. I still believe that America has much to teach to
+Europe, especially in the energy, development, and progress lent to a
+people by the working of the free principle; and that Europe has much to
+teach to America, in the value of order, routine, thorough discipline,
+thorough education, division of labor, economy of means, adjustment of
+the means to living, etc. As to my first volume of sermons, if any one
+would see his thoughts laid out in a winding-sheet, let them be laid
+before him in printer's proofs; that which had been to me alive and
+glowing, and had had at least the life of earnest utterance, now,
+through this weary looking over of proof-sheets, seemed dead and
+shrouded for the grave. It did not seem to me possible that anybody
+would find it alive. I have hardly ever had a sadder feeling than that
+with which I dismissed this volume from my hands.
+
+At the time of my retirement to Sheffield, the Second Congregational
+Church in New York, which had formerly invited me to its pulpit, was
+without a pastor, and I was asked to go down there and preach. I could
+preach, though I could not write; my sermons, with their five earmarks
+upon them in New Bedford, would be new in another pulpit, and I
+consented. I was soon [76] invited to take charge of the church, but
+declined it. It was even proposed to me to be established simply
+as preacher, and to be relieved from parochial visiting; but as the
+congregation was small, and could not support a pastor beside me, I
+declined that also. But I went on preaching, and after about a year,
+feeling myself stronger, I consented to be settled in the church with
+full charge, and was installed on the 8th November, 1835, Dr. Walker
+preaching the sermon.
+
+The church was on the corner of Mercer and Prince Streets; a bad
+situation, inasmuch as it was on a corner, that is, it was noisy, and
+the annoyance became so great that I seriously thought more than once
+of proposing to the congregation to sell and build elsewhere. On other
+accounts the church was always very pleasant to me. It was of moderate
+size, holding seven or eight hundred people, and became in the course
+of a year or two quite full. The stairs to the galleries went up on the
+inside, giving it, I know not what, a kind of comfortable and domestic
+air, very social and agreeable; and last, not least, it was easy
+to speak in. This last consideration, I am convinced, is of more
+importance, and is so in more ways, than is commonly supposed. A place
+hard to speak in is apt to create, especially in the young preacher just
+forming his habits, a hard and unnatural manner of speaking. More than
+one young preacher have I known, who began with good natural tones, in
+the 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 disagreeable
+stress of voice, to be heard. One must be heard, that is the first
+requisite, and to have one and another come out of church Sunday after
+Sunday, and touch your elbow, and say, "Sir, I could n't hear you; I
+was interested in what I could hear, but just at the point of greatest
+interest, half of the time, I lost your cadence," is more than any man
+can bear for a long time, and so he resorts to loud tones and monotonous
+cadences, and he is obliged to think, much of the time, more of the mere
+dry fact of being heard, than of the themes that should pour themselves
+out in full unfolding ease and freedom. I have fought through my whole
+professional life against this criticism, striving to keep some freedom
+and nature in my speech, though I have made every effort consistent with
+that to be heard. I have not always succeeded; but I have tried, and
+have always been grateful, a considerable virtue, especially when the
+hearer was himself a little deaf to every one who admonished me. This
+is really a matter that seriously concerns the very religion that
+we preach. Everybody knows what the preaching tone is; it can
+be 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 be
+hard and unnatural, the very idea of religion is likely to be hard and
+unnatural, far away from the every-day life and affections of men. Stamp
+upon music a character as hard, technical, unnatural as most preaching
+has, and would men be won by it? I do not say that what I have mentioned
+is 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 importance
+that I think no church interior should be built without especial nay,
+without sole reference to the end for which it is built, namely, to
+speak in. Let what can be done for the architecture of the exterior
+building; but let not an interior be made with recesses and projections
+and pillars and domes, only to please the eye, while it is to hurt the
+edification of successive generations, for two or for ten centuries. No
+ornamentation can compensate for that injury. The science of acoustics
+is as yet but little understood; all that we seem to know thus far is
+that the plain, unadorned parallelogram is the best form. And even if
+we must stick to that, I had rather have it than a church half ruined
+by architectural devices. Our Protestant churches are built, not for
+ceremonies and spectacles and processions, but for prayer and preaching.
+And the fitness of means to ends that first law of architecture is
+sacrificed by a church interior made more to be looked at than to be
+heard in. [79] But to return: we were not long to occupy the pleasant
+little church in Mercer Street, pleasant memories I hope there are of it
+to others besides myself. On Sunday morning, the 26th November, 1837,
+it was burned to the ground. Nothing was saved but my library, which was
+flung out of the vestry window, and the pulpit Bible, which I have, a
+present from the trustees.
+
+The congregation immediately took a hall for temporary worship in the
+Stuyvesant Institute, and directed its thoughts to the building of a new
+church. Much discussion there was as to the style and the locality
+of the new structure, and at length it was determined to build in a
+semi-Gothic style, on Broadway. I was not myself in favor of Broadway,
+it being the great city thoroughfare, and ground very expensive; but it
+was thought best to build there. It was contended that a propagandist
+church should occupy a conspicuous situation, and perhaps that view has
+been 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 one
+Broadway 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 the
+2d May, 1839, it was dedicated, under the name of the Church of
+the Messiah. The burning of our sanctuary had [80] proved to be our
+upbuilding; the position of the Stuyvesant Institute on Broadway, and
+the plan of free seats, had increased our numbers, and we entered the
+new church with a congregation one third larger than that with which we
+left the old. The building had cost about $90,000, and it was a critical
+moment 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 brought
+me, two hours after the auction was opened, that $70,000 worth of pews
+were taken.
+
+It was a strong desire with me that the church should have some
+permanent 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 be
+known by some fixed designation, and so pass down, gathering about it
+the sacred associations of years and ages to come. I believe that it was
+the first instance in our Unitarian body of solemnly dedicating a church
+by some sacred name.
+
+Another wish of mine was to enter the new church with the Liturgy
+of King's Chapel in Boston for our form of service. The subject was
+repeatedly discussed in meetings of the congregation; but although it
+became evident that there would be a majority in favor of it, yet as
+these did not demand it, and there was a considerable minority strongly
+opposed to it, we judged that there was not a state of feeling among us
+that would justify the introduction of what so essentially [81] required
+unanimity and heartiness as a new form of worship. And I am now glad
+that it was not introduced. For while I am as much satisfied as ever
+of the great utility of a Liturgy, I have become equally convinced that
+original, 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 own
+ministration and to the edification of his people. The best service, I
+think, should consist of both.
+
+And I cannot help believing that a church service will yet be arranged
+which will be an improvement upon all existing ones, Roman Catholic,
+Church of England, or any other. If in the highest ranges of human
+attainment there is to be an advancement of age beyond age, surely there
+is to be a progress in the spirit and language of prayer. From some
+forming hand and heart, by the united aid of consecrated genius, wisdom,
+and piety, something is to come greater than we have yet seen. No
+Homeric poem or vision of Dante is so grand as that will be. What is the
+highest idea of God, excluding superstition, anthropomorphism, and vague
+impersonality alike, what is the fit and true utterance of the deepest
+and divinest heart to God, this, I must think, may well occupy the
+sublimest meditations of human intellect and devotion. Not that the
+entire 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 of
+the Litanies [82] that have echoed in the ear of all the ages from the
+early Christian time. The churches of Rome and England and Germany have
+some of these; and in a service-book, supposed to be compiled by the
+Chevalier Bunsen, there are others, prayers of Basil and of Jerome and
+Augustine, and of the old German time. There are beautiful things in
+them, especially in the old German prayers there is something very
+filial, free, and touching; but they would want a great deal of
+expurgation, and I believe that better prayers are uttered today than
+were ever heard before; and it is from uttered, not written prayers, if
+I could do so by the aid of a stenographer or of a perfect memory, that
+I would draw contributions to a book of devotion. What would I not give
+for some prayers of Channing or of Henry Ware! some that I have heard
+by their own firesides, or of Dr. Gardiner Spring, or of Dr. Payson of
+Portland, that I heard in church many years ago, for the very words that
+fell from their lips! I do not believe that the right prayers were ever
+composed, Dr ever will be.
+
+After the dedication of our church I went on with my duties for three
+years, and then again broke down in health, able indeed, that is,
+with physical strength, to preach, but not able to write sermons. The
+congregation increased; many of is members became communicants; in the
+last Tear before I went abroad once more, the church [83] was crowded;
+in the evening especially, the aisles as well as pews were sometimes
+filled.
+
+It was this fulness of the attendance in the evening that reconciled me
+to a second service; especially it was that many strangers came, to whom
+I had no other opportunity to declare my views of religion. For I
+judge that, for any given congregation, one service of worship, and of
+meditation such as the sermon is designed to awaken, is enough for one
+day. In the "Christian Examiner," two or three years after this, I think
+it was; I published an article on this subject, in which I maintained
+that there was too much preaching, too much preaching for the preacher,
+and too much preaching for the people. It was received with great
+surprise and little favor, I believe, at the time; but since then not
+a few persons, both of the clergy and laity, have expressed to me their
+entire agreement with it. What I said, and say, is that one sermon, one
+discourse of solemn meditation, designed to make a distinct and abiding
+impression upon the heart and life, is all that anybody should preach
+or hear in one day, and that the other part of Sunday should be used for
+conference or Sunday-school, or instructive lecture, or something with
+a character and purpose different from the morning meditation, something
+to instruct the people in the history, or evidences, or theory, or
+scriptural exposition of our religion. Indeed, I did this myself as
+often as I was able, though it tried the [84] religious prejudices of
+some of my people, and my own too, about what a sermon should be. I
+discussed the morals of trade, political morality, civic duty, that of
+voters, jurymen, etc., social questions, peace and war, and the problem
+of the human life and condition. Some portions of these last were
+incorporated into the course of Lowell Lectures on this subject, which
+I afterwards published. And it is high time to take this matter into
+serious consideration; for in all churches where the hearing of two or
+three sermons on Sunday is not held to be a positive religious duty, the
+second service is falling away into a thin and spectral shadow of public
+worship, discouraging to the attendants upon it, and dishonoring to
+religion itself.
+
+The pastor of a large congregation in the city of New York has no
+sinecure. The sermons to be written, the parochial visiting, once a
+year, at least, to each family, and weekly or daily to the sick and
+afflicted, my walks commonly extended to from four to seven miles a
+day, the calls of the poor and distressed, laboring under every kind of
+difficulty, the charities to be distributed, I was in part the almoner
+of the congregation, the public meetings, the committees to be attended,
+the constantly widening circle of social relations and engagements, the
+pressure, in fine, of all sorts of claims upon time and thought, all
+this made a very laborious life for me. Yet it was pleasant, and very
+interesting. I thought when I [85]first went to the great city, when
+I first found myself among those busy throngs, none of whom knew me,
+beside those ranges of houses, none of which had any association for
+me, that I should never feel at home in New York. But it became very
+home-like to me. The walls became familiar to my eye; the pavement grew
+soft to my foot. I built me a house, that first requisite for feeling at
+home. I chanced to see a spot that I fancied: it was in Mercer Street,
+between Waverley Place and Eighth Street, just in the centre of
+everything, a step from Broadway and my church, just out of the noise of
+everything; there we passed many happy days. I have been quite a builder
+of houses in my life. I built one in New Bedford. My study had the
+loveliest outlook upon Buzzard's Bay and the Elizabeth Islands, I shall
+never have such a study again. Oh, the joy of that sea view! When I came
+to it again, after a vacation's absence, it moved me like the sight of
+an old friend. And I have built about the old home in Sheffield, till it
+is 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 are
+dear to me. When I first went to New York, I was elected a member of the
+Artists' Club, or Club of the Twenty-one, as it was called; by what good
+fortune or favor I know not, for I was the first clergyman that had ever
+been a member of it. It consisted of artists and other gentlemen,
+[86] an equal number of each. Cole and Durand and Ingham and Inman and
+Chapman and Bryant and Verplanck and Charles Hoffman were in it when I
+first became acquainted with it; and younger artists have been brought
+into it since, Gray and' Huntingdon and Kensett, and other
+non-professional gentlemen interested in art, and the meetings have been
+always pleasant. It was a kind of heart's home to me while I lived in
+New York, and I always resort to it now when I go there, sure of welcome
+and kindly greeting.'
+
+Then, again, I had in William Ware, the pastor of the First Church, a
+friend 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 intimate
+as I ever had with any man, and our constant intercourse, to enter
+his house as freely as my own, his coming to mine was as a sunbeam, as
+cheering and undisturbing, I thought I could not get along without
+it. But I was obliged to do so. He had often talked of resigning his
+situation, and I had obtained from him a promise that he would never do
+it without consulting me. Great was my surprise, then, to learn, one day
+while in the country, that he had sent in his resignation. My first
+word to him on going to town was, "What is this? You have broken your
+promise." "I did not consult even [87] my father or my brothers," was
+his reply. I could say nothing. The truth was, that things had come to
+that pass in his mind that the case was beyond consultation. He
+considered himself as having made a fatal mistake in his choice of a
+profession. I have some very touching letters from him, in which he
+dwells upon it as his "mistake for a life." His nature was essentially
+artistic; he would have made a fine painter. He could have worked
+between silent walls. He could write admirably, as all the world knows;
+I need only mention "Zenobia" and "Aurelian" and "Probus." But there was
+a certain delicacy and shrinking in his nature that made it difficult
+for him to pour himself out freely in the presence of an audience. And
+yet a congregation, consisting in part of some of the most cultivated
+persons in New York, held him, as preacher and pastor, in an esteem and
+affection that any man might have envied.
+
+[FN: The well-known Century Club of New York is the modern development
+of 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's
+departure, came Bellows to fill his place. I gave him the right hand of
+fellowship at his ordination; and I remember saying in it, that I would
+not have believed it possible for me to welcome anybody to the place of
+his predecessor with the pleasure with which I welcomed him. The augury
+of that hour has been fulfilled in most delightful intercourse with
+one of the noblest and most generous men I ever knew. With a singularly
+clear insight and penetration [88] into the deepest things of our
+spiritual nature, with an earnestness and fearlessness breaking through
+all technical rules and theories, with a buoyancy and cheerfulness that
+nothing can dampen, with a fitness and readiness for all occasions, his
+power as a preacher and his pleasantness as a companion have made him
+one of the most marked men of his day.
+
+As to my general intercourse with society, whether in New York or
+elsewhere, I have always felt that its freedom lay under disagreeable
+restrictions, if not under a lay-interdict; and when travelling as
+a stranger I have always chosen not to be known as a clergyman, and
+commonly was not. I once had a curious and striking illustration of the
+feeling 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, I
+said to him: "Mr. Hall, I am sorry you have formed this kind of club, a
+club exclusively of lawyers. In Boston they have one of long standing,
+consisting of our professions, and four members of each, that is of
+lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and merchants." "To tell you the truth,"
+he answered, "I don't like the clergy." I said that I could conceive
+of 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; they
+talk [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 not
+true; and, besides, if I could bring all the clergy of this city into
+clubs of the Boston description, I believe those habits would be broken
+up in a single year."
+
+There were two men who came to our church whose coming seemed to be by
+chance, but was of great interest to me, for I valued them greatly. They
+were Peter Cooper and Joseph Curtis. Neither of them, then, belonged
+to any religious society, or regularly attended upon any church.
+They happened to be walking down Broadway one Sunday evening as the
+congregation were altering Stuyvesant Hall, where we then temporarily
+worshipped, 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 themselves
+with the congregation, to be among its most valued members.
+
+Peter Cooper was even then meditating that plan of a grand Educational
+Institute which he afterwards carried out. He was engaged in a large and
+successful business, and his one idea which he often discussed with
+me was to obtain the means of building that Institute. A man of the
+gentlest nature and the simplest habits; yet his religious nature was
+his most remarkable quality. It seemed to breathe through his life as
+[90] fresh and tender as if it were in some holy retreat, instead of
+a life of business. Mr. Cooper has become a distinguished man, much
+engaged in public affairs, and much in society. I have seen him but
+little of late years; but I trust he has not lost that which is worth
+more than all the distinctions and riches in the world.
+
+Joseph Curtis was a man much less known generally, and yet, in one
+respect, much more, and that was in the sphere of the public schools. He
+did more, I think, than any man to bring up the free schools of New York
+to such a point as compelled our Boston visitors to confess that they
+were not a whit inferior to their own. And his were voluntary and unpaid
+services, though his means were always moderate. He neither had, nor
+made, nor cared to make, a fortune. He cared for the schools as for
+nothing else; and there is no wiser or nobler care. For more than twenty
+years he spent half of his time in the schools, walking among them with
+such intelligent and gentle oversight as to win universal confidence
+and 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, the
+only time that I ever met the latter in company. He was saying, after
+his fashion in the "Tribune,"--he was from nature and training a
+Democrat, and had no natural right ever to be in [91] the Whig party, he
+was saying that the miseries of the poor in New York were all owing to
+the rich; when I said, "Mr. Greeley, here sits Mr. Joseph Curtis, who
+has walked the streets of New York for more years than you and I have
+been here, and I propose that we listen to him." He could not refuse to
+make the appeal, and so I put a series of questions upon the point to
+Mr. Curtis. The answers did not please Mr. Greeley. He broke in once or
+twice, saying, "Am not I to have a chance to speak? ". But I persisted
+and said, "Nay, but we have agreed to listen to Mr. Curtis." The upshot
+was, that, in his opinion, the miseries of the poor in New York were not
+owing to the rich, but mainly to themselves; that there was ordinarily
+remunerative labor enough for them; and that, but in exceptional
+cases of sickness and especial misfortune, those who fell into utter
+destitution and beggary came to that pass through their idleness, their
+recklessness, or their vices. That was always my opinion. They besieged
+our door from morning till night, and I was obliged to help them, to
+look after them, to go to their houses; my family was worn out with
+these 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 the
+walks we took to avoid this, and often with little satisfaction. I have
+walked 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 metal
+buttons and new boots, and just sitting down to a very comfortable
+dinner. The wife was rather taken aback by my entrance, it was she who
+had 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 not
+receiving his rents from England. He was the owner of two houses in
+Sheffield." "Well," I said, "If that is so, you are better off than I
+am;" and I took a not very courteous leave of them.
+
+To give help in a better way, an Employment Society was formed in our
+church to cut out and prepare garments for poor women to sew, and
+be paid for it. A salesroom was opened in Amity Street, to sell the
+articles made up, at a trifling addition to their cost. The ladies of
+the 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 poor
+women came every Thursday to bring their work and receive more; and they
+have been coming to this day. It was thought an excellent plan, and was
+adopted by other churches. The ladies of All Souls joined in it, and the
+institution is now transferred to that church.
+
+One day, in the winter I think of 1837, I heard of an association of
+gentlemen formed to investigate this terrible subject of mendacity in
+our city, and to find some way of methodizing our chari-[93] ties and
+protecting them from abuse. I went down immediately to Robert Minturn,
+who, I was told, took a leading part in this movement, and told him that
+I had come post-haste to inquire what he and his friends were doing, for
+that 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 would
+fain fling up my regular professional duties, and plunge into this great
+sea of city pauperism and misery.
+
+Mr. Minturn told me that he, with four or five others, had taken up
+this subject; that, for more than a year past, they had met together one
+evening in the week to confer with one another upon it; that they had
+opened a correspondence with all our great cities, and with some in
+Europe; and sometimes had sent out agents to inquire into the methods
+that had been adopted to stem these enormous city evils. Mr. Minturn
+wished 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, under
+their auspices. I suppose there was no personal feeling against me, only
+an Orthodox one. Well, no matter. It was a noble enterprise, better
+than any sectarianism ever suggested, and worthy of record, especially
+considering its spontaneity, labor, and expense.
+
+Their plan, when matured, was this: to district the city; to appoint
+one person in each district to receive all applications for aid; to
+sell tickets [94] of various values, which we could buy and give the
+applicant at our doors, to be taken to the agent, who would render the
+needed help, according to his judgment. Of course the beggars did not
+like 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 prevent
+them from availing themselves of the aid of twenty families, all acting
+in 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, with
+such a warmth in his accost that to shake hands with him was to feel
+happier for it all the day after. I remember passing down Wall Street
+one day when old Robert Lenox was standing by his side. After one of
+those 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 upon
+him!" said the old man. It was a good prayer, and I have no doubt it was
+kindly made.
+
+Alas! What I am writing is a necrology: they are all gone of whom I
+speak. George Curtis, too; he died before I left the Church of the
+Messiah, died in his prime. George William Curtis is [95] his son, well
+known as one of our most graceful writers and eloquent men: something
+hereditary 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. He
+could make a good speech, and once he made one that was more effective
+than I could have wished. The question was about electing Thomas Starr
+King to be my colleague. The congregation was immensely taken with him;
+but Mr. Curtis opposed on the ground that King was a Universalist, and
+he carried everything before him. He said, as it was reported to me, "I
+was born a Unitarian; I have lived a Unitarian; and, if God please,
+I mean to die a Unitarian!" He had the old-fashioned, and indeed
+well-founded, dislike of Universalism. But all that is changed now, was
+changing then; for the Universalists have given up their preaching of no
+retribution hereafter. They are in other respects, also, Unitarians, and
+the two bodies affiliate and are friends.
+
+Moses Grinnell was a marked man in New York. A successful and popular
+merchant, his generosity was ample as his means; and I have known him
+in circumstances that required a higher generosity than that of giving
+money, and he stood the test perfectly. His mind, too, grew with his
+rise in the world. He was sent to Congress, and his acquaintance from
+that time with many distinguished men gave a new turn to his thoughts
+and 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 niece
+he married. Of course everybody knows of Washington Irving; but there
+are one or two anecdotes, of which I doubt whether they appear in his
+biography, and which I am tempted to relate. He told me that he once
+went to a theatre in London to hear some music. (They use theatres in
+London 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 for
+he broke all the others was a heart-string.) Mr. Irving said that on
+entering the theatre he found in the pit only three or four English
+gentleman, who had evidently come early, as he had, to find a good
+place. Accordingly, he took his seat near them, when one of them rather
+loftily said, "That seat is engaged, sir." He got up and took a seat a
+little farther off, when they said, "That, too, is engaged." Again he
+meekly 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 blown
+his visnomy to a point. Another blew as if he were blowing his whole
+estate, real and personal, through his instrument. I quote from memory.)
+Mr. Irving said they went over with the whole description, with much
+entertainment 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 known
+him.
+
+Mrs. S. told me that one evening he strolled up to their piazza, they
+lived near to one another in the country, and fell into one of those
+easy and unpremeditated talks, in which, to be sure, he was always most
+pleasant, when he said, among other things, "Don't be anxious about the
+education of your daughters: they will do very well; don't teach them
+so many things,--teach them one thing." "What is that, Mr. Irving?" she
+asked. "Teach them," he said, "to be easily pleased."
+
+Bryant, too, everybody knows of. Now he is chiefly known as poet; but
+when I went to New York-people thought most about him as editor of the
+"Evening Post," and that with little enough complacency in the circles
+where I moved. How many a fight I had for him with my Whig friends! For
+he 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, when
+some keen editorial appeared in it, they used to say, "There! What do
+you say of that?" I always said the same thing: Whether you and I like
+what he says or not, whether we think it fair or not, of one thing be
+sure, he is a man of perfect integrity; he is so almost to a fault, if
+that be possible, regarding [98] neither feelings nor friendships, nor
+anything 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. Seating
+himself before the poet, Audubon quietly said, "You are our flower,"--a
+very pretty compliment, I thought, from a man of the woods.
+
+I happened to fall in with Mr. Audubon one day in the cars going to
+Philadelphia, when he was setting out, I think, on his last great tour
+across the American wilderness. He described to me his outfit, to be
+assumed when he arrived at the point of departure, a suit of dressed
+deerskin, his only apparel. In this he was to thread the forest and swim
+the rivers; with his rifle, of course, and powder and shot; a tin case
+to hold his drawing-paper and pencils, and a blanket. Meat, the produce
+of the chase, was to be his only food, and the earth his bed, for two or
+three months. I said, shrinking from such hardship, "I could n't stand
+that."--"If you were to go with me," he replied, "I would bring you out
+on the other side a new man." He broke down under it, however, rather
+prematurely; for in that condition I saw him once more,--his health and
+faculties shattered,--near the end of his life.
+
+[99] But to return,--turning and returning upon one's self must be the
+course of an autobiography, my health having a second time completely
+failed, I determined again to go abroad; and to make the measure of
+relief more complete, I determined to go for two years, and to take my
+family with me. The sea was a horror to me, but beyond it lay pleasant
+lands that I wanted to look upon once more, galleries of art by which
+I wished to sit down and study at my leisure, and, above all, rest: I
+wanted to be where no one could call on me to preach or lecture, to do
+this 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 in
+August, 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." The
+Campagne at Champel, where we were passing the summer, is washed for
+half a mile by the Arve. In hot August days I walked slowly by the
+river-bank, with cloak on, till a moderate perspiration was induced,
+then jumped in,--and out as quick! for the river, though it had run
+sixty miles from its source, seemed as cold as when it left the glacier
+of the Arveiron at Chamouni. Experiencing no ill effect, however, I
+determined to try the regular water-cure, and for this purpose, in
+[100] our travel through Switzerland, stopped at Meyringen in the Vale
+of Hasli. I was "packed,"-bundled up in bed blankets every morning at
+daybreak, went through the consequent furnace of heat and drench of
+perspiration for two or three hours,--then was taken by a servant on
+his back, me and my wrappages, the whole bundle, and carried down to the
+great bath, only 6 of Reaumur above ice (45 degrees Fahrenheit), plunged
+in, got out again in no deliberate way, was pushed under a shower-bath
+of the same glacier water, fought my way out of that, at arm's end with
+the attendant, when he enveloped me in warm, dry sheets, and made me
+comfortable in one minute. It was of no use, however. My brain grew more
+nervous, the doctor agreed that it did not suit me, and shortly I gave
+it 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. The
+old man expressed his pleasure that the people had enjoyed themselves in
+Carnival, "But now," said he, "I suppose a great many of them will find
+themselves out of health in Lent, and will want indulgences." I could
+not 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 if
+the pressure of stupendous and crowding histories were upon every day.
+A presence haunts you that is more than all you see. We Americans, with
+some 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 in
+Rome, and I answered,--To think that this is Rome!" Lucien Bonaparte,
+who sat opposite me at table, bowed his head with emphasis, as if
+he said, "That is true." He was entitled to know what great historic
+memories are; and those of his family, criticise them as we may,--and I
+am not one of their admirers,--do not, perhaps, fall below much of the
+Roman imperial grandeur.
+
+On coming to England from the Continent, among many things to admire,
+there were two things we were especially thankful for,--comfort and
+hospitality. We had not been in London half a day before I had rented
+a furnished house, and we were established in it. That is, the
+owner, occupying the basement, gave us the parlors above and ample
+sleeping-rooms, and the use of her servants,-we defraying the expense of
+our table,--for so much a month. We took possession of our apartments
+an hour after we had engaged them, and had nothing to do but order our
+dinner and walk out; and all this for less, I think, than it would have
+cost 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 to
+know was worth going far, and whom [102] to remember has been a constant
+pleasure ever since.
+
+Well, we came back in August, 1843, in the steamer "Hibernia." What
+a joy to return home! We landed in Boston. The railroad across
+Massachusetts had been completed during our absence, and brought us
+to Sheffield in six or seven hours; it had always been a weary journey
+before, of three days by coach, or a week with our own horse. A few
+days' rest, and then six or eight hours more took us to New York, where
+we found the water fountains opened; the Croton had been brought in that
+summer. Did it not seem all very fit and festal to us? For we had come
+home!
+
+My health, however, was only partially reestablished, and the recruiting
+which 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 church
+there. En the spring I returned to New York, struggled on with my duties
+in the church for another year; in the spring of 1848 sold my house, and
+retired to the Sheffield home, continuing to preach occasionally in New
+York for a number of months longer, when, early in 1849, my connection
+with the Church of the Messiah was finally dissolved. I would willingly
+have remained with it on condition of discharging a partial service,
+with a colleague to assist me: it was the only chance I saw [103] of
+continuing in my profession. The congregation, at my instance, had
+sought for a colleague, both during my absence in Europe and in the
+later years of my continuance with it, but had failed,--there appearing
+to be some singular reluctance in our young preachers to enter into
+that relation,--and there seemed nothing for the church to do but to
+inaugurate a new ministration.
+
+It was in this crisis of my worldly affairs, so trying to a clergyman
+who is dependent on his salary, that I experienced the benefit of a rule
+that early in life I prescribed to myself; and that was, always to lay
+up for a future day some portion of my annual income. I insisted upon it
+that, with as much foresight as the ant or the bee, I might be allowed
+without question so to use the salary appointed to me as to make some
+provision for the winter-day of life, or for the spring that would come
+after, and might be to others bleak and cold and desolate without it. So
+often have I witnessed this, that I am most heartily thankful that, on
+leaving New York, I was not reduced to utter destitution, and that with
+some moderate exertion I am able to provide for our modest wants. At
+the same time I do not feel obliged to conceal the conviction, and never
+did, that the service of religion in our churches meets with no just
+remuneration. One may suffer martyrdom and not complain; but I do not
+think 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 the
+burden of the parochial charge. I regretted to leave New York; I could
+have wished to live and die among the friends I had there; I should make
+it my plan now to spend my winters there, if I could afford it: but that
+particular relation to society,--no man, it seems to me, can heartily
+enter into it without feeling it to weigh heavily upon him. Sympathy
+with affliction is the trial-point of the clergyman's office. In the
+natural and ordinary relations of life every man has enough of it.
+But to take into one's heart, more or less, the personal and domestic
+sorrows of two or three hundred families, is a burden which no man who
+has not borne it can conceive of. I sometimes doubt whether it was ever
+meant that any man, or at least any profession of men, should bear it;
+whether the general ministrations of the pulpit to affliction should not
+suffice, leaving the application to the hearer in this case as in other
+cases; whether the clergyman's relations to distress and suffering
+should not be like every other man's,--general with his acquaintance,
+intimate with his friends; whether, if there were nothing conventional
+or customary about this matter, most families would not prefer to be
+left 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 his
+relations warranted; that it was no more expected of him, as a matter
+of course, to call upon a bereaved family, than of any other of their
+acquaintance,--would not that be a better state of things? I am sure I
+should prefer it, if I were a parishioner. When, indeed, the minister of
+religion wishes to turn to wise account the suffering of sickness or
+of bereavement, let him choose the proper time: reflection best comes
+after; it is not in the midst of groans and agonies, of sobs and
+lamentations, that deep religious impressions are usually made.
+
+I have a suspicion withal, that there is something semi-barbaric in
+these immediate and urgent ministrations to affliction, something of the
+Indian or Oriental fashion, or something derived from the elder time,
+when the priest was wise and the people rude. For ignorant people, who
+have no resources nor reflections of their own, such ministrations may
+be proper and needful now. I may be in the wrong about all this. Perhaps
+I ought to suspect it. There is more that is hereditary in us all, I
+suppose, than we know. My father never could bear the sight of sickness
+or distress: it made him faint. There is a firmness, doubtless, that is
+better than this; but I have it not. Very likely I am wrong. My friend
+Putnam [FN: Rev. George Putnam, D. D., of Roxbury, Mass.--M. E. D.]
+lately tried to convince me of it, in a conversation we had; maintaining
+that the [106] parochial relation ought not to be, and need not be, that
+burden upon the mind which I found it. And I really feel bound on such a
+point, rather than myself, to trust him, one of the most finely balanced
+natures I ever knew. Why, then, do I say all these things? Because, in
+giving an account of myself, I suppose I ought to say and confess what a
+jumble of pros and cons I am.
+
+Heaven knows I have tried hard to keep right; and if I am not as full as
+I 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 truth
+and opinion. It would be pleasant to let every mental tendency run its
+length; but I could not do so. It may be pride or narrowness; but I must
+keep on some terms with myself. I cannot find my understanding falling
+into contradiction with the judgments it formed last month or last year,
+without suspecting not only that there was something wrong then, but
+that there is something wrong now, to be resisted. That "there is a mean
+in 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 a
+balance against the swayings of my mind to the one side and the other
+of every question. I suppose this appears in my course, such as it has
+been, in religion, in politics, on the subject of slavery, of peace, of
+temperance, etc. It may appear to be dulness or tameness or time-serving
+or cowardice [107] or folly, but I simply do not believe it to be
+either.
+
+But to return: we were now once more in Sheffield, and I was without
+employment,--a condition always most irksome to me. Hard work, I am
+persuaded, is the highest pleasure in the world, and, from the day when
+I was in college, vacations have always proved to me the most tedious
+times in my life.
+
+I determined, therefore, to pursue some study as far as I could, and my
+subject,--the choice of years before,--was the philosophy of history and
+humanity. While thus engaged, I received an invitation from Mr. John A.
+Lowell, trustee of the Lowell Institute, to deliver one of its annual
+popular courses of lectures in Boston. This immediately gave a direction
+to my thoughts, and by the winter of 1850-51 I was prepared to write the
+lectures, which I ventured to denominate, "Lectures on the Problem of
+Human Destiny," and I gave them in the autumn of 1851. My reason for
+adopting 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 humble
+work such great words as "Philosophy of History and Humanity,"--the
+title of Herder's celebrated treatise. The truth was, I had, or
+thought I had, something to say upon the philosophy of the human
+condition,--upon the end for man, and upon the only way in which
+it could be [108] achieved,--upon the terrible problem of sin and
+suffering in this world,--and I tried to say it. I so far succeeded
+with my audience in Boston, that, either from report of that, or from
+the intrinsic interest of the subject, I was invited to repeat the
+lectures in various parts of the country; and during the four or five
+years following I repeated them fifteen times,--in New Bedford, New
+York, Brooklyn, Washington, Baltimore, St. Louis, Louisville, Madison,
+Cincinnati, Nashville, Sheffield, Worcester, Charleston, S. C., New
+Orleans, and Savannah in part, and the second time also, I gave them, by
+Mr. Lowell's request, in the Boston Institute. At the same time, I was
+not idle as a preacher, having preached every Sunday in the places where
+I 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 surprise
+that I supposed it must be a mistake. It was no other than a commission
+as chaplain in the Navy. I wrote to a gentleman in Washington, asking
+him to make inquiry for me, and ascertain what it meant. He replied that
+there was no mistake about it, and that it was intended for me. I then
+concluded, as there was a Navy Yard in Washington, and as the President,
+Mr.[109] Fillmore, attended the church to which I was invited, that
+he intended by the appointment to help both the church and me, and I
+accepted it. On going to Washington I found that there was a chaplain
+already connected with the Navy Yard, and on his retirement some months
+later, and my offering to perform any duties required there, being
+answered that there was really nothing to be done, I resigned the
+commission.
+
+Life in Washington was not agreeable to me, and yet I felt a singular
+attachment to the people there. This mixture of repulsion and attraction
+I could not understand at the time, or rather,-as is usually the case
+with our experience while passing,--did not try to; but walking those
+streets two or three years later, when experience had become history,
+I could read it. In London or Paris the presence of the government is
+hardly felt; the action of public affairs is merged and lost in the life
+of a great city; but in Washington it is the one, all-absorbing business
+of the place. Now, whether it be pride or sympathy, one does not enjoy
+a 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 the
+other hand, this very pressure of an all-surrounding public life brings
+private men closer together. There they stand, while the tides of
+successive Administrations sweep by them, and their relation be-[110]
+comes constantly more interesting from the fluctuation of everything
+else. It is really curious to see how the private and resident society
+of Washington breathes freer, and prepares to enjoy itself when Congress
+is about to rise and leave it to itself.
+
+Among the remarkable persons with whom I became acquainted in
+Washington, at this or a-former time, was John C. Calhoun. I had with
+him three interviews of considerable length, and remember each of them,
+the more distinctly from the remarkable habit he had of talking Ton
+subjects,--not upon the general occurences of the day, but upon some
+particular topic. The first two were at an earlier period than that
+to which this part of my narrative creates; it was when he was
+Vice-President of the United States, under the administration of John
+Quincy Adams. I went to his room in the Capitol to present my letter
+of introduction; it was just before the assembling of the Senate, and I
+said, 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: it
+will >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,--I
+am sure do not know how he got to it; but it was this, hat the first or
+second book of every author, so le maintained, was always his best. He
+cited a [111] number of instances in support of his position. I do not
+remember what they were; but it occurred to me in reflecting upon
+it afterwards, that, in purely literary composition, there were some
+reasons why it might be true. An author writes his first books with the
+greatest care; he naturally puts into them his best and most original
+thoughts, which he cannot use again; and if he succeeds, and gains
+reputation, he is liable to grow both careless and confident,--to think
+that the things which people admire are his peculiarities, and not his
+general merits, and so to fall into mannerism and repetition. I remember
+Mrs. 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 certain
+subject,--she had praised the first,--"I have observed that the second
+sermon, on any subject, is never so good as the first; even Channing's
+are not."
+
+Mr. Calhoun, on my leaving him, invited me to pass the evening with him
+at his house in Georgetown. I went, expecting to meet company, but found
+myself alone with him, and then the subject of conversation was the
+advantage and necessity of an Opposition in Government. He was himself
+then, of course, in the Opposition, and he was very candid: he said he
+did not question the motives of the Administration, while he felt bound
+to oppose it. I was struck with his candor,--a thing I did not look for
+in a political [112] opponent,--but especially with what he said about
+the benefit of an Opposition; both were rather new to me.
+
+My third interview with him was at a later period, when his discourse
+turned upon this question: What is the greatest thing that a man can do?
+His answer was characteristic of the statesman. "It is," he said, "to
+speak the true and saving word in a great national emergency. For it
+implies," he continued, "the fullest knowledge of the past, the largest
+comprehension of the present, and the clearest foresight of the future."
+He might have added, to complete the idea, that this word was sometimes
+to be spoken when it involved the greatest peril to the position and
+prospects of the speaker. But how much moral considerations were apt to
+be present to his mind, I do not know. He was mostly known--so we of the
+North thought--as an impracticable reasoner. Miss Martineau said, "He
+was 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,--"Father
+Reed," as they used to call him, from his having been longer a member
+of Congress than any other man in the House,--and I said to him, as we
+were entering the White House, "Now tell Mr. Adams who I am and where
+from; for I think he must be puzzled what to talk about, with so many
+strangers coming to him." Well, I was intro-[113]duced accordingly, and
+Mr. 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 we
+sat, five minutes, with>tit a word being spoken by either of us! I
+rose, took my leave, and went away, I don't know whether more angered or
+astonished. I once, by the by, visited his father, old John Adams, then
+lying in retirement at Quincy. Mr. Josiah Quincy took me to see him. He
+was not silent, but talked, I remember, full ten minutes--for ye did not
+interrupt him--about Machiavelli and in language so well chosen that I
+thought 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 later
+period.
+
+Circumstances, or the chances of conversation, sometimes lead to
+acquaintance and friendship, which years of ordinary intercourse fail
+to bring about. It happened, the first time I saw Mr. Corwin, that some
+observation I made upon political normality seemed to strike him as a
+new thought; suppose it was a topic seldom touched upon in Washington
+society. It led to a good deal of conversation, then and afterwards; and
+I must say that a more high-principled and religiously minded statesman
+I have never met with than Mr. Corwin.
+
+When he was preparing to deliver his celebrated [114] speech in the
+Senate 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 ruined
+by it. I answered that I did not know; but that I would say it if it did
+ruin me.
+
+The day came for his speech, and I never saw the Senate Chamber so
+densely packed as it was to hear him. He told me that he should not
+speak; more than half an hour; but he did speak three hours, not only
+against the Mexican war, but against the system of slavery, in the
+bitterest language. His friends in Ohio told me, years after, that it
+did ruin him. But for that, they said, he would have been President of
+the United States.
+
+Thackeray came to Washington while I was here. He gave his course of
+lectures on "the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century." His
+style, especially in his earlier writings, had one quality which the
+critics did not seem to notice; it was not conventional, but spun out
+of the brain. With the power of thought to take hold of the mind, and
+a rich, deep, melodius voice, he contrived, without one gesture, or my
+apparent emotion in his delivery, to charm away an hour as pleasantly
+as I have ever felt it in a lecture. What he told me of his way of
+composing confirms me in my criticism on his style.-He did not dash
+his pen on paper, like Walter Scott, and write off twenty pages without
+stop-[115] ping, but, dictating to an amanuensis,--a plan which leaves
+the brain to work undisturbed by the pen-labor,--dictating from his
+chair, 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, was
+ever otherwise. I remember, one morning, he was sitting in our parlor,
+when letters from the mail came in. They were received with some
+eagerness, of course, and he said, "You seem to be pleased to have
+letters; I am not."--"No?" we said.--"No. I have had letters from
+England this morning, and they tell me that 'Henry Esmond' is not
+liked."
+
+This led to some conversation on novels and novel-writing, and I
+ventured to say: "How is it that not one of the English novelists has
+ever drawn any high or adequate character of the clergyman? Walter Scott
+never 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 us
+Chadband and Stiggins, and you Charles Honeyman. Can you not conceive,"
+I went on to say, "that a man, without any chance of worldly profit, for
+a bare stipend, giving his life to promote what you must know are the
+highest interests of mankind, is engaged in a noble calling, worthy of
+being 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 other
+evening in your church in New York, for the Employment Society; would
+you let me read to you a passage from it?" Of course I said I should be
+very glad to hear it, and added, "I thank you for doing that."--"I
+don't know why you should thank me," he said; "it cost me but an hour's
+reading, 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 the
+passage, which told of a curate's taking him to visit a poor family in
+London, where he witnessed a scene of distress and of disinterestedness
+very 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 had
+been there the spring before, and made very agreeable acquaintance with
+the people. My reception, both in public and in private, was as kindly
+and hospitable as I could desire. I was much interested in society
+there, and strongly attached to it. But in August following, in
+an address under our Old Elm-tree in Sheffield,[117] I made some
+observations upon the threatened extension of the slave-system, that
+dashed nearly all my agreeable relations with Charleston. I am not a
+person to regard such a breach with indifference: it pained me deeply.
+My only comfort was, that what I said was honestly said; that no
+honorable man can desire to be respected or loved through ignorance of
+his character or opinions; and that the ground then recently taken at
+the South--that the institution of human slavery is intrinsically right,
+just, and good--seems to me to involve such a wrong to humanity, such
+evil to the South, and such peril to the Union of the States, that it
+was a proper occasion for speaking earnestly and decidedly.
+
+I was altogether unprepared for the treatment I received. One year
+before, I had been in the great Charleston Club, when the question
+of the perpetuity of the slave-system was discussed; when, indeed, an
+elaborate essay was read by one of the members, in which the ground was
+taken, that the dark cloud would sink away to the southwest, to Central
+America perhaps, from whence the slave population would find an exodus
+across the water to Africa; and of twenty members present, seventeen
+agreed with the essayist.
+
+And I take occasion here to say, that this position of the seventeen
+was mainly satisfactory to me. I would, indeed, have had the South go
+farther. I would have had it take in hand the business of putting an end
+to slavery, by laws [118] providing for its gradual abolition, and by
+preparing 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.] that
+immediate emancipation was theoretically the best plan. It was forced
+upon us by the exigencies of the war. And, independently of that, such
+was the infatuation of the Southern mind on the subject that there
+seemed to be no prospect of its ever being brought to take that view of
+it which was prevailing through the civilized and Christian world. But
+if it had taken that view, and had gone about the business of preparing
+for emancipation, I think the general public sentiment would have been
+satisfied; and I believe the result would have been better for the
+slaves, and better for the country. To be sure, things are working
+better perhaps now than could have been expected, and it may turn out
+that instant emancipation was the best thing. But the results of great
+social changes do not immediately reveal themselves. We are feeling, for
+instance, the pressure and peril of the free system in government more
+than we did fifty years ago, and may have to feel and fear it more than
+we do now. The freedmen are, at present, upon their good behavior, and
+are acting under the influence of a previous condition. But when I look
+to 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 should
+be for physiological reasons,-when, in fine, they see that they have not
+any fair and just position in American society and government,--they
+may be sorry that they were not gradually emancipated, and colonized to
+their own native country; and for ourselves-for our own country--the
+seeds may be sowing, in the dark bosom of the future, which may spring
+up in civil wars more terrible than ever were seen before.
+
+Such speculations and opinions, I am sensible, would meet with no favor
+among us now. The espousal of the slave-man's cause among our Northern
+people is so humane and hearty that they can stop nowhere, for any
+consideration of expediency, in doing him justice, after all his wrongs;
+and I honor their feeling, go to what lengths it will. Nevertheless, I
+put down these my thoughts, for my children to understand, regard them
+as they may.
+
+But what it is in my style or manner of writing that has called forth
+such a hard feeling towards me, from extremists both North and South,
+upon this slavery question, I cannot understand. In every instance
+in which I have spoken of it, I have been drawn out by a sense of
+duty,-there certainly was no pleasure in it. I have never assailed the
+motives of any man or party; I have spoken in no feeling of unkindness
+to anybody; there can have been no bitterness in my speech. [120] And
+yet something, I suppose, there must have been in my way of expressing
+myself, to offend. It may have been a fault, it may have been a merit
+for 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 his
+personality in action? He may study himself; he may find out what his
+faculties, what his traits of character are, in the abstract as it
+were; but what they are in action, in movement,--how they appear to
+others,--he cannot know. The eye that looks around upon a landscape sees
+everything but itself. It is just as a man may look in the glass and see
+himself 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 of
+expression,--in the strong workings of thought and feeling. I was one
+day sitting with Robert Walsh in Paris, and there was a large mirror
+behind him. Suddenly he said, "Ah, what a vain fellow you are!"-"How
+so?" I asked.--"Why," said he, "you are not looking at me as you
+talk, but you are looking at yourself in the glass."--"It is a fact!" I
+exclaimed, "I never saw myself talking before,--never saw the play of my
+own 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 see
+worse things, it might see better things, than it expected. And yet
+I have been endeavoring in these pages [121] to give some account of
+myself, while, after all, I am obliged to say that it is little more
+than a post mortem examination. If I had been dealing with the living
+subject, I suppose I could not have dealt so freely with myself. The
+last thing which I ever thought of doing is this which I have now done.
+Autobiographies are often pleasant reading; but I confess that I have
+always had a kind of prejudice against them. They have seemed to me to
+imply something of vanity, or a want of dignified reserve. The apology
+lies, perhaps, in the writer's ignorance, after all, of his own and very
+self. He has only told the story of a life. He has not come much nearer
+to himself than statistics come to the life of a people.
+
+All that I know is, that I have lived a life mainly happy in its
+experience, not merely according to the average, not merely as things go
+in this world, but far more than that; which I should be willing to live
+again for the happiness that has blessed it, yet more for the interests
+which have animated it, and which has always been growing happier from
+the beginning. I have lived a life mainly fortunate in its circumstances
+both of early nurture and active pursuit; marred by no vice,--I do
+not remember even ever to have told a lie,--stained by no dishonor;
+laborious, but enjoying labor, especially in the sphere to which my life
+has been devoted; suffering from no pressing want, though moderate in
+means, and successful in every way, as much as I had any [122] right or
+reason to expect. I have been happy (the word is weak to express it) in
+my domestic relations, happy in the dearest and holiest friendships, and
+happy in the respect of society. And I have had a happiness (I dread the
+appearance of profession in saying it) in things divinest, in religion,
+in God,-in associating with him all the beauty of nature and the
+blessedness of life, beyond all other possible joy. And, therefore,
+notwithstanding all that I have suffered, notwithstanding all the pain
+and weariness and anxiety and sorrow that necessarily enter into life,
+and the inward errings that are worse than all, I would end my record
+with a devout thanksgiving to the great Author of my being. For more and
+more am I unwilling to make my gratitude to him what is commonly called
+"a thanksgiving for mercies,"--for any benefits or blessings that are
+peculiar to myself, or my friends, or indeed to any man. Instead of
+this, I would have it to be gratitude for all that belongs to my life
+and being,--for joy and sorrow, for health and sickness, for success
+and 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 be
+added, and perhaps it is not unmeet for me to subjoin, as the conclusion
+of 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 become
+clearer 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; the
+attraction of gravitation, for instance. But unless there were some
+ultimate reference to laws, both material and moral, our minds would
+lose 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 hurled
+through the air by centrifugal force, I should be ill at ease. And if
+I believed that the world was made by a malignant Power, or that the
+fortunes of men were the sport of a doubtful conflict between good and
+evil deities or principles, my life, like that of the ancients, would
+be filled with superstitions and painful fears. The foundation of all
+rational human tranquillity, cheerfulness, and courage, whether we are
+distinctly conscious of it or not, lies in the ultimate conviction, that
+God is good,--that his providence, his order of things in the world, is
+good; and theology, in the largest sense of the term, is as vital to us
+as the air we breathe.
+
+If, then, I thought that this world were a castoff, or a wrecked and
+ruined, world; if I thought that the human generations had come out
+from the dark eclipse of some pre-existent state, or [124] from the dark
+shadow of Adam's fall, broken, blighted, accursed, propense to all
+evil, and disabled for all good; and if, in consequence, I believed
+that unnumbered millions of ignorant heathens, and thousands around
+me,--children but a day old in their conscious moral probation, and
+men, untaught, nay, ill-taught, misled and blind,--were doomed, as the
+result of this life-experiment, to intense, to unending, to infinite
+pain 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 detest
+myself, if the idea that I was to escape that doom could assuage
+and soothe in my breast the bitter pain of all generous humanity and
+sympathy for the woes and horrors of such a widespread and overwhelming
+catastrophe.
+
+What, then, do I say and think? I say, and I maintain, that the
+constitution of the world is good, and that the constitution of human
+nature is good; that the laws of nature and the laws of life are
+ordained for good. I believe that man was made and destined by his
+Creator ultimately to be an adoring, holy, and happy being; that his
+spiritual and physical constitution was designed to lead to that end;
+but that end, it is manifest from the very nature of the case, can
+be attained only by a free struggle; and this free struggle, with its
+mingled success and failure, is the very story of the world. A sublime
+story it is, therefore. The life of men and nations has not been [125] a
+floundering 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 was
+religion, worship, faith, morality, in the world, and however erring,
+yet always improving from age to age. Those systems are great steps in
+the human progress; but they are not the only steps. Moses is venerable
+to me. The name of Jesus is "above every name;" but my reverence for him
+does not require me to lose all interest in Confucius and Zoroaster, in
+Socrates and Plato.
+
+In short, the world is a school; men are pupils in this school; God is
+its builder and ordainer. And he has raised up for its instruction sages
+and seers, teachers and guides; ay, martyred lives, and sacrificial
+toils and tears and blood, have been poured out for it. The greatest
+teaching, the greatest life, the most affecting, heart-regenerating
+sacrifice, was that of the Christ. From him I have a clearer guidance,
+and a more encouraging reliance upon the help and mercy of God, than
+from all else. I do not say the only reliance, but the greatest.
+
+This school of life I regard as the infant-school of eternity. The
+pupils, I believe, will go on forever learning. There is solemn
+retribution in this system,--the future must forever answer for the
+past; I would not have it otherwise. I must fight [126] the battle, if
+I would win the prize; and for all failure, for all cowardice, for all
+turning aside after ease and indulgence in preference to virtue and
+sanctity, I must suffer; I would not have it otherwise. There is help
+divine offered to me, there is encouragement wise and gracious; I
+welcome it. There is a blessed hereafter opened to prayer and penitence
+and faith; I lift my hopes to that immortal life. This view of the
+system of things spreads for me a new light over the heavens and the
+earth. It is a foundation of peace and strength and happiness more to be
+valued, in my account, than the title-deed of all the world.
+
+[127] LETTERS.
+
+THE foregoing pages, selected from many written at intervals between
+1857 and 1870, tell nearly all of their writer's story which it can be
+of interest to the public to know; and although I have been tempted here
+and there to add some explanatory remarks, I have thought it best on the
+whole to leave them in their original and sometimes abrupt simplicity.
+The author did not intend them for publication, but for his
+family alone; and in sharing a part with a larger audience than he
+contemplated, we count upon a measure of that responsive sympathy with
+which we ourselves read frequently between the Lines, and enter into his
+meaning without many words.
+
+But there is one point I cannot leave untouched. There is one subject on
+which some of those who nevertheless honor him have scarcely understood
+his position.
+
+Twenty-five years ago slavery was a question upon which feeling was not
+only 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 and
+productive of nearly unmingled evil, held nevertheless that, like all
+great and established wrongs, it must be met with wise and patient
+counsel; and that in the highest interest of the slave, of the white
+race, of the country, and of constitutional liberty, its abolition
+must be gradual. To the uncompromising Abolitionists such views were
+intolerable; 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 and
+a base truckling to the rank and wealth which sustained this insult to
+humanity.
+
+They little knew him. The man who at twenty-five had torn himself from
+the associations and friendships of his youth, and, moved solely by love
+of truth, had imperilled all his worldly hopes by joining himself to a
+small religious body, despised and hated as heretics by most of those
+whom he had been trained to love and respect, was not the man at fifty
+to blanch from the expression of any honest conviction; and, to sum
+up all in one word, he held his views upon this subject, as upon all
+others, bravely and honestly, and stated them clearly and positively,
+when he felt it his duty to speak, although evasion or silence would
+have been the more comfortable alternative. "I doubt," says Mr.
+Chadwick,[129] "if Garrison or Parker had a keener sense than his of
+the enormity of human slavery. Before the first Abolitionist Society
+had been organized, he was one of the organizers of a committee for
+the discussion and advancement of emancipation. I have read all of
+his principal writings upon slavery, and it would be hard to find more
+terrible indictments of its wickedness. He stated its defence in terms
+that Foote and Yancey might have made their own, only to sweep it all
+away with the blazing ubiquity that the negro was a man and an immortal
+soul. Yet when the miserable days of fugitive-slave rendition were
+upon us, he was with Gannett in the sad conviction that the law must
+be obeyed. We could not see it then; but we can see to-day that it was
+possible 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 relief
+as the fact, that the immeasurable torrent of abuse that greeted his
+expressed opinion did not in any least degree avail to make him one of
+the pro-slavery faction. The concession of 1850 was one which he would
+not have made, and it must be the last. Welcome to him the iron flail
+of war, whose tribulation saved the immortal wheat of justice and purged
+away 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 preached
+after Dr. Dewey's death.]
+
+[130] in a somewhat remarkable degree. In a letter written when he was
+near seventy he says, "I do believe there never was a man into whose
+manhood and later life so much of his foolish boyhood flowed as into
+mine. I am as anxious to go home, I shall be all the way to-morrow as
+eager 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 after
+his wedding-day. Shall I ever learn to be an old man?"
+
+But it was this very simplicity and tenderness that gave such a charm to
+his personal intercourse. His emotions, like his thoughts, had a
+plain directness about them which assured you of their honesty. With a
+profound love of justice, he had an eminently judicial mind, and could
+not be content without viewing a subject from every side, and casting
+light upon all its points. The light was simple sunshine, untinged by
+artificial mixtures; the views were direct and straightforward, with no
+subtle slants of odd or recondite position; and in his feelings,
+also, there was the same large and natural simplicity. You felt
+the ground-swell of humanity in them, and it was this breadth and
+genuineness which laid the foundation of his power as a preacher, making
+him strike unerringly those master chords that are common and
+universal in every audience. Gifts of oratory he had, both natural and
+acquired,--a full, melodious voice, so sympathetic in modulation and so
+attuned to [131] reverence that I have heard more than one person say
+that his first few words in the pulpit did more towards lifting them to
+a truly religious frame of mind than the whole service from any other
+lips,--a fine dramatic power, enough to have given him distinction as an
+actor, had that been the profession of his choice,--a striking dignity
+of presence, and an easy and appropriate gesticulation. But these, as
+well as his strong common sense, that balance-wheel of character, were
+brought 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, and
+his imaginative faculty, gave wealth and ornament to his style, he never
+sacrificed a particle of direct force for any rhetorical advantage. His
+function in life--he felt it to his inmost soul--was to present to human
+hearts and minds the essential verities of their existence in such a
+manner that they could not choose but believe in them. His strength was
+in his reverent perception of the majesty of Right as accordant with the
+Divine and Eternal Will; his power over men was in the sublimity of his
+appeal to an answering faith in themselves.
+
+He was greatest as a preacher, and it is as a preacher that he will be
+best remembered by the public. The printed page, though far inferior to
+the fervid eloquence of the same words when spoken, will corroborate by
+its beauty, its pathos, and its logical force, the traditions that still
+linger [132] of his deep impressiveness in the pulpit. In making the
+following selections from his letters, I have been influenced by the
+desire to let them show him in his daily and familiar life, with the
+easy gayety and love of humor which was as natural to him as the deep
+and solemn meditations which absorbed the larger part of his mind. They
+are very far from elaborate compositions, being rather relaxations from
+labor, and he thought very slightly of them himself; yet I think
+they will present the real man as nothing but such careless and
+conversational writing can.
+
+No letters of his boyhood have been preserved, and very few of his
+youth. This, to Dr. Channing, was probably written at Plymouth, while
+there on an exchange of pulpits, soon after his ordination at New
+Bedford:--
+
+To Rev. William Ellery Charming, D.D.
+
+PLYMOUTH, Dec. 27, 1823.
+
+DEAR SIR,--I was scarcely disappointed at your not coming to my
+ordination, and indeed I have felt all along that, if you could not
+preach, I had much rather see you at a more quiet and leisurely time. I
+thank you for the hope you have given me of this in the suggestion you
+made to Mr. Tuckerman. When the warm season comes, I pray you to give
+Mrs. Dewey and me the pleasure of trying what we can do to promote your
+comfort and health, and of enjoying your society for a week. [133] Our
+ordination was indeed very pleasant, and our prospects are becoming
+every day more encouraging. The services of that occasion were attended
+with the most gratifying and useful impression. Our friend, Mr.
+Tuckerman, preached more powerfully, and produced a neater effect, than
+I 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 cannot
+print 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 high
+gratification with which I have received the late expression of the
+liberality and kindness of your society, nor can it be necessary. I
+cannot fail to add, however, that the pleasure is greatly enhanced by
+the 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 feel
+as if I had a burden of questions which I wish to propose to you for
+conversation. The want of this resource and satisfaction is one of the
+principal reasons that make me regret my distance from Boston. I shall
+always remember the weeks I spent with you, two years ago, with more
+interest than I shall ever feel it proper to express to you. It is
+one of my most joyful hopes of heaven, that such intercourse shall be
+renewed, 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, and
+it seems too nearly settled that nothing will give you health, but a
+different mind, or a different mode of life.
+
+Quintilian advises the orator to retire before he is spent, and says
+that he can still advance the object of his more active and laborious
+pursuits by conversing, by publishing, and by teaching others, youths,
+to follow in his steps. I do not quote this advice to recommend it, if
+it were proper for me to recommend anything. But I have often revolved
+the courses that might preserve your life, and make it at once happy to
+yourself and useful to us, for many years to come. I cannot admit any
+plan that would dismiss you altogether from the pulpit, nor do I believe
+that any such could favor your happiness or your health. But could you
+not limit yourself to preaching, say ten times in a year (provided one
+of them be in New Bedford)? and will you permit me to ask, nor question
+my modesty in doing so, if you could not spend a part of the year in a
+leisurely preparation of something for the press? I fear that your
+MSS., and I mean your sermons now, would suffer by any other revisal
+and publication than your own. With regard to the last suggestion of
+Quintilian's, I have supposed that it has been fairly before you; but
+perhaps I have already said more than becomes me. If so, I am confident
+at least that I deserve your pardon for my good intentions; and with
+these, 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 appeared
+in those early days, writ-en by Rev. W. H. Channing, for "the London
+Enquirer" of April 13, 1882:
+
+[135] "It so happened then to me, while a youth of twelve or fifteen
+years 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 better
+work, in Europe. And on Mondays--after his exhausting outpourings of
+Sunday--he was wont to 'drop in, while passing,' to talk over the themes
+of his discourse, or for friendly interchange of thought and sympathy. A
+special attraction was that the Misses Cabot, the elder of whom became a
+few years later Mrs. Charles Follen (both of whom will be remembered
+by English friends), made a common home with my mother; and the radiant
+intelligence, glowing enthusiasm, hearty affectionateness, and genial
+merriment of these bright-witted sisters charmed him. Sometimes they
+probed with penetrating questions the mystical metaphysics of the
+preceding day's sermon. Then, deeply stirred, and all on fire with
+truths dawning on his vision, he would rise from his chair and slowly
+pace the room, in a half soliloquy, half rejoinder. At these times of
+high-wrought emotion his aspect was commanding. His head was rounded
+like a dome, and he bore it erect, as if its weight was a burden; his
+eyes, blue-gray in tint, were gentle, while gleaming with inner light;
+the nostrils were outspread, as if breathing in mountain-top air; and
+the mobile lips, the lower of which protruded, apparently measured his
+deliberately accented words as if they were coins stamped in the
+mint. It was intense delight for a boy to listen to these luminous
+self-unfoldings, embodied in rhythmic speech. They moved me more
+profoundly even than the suppressed feeling of his awe-struck prayers,
+[136] or the fluent fervor of his pulpit addresses; for they raised the
+veil, and admitted one into his Holy of holies. At other times, literary
+or artistic themes, the newest poem, novel, picture, concert, came
+up for discussion; and as these ladies were verse-writers, essayists,
+critics, and lovers of beauty in all forms, the conversations called
+out the rich genius and complex tendencies and aptitudes of Dr. Dewey
+in stimulating suggestions, which were refreshing as spring breezes. His
+mind gave hospitable welcome to each new fact disclosed by science, to
+all generous hopes for human refinement and ennobling ideals, while
+his discernment was keen to detect false sentiment or flashy sophisms.
+Again, some startling event would bring conventional customs and maxims
+to the judgment-bar of pure Christian ethics, when his moral indignation
+blazed forth with impartial equity against all degrading views of human
+nature, debasing prejudices, and distrust of national progress,--sparing
+no tyrant, however wealthy or high in station; pleading for the
+downcast, however lowly; hoping for the fallen, however scorned. Thanks
+to this clear-sighted moralist, he gave me, in his own example, a
+standard of generous Optimism too sun-bright ever to be eclipsed. Let it
+not be inferred from these hasty outlines, however, that Dr. Dewey
+was habitually grave, or intent on serious topics solely, in social
+intercourse So far from this, he continually startled one by his swift
+transitions from solemn discourse to humorous descriptions of persons,
+places, experiences. And as the Misses Cabot and my mother alike
+regarded healthful laughter, cheery sallies, and childlike gayety as
+a wise relief for overwrought brains or high-strung sensibilities, our
+fireside sparkled with brilliant repartees and scintillating mirth. It
+is [137] pleasantly remembered that, in such by-play, Dr. Dewey, while
+often 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 gratefully
+recalled how cordially sympathetic this earnest apostle was with my
+youthful studies, trials, aspirations. All recollections, indeed, of
+my uncle's curate--whom, as is well-known, le wished to become his
+colleague--are charming; and before my matriculation at Harvard, one
+of my most trusted religious guides was Orville Dewey." The Wares, both
+Henry 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 that
+of principles. A contest as important as that of the Reformation is to
+pass here, and I trust,-though with trembling,--I trust in God that
+it is to be maintained with a better spirit. I cannot help feeling
+that generations as boundless as shall spread from the Atlantic to the
+Pacific shores wait for the result. The importance of everything that
+is doing for the improvement of this country is fast swelling to
+infinitude. These, dear sir, are some of my dreams, I fear I must call
+them, rather than waking thoughts. It seems to me not a little to know
+the age and country we live in. I think, and think, and think that
+something must be done, and often [138] I feel, and feel, and feel that
+I do nothing. What can we do to make ourselves and others aware of our
+Christian duties and of the signs of this time?
+
+There is one comfort,--Unitarianism will succeed just as far as it is
+worthy of it,--and there are some forms of practical Unitarianism that
+ought not to meet with any favor in the world. If the whole mass becomes
+of this character, let it go down, till another wave of providence shall
+bring it up again.
+
+But enough of this preaching: you think of all these things, and a
+thousand more, better than I can say them. I turn to your letter. Elder
+H., for whom you ask, is a very good man,-very friendly to me; but le is
+a terrible fanatic. He has Unitarian revivals that might match with
+any of them. It is a curious fact that the Christians, as they call
+themselves, Unitarian as they ire, form the most extravagant, fiery,
+fanatical sect in this country.
+
+Mrs. Dewey desires very friendly regards to Mrs. Ware, of whose
+continued illness we are concerned to lean Let my kind remembrance be
+joined 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 my
+sympathy. I have often thought with [FN: Mrs. Ware died in the
+interval between those two letters she was the daughter of Dr. Benjamin
+Waterhouse, of Cambridge, Mass. In 1827 Mr. Ware was again married to
+Miss Mary Lovell Pickard.] [139] pain of what was coming upon you; and
+I fear, though long threatening, it has come at last with a weight which
+you could hardly have anticipated. May God sustain and comfort you!
+You are supported, I well know, while you are afflicted, in every
+recollection of what you lave lost. Surely the greatness of your trial
+argues the Kindness of Heaven, for it proves the greatness of the
+blessing 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 not
+the poor and old sayings of one who knows not--who cannot know--what you
+suffer. You need not the aids of reflection from me. But you need
+what, in common with your hands, I would invoke for you,--the aid, the
+consolation that is divine. God grant it to you,--all that affection can
+ask,--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 the
+formalities and the English reserves excuse me too.
+
+I have had two letters from New York, one from Mr. Sewall, and the other
+from 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 should
+not at present leave New Bedford,-why I should not take such a post. I
+cannot 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, lest
+it should be said to me in the other world, "A great opportunity, a
+glorious 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 from
+the future world as well as from the present.
+
+I do not write asking you to reply; for I do not suppose you have
+anything 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 to
+communicate with you about something, and this is uppermost in my mind.
+
+Present my affectionate regards to Mrs. Channing and the children, and
+to 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 not
+know of your purpose till last evening, or I should not have left
+myself to write to you in the haste of a few minutes snatched on Sunday
+evening, to say nothing of the aching nerves' and the misled hand that
+usually come along with it. By the by, I have a good mind to desire you
+to propose a year's exchange [for me] to somebody in England. If you
+meet with a man who is neither too good nor too bad, suppose you suggest
+it to him,--not as from me, however.
+
+I should think that a man, in going to England, would feel the evil of
+belonging to a sect, unless that sect [141] embraced all the good and
+wise and gifted,--which can be said of no sect. The sectarianism of
+sects, however, is the bad thing. These are necessary; that is not
+necessary, but to human weakness. But fie upon discoursing to a man who
+is just stepping on shipboard! May it bear you safely! May it tread the
+mountain wave "as a steed that knows its rider," and is conscious of
+what it bears from us! My heart will go with you in a double sense; for
+I want to see England,--I want to see Italy, and the Alps, and the south
+of France. I don't know whether you intend to do all this; and I am very
+certain not to do any of it. I know that yours will not be a travelled
+heart, any more than Goldsmith's. Let me lay in my claim for as many of
+its kind thoughts as belong to me. But yet more, let me assure you, as
+the exigency demands, that for every one you have thus to render, I have
+five to give in return.
+
+I believe you will not be sorry, at this time, that my lines and words
+are 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. Ware
+goes 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, but
+make 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 because
+I have anything in particular to say [142] to you, but just to assure
+myself in the agreeable conviction that you are again within sixty miles
+of me. When you get a little quiet, when matters have taken some form
+with you, when you have seen some hundreds of people, and answered some
+thousands of questions, then take your pen for the space of ten minutes,
+and tell me of your "whereabouts," and how your strength and spirits
+hold out, and what is the prospect.
+
+I hope you will not disappoint me of the visit this autumn, for I want
+to talk the sun down and the stars up with you. I suppose you have tales
+enough for "a thousand and one nights." You have made friends here,
+moreover, even in Rome,--some by hearsay, and others who will be here
+probably in a fortnight or three weeks. Kind Mrs. Ware has admirers
+here. Think of that, sir! That while Mr. W. is spoken of only with a
+kind of reverence, the lady carries off all the charms and fascinations
+of 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 I
+am weak, there am I strong."
+
+Pray excuse the levity (specific) of this letter, on two
+rounds,--first, that I am very heavy, and should sink in any other
+vessel; 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 I
+am,
+
+Most truly yours,
+
+O. DEWEY.
+
+In less than three years from this time the nervous suffering from
+overwork 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 to
+that huge, half pleasurable, half painful undertaking; or shall I say,
+rather, that both the pleasure and the pain come by wholes, and not by
+halves? The latter I feel as a domestic man, for I must go alone; the
+former I feel as a civilized man. Civilized, I say, for who that has the
+lowest measure of educated intelligence and sensibility can expect to
+tread all the classic lands of the world, Greece only excepted, without
+a thrill of delight?
+
+If you should think that I had written thus much as claiming your
+sympathy in what so much interests me, and if you should think this
+without accusing me of presumption, I should be tempted, were I assured
+of the fact, to stop here, and to leave the matter on a footing
+so gratifying to my feelings. But I must not venture to take so
+considerable a risk, and must therefore hasten to tell you that what I
+have said is only a vestibule to something further.
+
+Nor is the vestibule at all too large or imposing for the object, as
+I conceive it, to which it is to open the way; for I am about to ask
+through you, if you will consent and condescend to be the medium, a very
+considerable favor of a very distinguished man. Among many letters
+of introduction which I have received, it so happens, as they say in
+Parliament, that I can obtain none to certain persons that I want to
+see quite as much as any others [144] in Europe. None of our Boston
+gentlemen that I can find are acquainted with Professor Wilson, or Miss
+Ferrier, the author of "Inheritance," or Thomas Moore, or Campbell, or
+Bulwer. The "Noctes Ambrosianx," with other things, have made me a great
+admirer of Wilson; and Miss Ferriers (I don't know whether her name
+ends with s or not) I had rather see than any woman in Europe. She comes
+nearer to Sir Walter, I think, than any writer of fiction abroad, and
+in depth of religious sentiment goes very far beyond him. Now, I presume
+that Washington Irving is acquainted with all these individuals; and
+what I venture to ask is, whether, through your intervention, letters
+can be obtained from him to any of them, and especially to the two
+first.
+
+Now I must make you comprehend how little I wish you to go out of your
+way, or to put any constraint on yourself in the matter. I have none
+of the passion for seeing celebrated men, merely as such. Those whose
+writings have interested me, I do, of course, wish to see; but I am to
+be too hasty a traveller to make it a great object to see them, or to
+go very much out of my way for it. Above all, if you have the least
+reluctance to ask this of Mr. Irving, you must allow me to impose it as
+a condition of my request that you will not do it; or if Mr. Irving is
+reluctant to give the letters, do not undertake to tell me so with
+any circumlocution, for I understand all about the delicacy of these
+Transatlantic connections. I only fear that the very length of this
+letter will convey to you an undue impression of the importance which I
+give to the subject of it. Pray construe it not so, but set it down as
+one of the involuntary consequences of the pleasure I have in conversing
+with you.
+
+Very truly your friend,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+[145] The letters, and every other advantage that the kindness of
+friends could provide, were given him, and the mingled anticipations
+with 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 in
+the charm of historical and romantic association which is the peculiar
+pleasure to an American of travel in the Old World, was very great, and
+the relief to his brain from the weekly pressure of original production
+gave him ease for the present and hope for the future. But the year
+was darkened for him by the death of his youngest sister, who had been
+married the previous summer to Mr. Andrew L. Russell, of Plymouth,
+and of his wife's brother, John Hay Farnham, of Indiana; and when
+he returned home, three months' work convinced him that arduous and
+prolonged mental labor was henceforth impossible for him. With deep
+disappointment and sorrow, he resigned his charge at New Bedford, and
+left the place and people which had been and always remained very dear
+to him.
+
+Few are left of those who heard his first preaching there. One of his
+sisters says: "To me, brought up on the Orthodoxy of Berkshire, it was
+like a revelation, and I think it was much the same to the Quakers.
+Those views of life and human nature and its responsibilities that are
+common now, were new then, and the effect produced upon us all was most
+thrilling and solemn; and [146] when, service over, we passed out of the
+church, I remember there were very few words spoken,-a contrast to the
+custom nowadays of chatting and laughing at the door." I have heard
+others speak of the overwhelming pathos of his manner, and I asked the
+Rev. Dr. Morison, who came to New Bedford as a young man during the last
+years of our stay there, to put some of his personal remembrances on
+paper. In a note from him, dated Toth January, 1883, he says: "I
+have not forgotten my promise to send you some little account of your
+father's preaching in New Bedford. He was so great a man, uttering
+himself in his preaching, the sources of his power lay so deep, his
+words came to us so vitally connected with the most subtle and effective
+forces of the moral and spiritual universe, that I can no more describe
+him than I could a June day, in all its glory and beauty and its
+boundless resources of joy and life, to one who had never known it."
+
+The following pages, which Dr. Morison was nevertheless kind enough to
+send, 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 first
+volume that he published. As we read them, they are among the ablest
+and most impressive sermons in the language. But when read now they give
+only 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 walked
+through the church to the pulpit, his head swaying backward and forward
+as if too heavily freighted, his whole bearing was that of one weighed
+down by the thoughts in which he was absorbed and the solemn message
+which he had come to deliver. The old prophetic 'burden of the Lord' had
+evidently been laid upon him. Some hymn marked by its depth of religious
+feeling was read. This was followed by a prayer, which was not the
+spontaneous, easy outflowing of calmly reverential feelings, but the
+labored utterance of a soul overawed and overburdened by emotions
+too strong for utterance. There was sometimes an appearance almost of
+distress in this exercise, so utterly inadequate, as it seemed to him,
+were any words of his to express what lay deepest in his mind, when
+thus brought face to face with God. 'I do not shrink,' he said, 'from
+speaking to man.' But, except in his rarest and best moments, he was
+oppressed by a sense of the poverty of any language of thanksgiving or
+supplication that he could use in his intercourse with God."
+
+"His manner in preaching was marked by great depth and strength of
+feeling, but always subdued. He spoke on great subjects. He entered
+profoundly into them, and treated them with extraordinary intellectual
+ability and clearness. They who were seeking for light found it in his
+preaching. But more than any intellectual precision or clearness of
+thought was to be gained from him in his treatment of the momentous
+questions which present themselves, sooner or later, to every thoughtful
+mind. Behind these questions, more important than any one or all of
+them intellectually considered, was the realm of thought, emotion,
+aspiration, out of which [148] religious ideas are formed, and in
+which the highest faculties of our nature are to find their appropriate
+nourishment and exercise. He spoke to us as one who belonged to this
+higher world. The realm in which he lived, and which seemed never absent
+from his mind, impressed itself as he spoke, and gave a deeper solemnity
+and attractiveness to his words than could be given by any specific
+and clearly-defined ideas. A sense of mystery and awe pervaded his
+teachings, and infused into his utterances a sentiment of divine
+sacredness and authority. He preached as I never, before or since, have
+heard any one else, on human nature, on retribution, on the power of
+kindness, on life and death, in their relations to man and to what is
+divine. He stood before us compassed about by a religious atmosphere
+which penetrated his inmost nature, and gave its tone and coloring to
+all he said. For he spoke as one who saw rising visibly before him the
+issues of life and of death."
+
+"He was gifted with a rare dramatic talent. But it was a gift, not an
+art, and showed itself in voice and gesture as by the natural impulse of
+a great nature profoundly moved, and in its extremest manifestations so
+subdued as to leave the impression of a vast underlying reserved force.
+His action, so full of meaning and so effective, was no studied or
+superficial movement of hand and voice, but the action of the whole man,
+body and soul, all powerfully quickened and moved from within by the
+living thoughts and emotions to which he was giving utterance."
+
+"I have heard many of the greatest orators of our time. But, with the
+exception of Daniel Webster and Dr. Channing in their highest moments,
+Mr. Dewey was the most [149] eloquent man among them all, and that not
+once or twice, on great occasions, but Sunday after Sunday, forenoon and
+afternoon, for months together."
+
+"Some allowance should perhaps be made for the state of mind and the
+period of life in which I heard him. I had just come from college, where
+the intellect had been cultivated in advance of the moral and religious
+faculties. The equilibrium which belongs to a perfectly healthy and
+harmonious nature was disturbed, and, as a necessary consequence of this
+unbalanced and distempered condition, there was a deep inward unrest,
+and a craving for something,--the greatest of all,--which had not yet
+been 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, the
+Scripture reading, usually brought me into a reverent and plastic state
+of mind, ready to receive and be moulded by the deepest and loftiest
+Christian truths. From the beginning to the end of the sermon I
+was under the spell which he had thrown over me, and unconscious of
+everything else. Very seldom during my life, and then only for a
+few minutes at a time, has any one, by his eloquence, exercised this
+absorbing and commanding influence over me. Once or twice in hearing
+Dr. 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 had
+with other men; but with Mr. Dewey more than with all others. And when
+the benediction was pronounced, I wished to go away and be by myself
+in the new world of spiritual ideas and emotions into which I had been
+drawn. Those were to me great experiences, [150] inwrought into the
+inmost 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 as
+a whole were affected in a similar manner. A deep solemnity pervaded the
+place. There was not merely silence, but the spell of absorbed attention
+that makes itself felt, and spreads itself as by a general sympathy
+through a congregation profoundly moved by great thoughts filled out and
+made alive by deep and uplifting emotions. The exercises in the church
+were often followed by lasting convictions. The Sunday's sermon was
+the topic, not of curious discussion or indiscriminate eulogy, but of
+serious conversation among the young, who looked forward to the coming
+Sunday as offering privileges which it would be a misfortune to lose.
+The services of the church were remembered and anticipated as the most
+interesting 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 standing
+within the all-encompassing and divine presence. He awakened in us a
+sense of that august and indefinable influence from which all that is
+holiest and best must come. He brought us into communication with that
+Light of life. He showed us how our lives, our thoughts, and even our
+every-day acts, may be sanctified and inspired by it, as every plant and
+tree is not only illuminated by the sun but vitally associated with it."
+
+"If, in the light of later experience, I were to criticise [151] the
+preaching I then heard, I should say that it was too intense. The
+writing and the delivery of such sermons subjected the preacher to too
+severe a strain both of body and mind. No man could go on preaching in
+that way, from month to month, without breaking down in health. And it
+may be questioned whether a mind acting under so high a pressure is in
+the best condition to take just views, to preserve its proper equipoise,
+or to impart wise and healthful instruction. The stimulus given may be
+too strong for the best activity of those who receive it. They whose
+sensitive natures are most deeply affected by such an example may, under
+its influence, unconsciously form an ideal of intellectual attainments
+too exacting, and therefore to them a source of weakness rather than of
+strength."
+
+"The danger lies in these directions. But Mr. Dewey's breadth of
+apprehension, his steadfast loyalty and devotion to the truth, the
+judicial impartiality with which he examined the whole field before
+making up his mind, saved him from one-sided or ill-balanced
+conclusions. And the intense action of all the faculties not only
+enables a man of extraordinary intellectual powers to impress his
+thought on others and infuse his very soul into theirs; but it also, as
+we see in the best work of Channing, Dewey, and Emerson, opens to them
+realms of thought which otherwise might never have been reached, and
+gives to them glimpses of a divine love and splendor never granted to a
+less earnest and passionate devotion."
+
+In the autumn of 1835 Mr. Dewey was settled over the Second Unitarian
+Church in New York, trusting to his stock of already written discourses
+[152] to save him from a stress of intellectual labor too severe for
+his suffering brain, which was never again to allow him uninterrupted
+activity in study. When his life-work is viewed, it should always be
+remembered under what difficulties it was carried on. It was work
+that taxed every faculty to the uttermost, while the physical organ of
+thought had been so strained by over-exertion at the beginning of his
+professional career, owing to a general ignorance of the bodily laws
+even greater then than it is now, that the use of it during the rest of
+his life was like that which a man has of a sprained foot; causing pain
+in the present exercise, and threatening far worse consequences, if the
+effort is continued. Fortunately, his health in all other respects was
+excellent, and his spirits and courage seldom flagged. I remember him
+as 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 relieve
+by external irritation the distressing sensation's, which he compared to
+those 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 full
+of animation and vivacity in society, although he was soon tired, and
+with a nervous restlessness undoubtedly the effect of disease, never
+wanted to stay long in any company. [153] He preached a sermon after
+the great fire in New York, in December, 1835, which drew forth the
+following letter from Mr. Henry Ware:--
+
+CAMBRIDGE, Jan. 15, 1836.
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--I must acknowledge your sermon,-you made me most happy by
+it. It was so true, so right, so strongly and movingly put; it was the
+word that ought to be said, the word in season. My feeling was: God
+Almighty be praised for sending that man there to speak to that great
+and mighty city, and to interpret to it his providence. You cannot but
+feel gratitude in being appointed to be such an instrument; and I trust
+that you are to be used much and long, and for great good. Keep yourself
+well and strong; look on yourself as having a message and a mission, and
+live for nothing else but to perform it.
+
+I happen to have found out, very accidentally, what is always the most
+secret of undiscoverable secrets,--that you are asked to preach the
+Dudleian Lecture. Do not let anything hinder you. We want you: you must
+come; do not hesitate; and, mind, I speak first, to have you come and
+house 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 finish
+reading it, but was obliged to lay it down. Not from its pathos,--but
+from a stronger, higher, deeper, holier something which it stirred up. I
+am almost afraid for you when I think what a responsibility lies on you
+for the use of such powers. May He that gave them give you grace with
+them! 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, as
+a cousin of his wife, was well known to him from the first. The
+familiarity of the opening recalls what he said in writing of him many
+years after: "Waldo, we always called him in those days, though now all
+adjuncts 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 Place
+the third time, I found that you had gone to Concord; for I was drawn to
+you as by a kind of spell. I wanted to see you, though it seemed to me
+that I could not speak to you one word. I can do no more now,--I am dumb
+with amazement and sorrow; [FN] and yet I must write to you, were it
+only to drop a tear on the page I send. Your poor mother! I did not know
+she had come with you. Miss Hoar 2 I do not know, and will intrude no
+message; but I think of her more than many messages could express. My
+dear friend, I am as much concerned for you as for any one. God give you
+strength to comfort others! Alas! we all make too much of death. Like
+a 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 Charles
+Chauncey Emerson, a younger brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and one of
+the 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, but
+to some of you he was known,--who, ere his children were twined up
+for life, was called to leave them, but whose fair example and fervent
+prayer visited them, and dwelt among them, and helped, with much kindly
+nurture, to form them to learning, virtue, honor, and to present them
+to the world a goodly band of brothers. And say not, because one
+and another has fallen on the threshold of life,--fallen amidst the
+brightest visions and most brilliant promises of youth,--that it is
+all in vain; that parental toils and cares and prayers are all in vain.
+There is another life, where every exalted power trained here shall find
+expansion, improvement, and felicity. [Those sons of the morning, who
+stand for a moment upon the verge of this earthly horizon amidst
+the first splendors of day, and then vanish away into heaven, as
+if translated, not deceased, seem to teach us, almost by a sensible
+manifestation, how short is the step and how natural is the passage from
+earth to heaven.][FN 2] They almost open heaven to us, and they help
+our languid efforts to reach it, by the most powerful of all earthly
+aids,--the memory of admired and loved virtues. Yes, the mingled sorrow
+and affection which have swelled many hearts among us within the last
+week, tell me that the excellence we have lost has not lived in vain.
+Precious memory of early [156] virtue and piety! and such memories, and
+more than one such, there are among you. Hold these bright companions
+ever dear, my young friends; embalm their memory in the fragrant breath
+of your love; follow them with the generous emulation of virtue; let the
+seal which death has set upon excellence stamp it with a character of
+new sanctity and authority; let not virtue die and friendship mourn in
+vain!"
+
+[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 the
+meaning of the brackets is uncertain. Probably, however, the passage
+which they enclose is a quotation.]
+
+Remember me with most affectionate sympathy to your mother, and Aunt
+Mary, 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 think
+Massachusetts could not have met with a greater loss than of that young
+man."
+
+Mr. Emerson's letter in reply is beautiful in itself, and has the added
+interest attaching now to every word of his:--
+
+CONCORD, May 23, 1836,
+
+MY DEAR SIR,--I received the last week your kind letter, and the copy
+of your affectionate notice of Charles A Chauncey Place. I remember
+how little while ago you consoled us by your sympathy at Edward's
+departure,--a kind, elevating letter, which I have never acknowledged.
+I feel as if it was kind, even compassionate, to remember me now that
+these my claims of remembrance are gone.
+
+Charles's mind was healthy, and had opened steadily with a growth that
+never ceased from month to month [157] under favorable circumstances.
+His critical eye was so acute, his rest on himself so absolute, and
+his power of illustrating his thought by an endless procession of fine
+images so excellent, that his conversation came to be depended on at
+home as daily bread, and made a very large part of the value of life
+to me. His standard of action was heroic,--I believe he never had even
+temptations to anything mean or gross. With great value for the opinion
+of plain men, whose habits of life precluded compliment and made their
+verdict unquestionable, he held perhaps at too low a rate the praise of
+fashionable people,--so that he steadily withdrew from display, and
+I felt as if nobody knew my treasure. Meantime, like Aaron, "he could
+speak well." He had every gift for public debate, and I thought we had
+an orator in training for the necessities of the country, who should
+deserve the name and the rewards of eloquence. But it has pleased God
+not 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 I
+feel--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 in
+Boston. My mother and brother rejoice in your success in New York, and
+I with them. They have had their part in the benefit. I hear nothing
+of the aching head, and hope it does not ache. . . . Cannot I see you in
+Concord during some of your Boston visits? I will lay by every curious
+book or letter that I can think might interest you. My cousin Louisa, I
+know, would be glad to see this old town, and the old [158] man at the
+parsonage whilst he is yet alive. My mother joins me in sending love to
+her.
+
+Yours affectionately,
+
+R. WALDO EMERSON.
+
+Mr. Dewey's mind was too logical in its methods for entire intellectual
+sympathy with Mr. Emerson; but that he thoroughly appreciated his
+spiritual insight is shown by the following passage from a manuscript
+sermon on Law, preached 13th August, 1868, on the occasion of the
+earthquake of that year in South America: "But the law [of retribution]
+does stand fast. Nothing ever did, ever shall, ever can escape it. Take
+any essence-drop or particle of evil into your heart and life, and you
+shall pay for it in the loss, if not of gold or of honor, yet of the
+finest sense and the finest enjoyment of all things divinest, most
+beautiful and most blessed in your being. I know of no writer among us
+who has emphasized this fact, this law, more sharply than Waldo
+Emerson, and I commend his pages to you in this view. Freed from all
+conventionalism, whether religious or Scriptural, though he has left the
+ranks of our faith, yet he has gone, better than any of us, to the very
+depth 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 tell
+you of them? I sometimes do not care whether any human being knows what
+is passing in [159] me; and then again my feelings are all up in arms
+for sympathy, as if they would take it by storm. I declare I have a good
+deal of liking for that other,--that sullenness, or sadness, or what
+you 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 this
+great city, will a face come through my door that I shall like to see
+better than yours,--I doubt if so well.
+
+The next nearest thing to you is Furness's book. Have you got it? Is
+it not charming? It is a book of beauty and life. Spots there are upon
+it,--they say there are upon the sun. Certes, there are tendencies to
+naturalism in Furness's mind which I do not like,--do not think the
+true philosophy; but it is full of beauty, and hath much wisdom in it
+too.
+
+I write on the gallop. My dinner is coming in three minutes, and a wagon
+is coming after that to carry me to Berkshire, that is, by steamboat to
+Hudson as usual. But I am going to send this, though it be worth nothing
+but to get a letter from you.
+
+If letters, like dreams, came from the multitude of business, I should
+write of nothing but that tragedy extempore,-for I am sure it was got up
+in a minute,-the argument whereof was your running away. It positively
+is 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 of
+your going away,--running away, I say,--desertion,--and help yourself if
+you 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 you
+can 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 a
+sermon all the morning, and can't help cutting a caper when it is let
+out. 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 are
+going 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 cultivate
+her, or let her cultivate you, your folly will be inconceivable.
+
+Mrs. Jameson I have missed two or three chances of seeing,--very
+bright sometimes, and very foolish others; but who shall resist such
+intoxicating draughts as have for some years been offered to her! She
+set off for Canada yesterday, going for her husband, since he could n't
+or would n't come for her.
+
+Ingham has just finished one of the most exquisite portraits of Miss
+Sedgwick 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 not
+a test point, and I would not break with the [161] "Christian Examiner"
+upon it; and yet I think the heterodox opinions of Ripley should have
+come into it in the shape of a letter, and not of a review. It is rather
+absurd to say "We" with such confidence, and that for opinions in
+conflict with the whole course of the "Examiner" and the known opinions
+of 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 his
+birth.]
+
+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 sheet
+of paper, grasped my pen energetically, and had almost committed myself
+for a letter to you, when suddenly it occurred to me that Mrs. Schuyler
+was in Boston, and would have told you just what it was my special
+design to write; that is, all about the congregation of the faithful in
+Chambers Street. Well, I suppose she has; but I shall have my say.
+The congregation has certainly not improved, as you seem, in your
+preposterous modesty, to suppose, but suffered by your leaving it. The
+attendance, I should think, is about the same. . . . But I am afraid that
+the 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 that
+Brookline is a place? Take my word, Sir, that it is not to be found on
+the 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 have
+not heard of these crowded, listening, etc. assemblies at the Mercer
+Street Church. Well, really, I have seen a packed audience there, and
+even the galleries pretty well filled. I have thoughts of publishing the
+discourses (only three, more than an hour long, however), and if I
+could only write three more, I would; but my brain got into a pretty
+bad condition by the third week, and I don't know whether I can go On at
+present.
+
+To the Same.
+
+NEW YORK, March 27, 1837.
+
+MY DEAR WARE,--I should like to know what you mean by not letting me
+hear from you these three months. Do you not know that you are in my
+debt for a letter at least twenty lines long, which it took me three
+minutes 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 that
+everybody is saying, "When have you heard from Mr. Ware?" Do you not
+know that ugly and choking weeds will spring up on the desolation you
+have made here if you do not scatter some flower-seeds upon it? Consider
+and tremble. Or, respect this and repent, as the Chinese say.
+
+Well, Dr. Follen is to be here for a twelvemonth, and we shall not get
+you back again,--oh me!
+
+Dr. Follen has quite filled the church at some evening lectures on
+Unitarianism. Good! and everything about him is good, but that he comes
+after you. [163]
+
+To the Same.
+
+NEW YORK, July 10, 1837.
+
+MY DEAR WARE,--I can scarcely moderate my expressions to the tone of
+wisdom in telling you how much pleasure I have had in reading your
+book,--how much I am delighted with you and for you. There is no person
+to whom I would more gladly have had the honor fall of writing the
+"Letters from Palmyra." And it is a distinction that places your
+name among the highest in our--good-for-nothing--literature, as the
+Martineau considers it. By the bye, you need n't think you are a-going
+to stand at the head of everything, as she will have it. Have not I
+written 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 nothing
+of qualification,--and hence is opinionated and confident to a degree
+that I think I never saw equalled. Julia, Fausta, nay, Zenobia, for
+me, rather. How beautifully have you shown them up! And Gracchus
+and Longinus as nobly. What things is literature doing to gratify
+ambition,--things beyond its proudest hope! How little thought Zenobia
+that her character, two thousand years after she lived, would be
+illustrated 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 this
+morning, and is to do so again this evening; and for this I find myself
+indirectly indebted to you. But you are one of those to whom I can't
+feel much obligation--for the love I bear you.
+
+I wrote to you three weeks ago. I hope Mrs. Ware is patient and
+sustained. Of you I expect it. But, O heaven! what a world of thought
+does it take even to look on calamity!
+
+Your name is abroad in the world as it should be. I rejoice. Pierpont
+is 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 from
+Berkshire to New York forty years ago. The route by Hartford was
+probably chosen instead of the ordinary one by Hudson, to take advantage
+of 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 write
+July, but the truth is, I nearly lost my wits on my journey. Twelve or
+thirteen mortal hours in getting to Hartford [FN: Fifty miles]. After
+two or three hours, called [165] up, just when the sleep had become so
+profound that on being waked I could not, for some seconds, settle it on
+what hemisphere, continent, country, or spot of the creation I was,
+nor why I was there at all. Then whisked away in the dark to the
+science-lighted domes of New Haven, but did n't see them--for why? I was
+asleep as I went through to the wharf. From the wharf, pitched into the
+steamboat, not having the points of compass, nor the time of day, nor
+the zenith and nadir of my own person. After two previous months of
+quiet, the whirl-about made me feel very "like an ocean weed uptorn And
+loose along the world of waters borne." If not a foundered weed, a very
+dumfoundered 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 I
+am 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's
+day. By the bye, speaking of sunbeams, they certainly do wonders in
+winter 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 had
+fallen and lodged in their clefts and leafless trees? Yesterday I was
+looking towards our barn roofs covered with snow,--and you know they
+are but six rods off,--and so deep was the color that I thought for
+the moment it was the blue of the distant horizon. [166] Our friend
+Catherine Sedgwick, writing to me a day or two ago, speaks in raptures
+of 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 gone
+to New York a week since. No doubt it will produce beautiful flowers in
+due time, many of them culled from far distant lands, but most of them
+native, I ween. Foreign seeds, you know, can do nothing without a
+good soil. In truth, I am looking with great interest for Catherine
+Sedgwick's book.
+
+"Hard work to write." Yes, terribly hard it has been for me these two
+years 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, but
+makes a dragging business of it. By the bye, is your laziness making an
+apology for not finishing "Scenes in Judea "? Hear a compliment of my
+mother's for your encouragement. "I should think the man that could
+write the Letters from Palmyra,'--anything so beautiful and so powerful
+too" (her very words),--"could write anything."
+
+I am delighted to hear of Mr. Farrar's being better. Give my love to
+them, and tell him I know of nothing in the world I could near with more
+pleasure than of his improvement. What a beautiful, gentle, precious
+spirit he is!
+
+Yes, I grant you all about Cambridge; and if I don't go abroad, perhaps
+we will come and live with you a year or two. Something I must do; I get
+no better.
+
+I can't guess your plaguy charade. I never thought of one a minute
+before, and I have ruminated upon yours an hour. [167] Oh that you were
+my 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 of
+you. I wish I could do so by going to see you. But my decision to go
+is not more than three weeks old, and the intervening time has been
+overwhelmed with cares. Among other things, I have been occupied with
+printing a volume of sermons. I feel as if it were a foolish thing to
+confess, 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 rest
+of 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, during
+twenty years to come, than it has ever wanted before, or will again, and
+I hope you will be able to do your part. Perhaps this is speaking more
+oracularly than becomes my ignorance; but it does appear to me that the
+civilized world is on the eve of a change and a progress, putting all
+past data at fault, and outstripping all present imagination. What
+questions are to arise and to be [168] hotly agitated about human
+rights, social position, lawful government, and the laws that are to
+press man down or to help him up? What Brownsons and Lamennais' and
+Strauss' are to come upon the stage, and to be confronted with sober and
+earnest 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 it
+would give me great pleasure.
+
+With my most kind and affectionate regards to Mrs. Channing, and my very
+heart'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 writing
+a 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 we
+not lived and labored together, have I not been in your house as if it
+were 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 this
+anniversary time not only a fellowship season for all Christian souls,
+but especially a reminder to those who have walked to the house of God
+in company?
+
+Still, however, it is of affairs that I have felt pressed to write you
+ever since I left home,--indeed, ever since I received your letter from
+Montreal. I have felt [169] that I ought at least to tell you that I
+see no prospect of doing anything that you desire of me. When I shall
+be 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 read
+French histories, memoirs, novels, periodicals, etc., and to run after
+this great show-world of Paris,--Louvre, gallery, opera, what not. I am
+longing to get behind these visible curtains, and to know the spirit,
+character, manner of being, of this French people. At present all is
+problem to me. No Sunday, literally no cessation of labor, no sanctity
+of domestic ties with multitudes, no honesty or truth (it is commonly
+reported), but courtesy, kindness, it seems, and a sort of conventional
+fidelity,--for instance, no stealing; a million of people here,
+but without either manufactures or commerce on a great scale; petit
+manufacture, petit trade, petit menage, petit prudence unexampled, and
+the grandest tableaux of royal magnificence in public works and public
+grounds to be seen in the world; the rez-au-chaussee (ground floor) of
+Paris, 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 infinite
+boutiquerie, an infinite bonbonnerie, an infinite stir and movement,
+and no deep moral impulse that I can see; a strange melange of the most
+shallow levity in society, the most atrocious license in literature,
+and the most savage liberalism in politics,--on the whole, what sort of
+people is it?
+
+He bien!-to come down from my high horse before I break my neck,--here
+we are, at honest housekeeping; for we hope to pay the bills. Hope to
+pay, 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 all
+this to every family. Our greatest good-fortune here is in having the
+Walshes 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 to
+write a P. S. in my letter, and I am so happy to come to you in
+such good company, as well as to enhance the value of my letter with
+something better than I can write, that I very gladly give the space to
+her. I am only sorry and ashamed that it is so little. And so, with all
+our 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 moon
+shining in at my open window, the sound of the rushing Arve in my
+ears,--around me, a fine table of land a hundred feet above the stream
+that washes its base, and covered with a hundred noble chestnuts, and
+laid out with beautiful walks,--thus "being and situate," I take in hand
+this abominable steel pen to write you. Envy me not, William Ware! Let
+no man, that is well, envy him that is sick. If I were "lying and being
+and situate," as the deeds have it, and as I ought to have it, I should
+think 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 of
+diseased nerves which I might well exchange for the privilege of living
+on the Isle of Shoals, could I but have the constitution of some of its
+pechereux (by contraction, pesky) inhabitants.
+
+. . . There has come a new day, and I have got a new [171] pen. Last
+night I was too much awake; I got up from my bed and wrote in my
+dressing-gown; to-day I am too much asleep. But allons, and see what
+will come of it.
+
+This morning we walked into Geneva to church, the air so clear that it
+seemed as if we could count every tile on the houses. The chimneys are
+crowned with a forest of tin pipes, twisted in every direction to carry
+off smoke. At dusky eve, in a superstitious time, a man, coming suddenly
+upon the town, might think that an army of goblins had just alighted
+upon its roofs. . . . What stupendous things do ages accumulate upon
+every spot where they have passed! Every time we go into town we pass
+by the very place where Servetus was burned. And Geneva is old enough to
+have seen Julius Caesar!
+
+. . . Here's another new day, William; and I wish I were a new man. But
+the heavens are bright, and the air so clear that I can define every
+man's patch of vineyard and farm on the Jura, ten miles off; every
+fissure and seam on Saleve, two miles back of us; and through a gap in
+the Saleve, I do not doubt, were I to go out on the grounds, I could see
+the top of Mont Blanc. And yet lay one or two ounces' weight on a
+man's brain, and a tackle, standing on the Jura, Saleve, and Mont Blanc
+together, can't lift him up. You see, I am resolved you shan't envy
+me. However, not to be too lugubrious, I am improving; that is, the
+paroxysms of this trouble are less severe, though I am far from being
+relieved of the burden.
+
+But it is time I turn to your letter, which I received here with
+Henry'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 that
+concerning himself most of all. What is to become of our churches? And
+what is he to do? It relieves me very much to hear that Gannett's case
+is no worse. My love and sympathy to him when you see him. Is he not one
+of our noblest and most disinterested, as well as ablest men,--nay, as
+an 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 what
+I should consider a most painful duty,--that of announcing to you the
+death of your friend Sismondi! He died on the 25th of last month. I saw
+Mme. Sismondi yesterday, and she desired me to tell you particularly
+that she must defer writing to you some little time; that she did not
+feel that she could write now, especially in a way to give you any
+comfort. She thought it was better that I should announce it to you, not
+seeming to be aware that the death of her husband is one of the events
+that the newspapers soon carry through the world. Indeed, the modesty of
+Sismondi and his wife is one of the things in them that has most struck
+me. Mme. S. said yesterday, in speaking of the commencement of your
+friendship, that "Sismondi was so grateful to her for finding him out."
+And Sismondi, when I saw him on my arrival, in expressing to me his
+regret and concern that it was so long since he had heard from you, said
+he knew that you had many letters to write, etc.; as if that could be
+the reason why you did not write to him! Well, there is more modesty in
+the world than we think, I verily believe. [173]. . . Speaking of her
+husband, 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, and
+indeed took all our hearts by storm,--if that can be said of a creature
+so gentle and modest. . . .
+
+I wrote the foregoing this morning. At dinner-time your letter of June
+12 came, which, with several others, has so turned my head, that I don't
+know whether it is morning or afternoon. We are conscious, "at each
+remove," of dragging "the lengthening chain," but we do not know exactly
+how heavy or how strong it is, till some one lays a hand on the other
+end. The lightest pressure there!--you know how it is when some one
+steps on the end of a long string which a boy draws after him. God bless
+you!--it was in my heart to say no less,--for thinking it is a long
+time. . . . We read and walk and talk and laugh, and sometimes sigh.
+Switzerland has no remedy against that. Of myself I have nothing to say
+that is worth the saying. I am improving somewhat, but I am suffering
+much 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 to
+us of the death of Channing. During this time my mind has been passing
+through steps of gradual approximation to the reality, but never did
+it [174] find, or else voluntarily interpose, so many barriers between
+itself and reality as in this most deplorable event. There are losses
+which I should more acutely feel than the loss of Channing; because
+friendship with him lacked, I imagine, in all who enjoyed it, those
+little familiarities, those fonder leanings, which leave us, as it were,
+bewildered and utterly prostrate when the beloved object is gone. But
+there is here a sense of general and irreparable loss, such as the
+people of a realm might be supposed to feel when its cherished head is
+suddenly taken away. For I suppose that no person sustained so many
+and such vital relations to the whole republic of thought, to the whole
+realm of moral feeling among us, as this, our venerated teacher and
+friend. To call him "that great and good man," does not meet the feeling
+we have about him. Familiar to almost nobody, he was near to everybody.
+His very personality seems to have been half lost in the sense of
+general benefit. He was one of those great gifts of God, like sunlight
+or 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 world
+itself is mournfully bereft.
+
+But a letter affords no scope for such a theme; and besides, painful as
+it is to pass to common topics, they claim their dues. Life, ay, common
+life, must go on as it ever did, and nothing shall tear that infinite
+web of mystery in which it walks enveloped. Ours, however, in these
+days, is rather a shaded life. Absence from home, a strange land, a
+land, too, that sits in mourning over the great relics of the past,--all
+this tends to make it so. More material still is what passes within
+the microcosm, and I am not yet well. Not that I am worse, for I am
+continually 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 certainly
+in his brain,--I have seen a horrible picture of the Medusa to-day by
+Leonardo da Vinci,--he cannot be very happy, you know. And if those
+around him be of such as "bear one another's burdens," then you see how
+the general conscience follows.
+
+But let me not make the picture too dark, for the sake of truth and
+gratitude. Pleasantly situated we are, in his fair Florence, which grows
+fairer to my eye the more I see it. Our rooms look to the south, and
+down from a balcony upon a garden full of orange-trees, and roses
+End chrysanthemums in full bloom. . . . Then we have reading and music
+in-doors, and churches and palaces and galleries out-doors. And such
+galleries they grow upon me daily; the more ordinary paintings, or those
+hat seemed such at first, reveal something new on very new perusal. It
+is 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 for
+the last three weeks I have thought of it. I have been with you in
+thought, and with him, your dear brother,--my dear friend! If he should
+have known me and conversed with me, I could lot have refrained from
+making the journey to see him. How easy his converse ever was, how
+natural, how sensible [176] and humorous by turns, but especially so
+unforced that for me it always had a charm by itself. The words seemed
+to drop from our lips almost without our will, and yet with nobody could
+I get through so much conversation in so little time. Neither of us
+seemed to want much explanation from the other; I think we understood
+one another well.
+
+Where is he now? With whom talks he now? Perhaps with Channing and
+Greenwood! Oh! are not the best of us gone; and all in one year! Was
+there 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 a
+strange feeling of nonchalance about everything,--life, death, and the
+time of death, what matters it? I rather think it is natural for the
+love of life to grow stronger as we advance in life and yet it is so
+terribly shaken by the experience of life, and one is so burdened at
+times by the all-surrounding and overwhelming mystery and darkness, that
+one is willing to escape any way and on any terms.
+
+I have your few kind words. I hope I shall have such oftener than once
+or 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 least
+not at present. When the present stress is over. I may feel better. The
+fact is, at present I am scarcely fit to take care of my parish, and it
+would be madness to take upon myself any new [177] burden. See there
+a fine fellow I should be to have charge of the "Examiner," who have
+written present three times in as many lines! However, I am writing now
+in terrible haste, on the spur of an instant determination; for I must
+and will put this thing off from my mind. I have kept it there for
+a 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 may
+be, if the thing is open by and by, but not now; I must not think of it
+any more now. I have not slept a wink all night for thinking of this and
+other things.
+
+All this, my dear fellow, is somewhat confidential. I do not wish to be
+considered a good-for-nothing. Perhaps I shall rally. I was doing very
+well 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 wherewith
+to 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 things
+as you ingeniously represent, [178] I judge that attempts are worth
+something. Ergo, Q. S., which means good sequitur; it can hardly be a
+non sequitur, if nothing follows.
+
+There! I have just touched all the points of your letter, I think. I
+have sent my light comment-stone skittering over your full smooth lake.
+
+Well, I see you on the bank of your literal lake, your beautiful
+Menotomy,--beautiful as Windermere, only not so big; and I see the
+spring coming to cover that bank with verdure, and I long for both; that
+is, for spring and you. I always long for you, and for spring, I think I
+long for it more than I ever did It must be that I am growing old. Shall
+we ever meet, my friend, if not by Menotomy, by those fountains where
+Christ leads his flock in the immortal clime, and rejoin our beloved
+Henry, and Greenwood, and Channing? I am not sad, but my thoughts this
+winter are far more of death than of life. Ought one to part with his
+friends so? No; happy New Year to you. Hail the expected years, and the
+years 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 to
+let you know that I have thought about you incessantly; for you know
+that 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. Heads
+certainly can bear a great deal. Mine has; and [179] I am now reading
+the work, in six volumes, of a man who was out of his head for years
+from hard study; and yet these volumes are full of thought, full of
+minute and endless explications on the greatest of subjects. It is the
+work of Auguste Comte on the "Philosophie Positive," essentially an
+attempt at a philosophic appreciation of the whole course of human
+thought and history. With an awfully involved style, with a great
+over-valuation of his own labor, he seems to me to have done a great
+deal. I have met with nothing on the philosophy of history to compare
+with 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 of
+September. . . .
+
+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 made
+very serious just now by reading the first five chapters of Matthew.
+How many things to think of! Does no doubt arise concerning those
+introductory chapters? And then what heart-penetrating, what tremendous
+teaching 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 much
+strength, 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 two
+sermons. With the philosopher I have spent the most time. Morning after
+morning, with none to annoy or make me afraid, I have gone out on the
+green grass under the trees, and, seated in the bosom of the world,
+I have striven with the great problem of the world. The account looks
+fanciful, perhaps, but the matter is not so; for amidst this solitude
+and silence, and this infinitude which nature opens to me as the
+city never does, I find the most serious and terrible business of my
+existence. I do not mean terrible in a bad sense; I have courage and
+faith, but I can gain no approach towards philosophical apathy.
+
+We are well, and expect to go down on Wednesday next, and we too begin
+to 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 your
+husband a few days. He has done us much good; unless I am to put in the
+opposite scale his having stolen away the hearts of my children.
+
+If you had heard him last evening, I think you would have been
+satisfied, though wives are hard to please. It was a majestical and
+touching ministration; I have never felt anything from the pulpit to be
+more 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. I
+hope you are better; and with all other good wishes, I am, Yours very
+truly,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+To Rev. William Ware.
+
+NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 1846.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--This week is a little breathing-time, the first I have
+allowed myself for five months; and my old pile of sermons shows such a
+sprinkling 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, and
+made me think of that monitory prediction of yours when I came home, two
+years ago. . . . To be sure, I do not usually think of any retreat that
+will separate me entirely from New York. I have expected to live and die
+in connection with this church; but I have had a feeling this winter as
+if a new voice might be better for them; and any way it may be better
+for 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 is
+discharged. Poorly; alas! how does this eternal ideal fly before us, and
+leave us ever restless and unsatisfied! How much Henry felt it! more,
+indeed, than I had thought, well as I knew his humility. And indeed I
+cannot help thinking that he did not sufficiently distinguish between
+outward and inward defect. I can very well understand how, in any right
+mind, the latter should give deep pain. But for Henry Ware to charge
+himself with indolence [182] and idleness,--with not doing enough! Why,
+he was ever doing more than his health would bear. The Memoir, I hardly
+need say, is read here with deep interest. Tell your brother, with my
+regards and thanks to him, that it appears to me a perfect biography in
+this,--that it placed me in the very presence of my friend, and made me
+feel, all the while I was reading it, as if he were with me. I laid it
+down, however, I may confess to you, with one sad feeling beyond that
+of the general loss; and that was that nowhere throughout was there one
+recognition of the friendship that bound me and Henry Ware together. It
+is nobody's fault, unless it be mine. And I am led sometimes to
+query whether there be not something strange about me in my friendly
+relations; some apparent repulsion, or some want of visible kindliness.
+One thing I do know; that we are all crushed down under this great wheel
+of modern life and labor, and friendships seem to have but poor chance
+of culture and expression.
+
+To pass on; with regard to our New York churches, we have more visible
+activity this winter than usual. I hold a weekly evening meeting in
+the library of our church; Mr. Bellows also. Our Sunday school is
+reorganized, being divided into two, and the numbers are more than
+doubled; and we have formed a Unitarian Association for the State of New
+York, with headquarters in the hall over the entrance to the Church of
+the Divine Unity.
+
+To the Same.
+
+NEW YORK, May 4, 1846.
+
+MY DEAR not "rugged and dangerous," but gentle and good-natured,--I
+foresee a biography (far be the [183] day when it shall be required!)
+in which it is not difficult to anticipate a passage running somewhat
+as follows: "He seemed to possess every attribute of genius but
+self-reliance. From this cause, doubtless, he failed to some extent of
+what he might otherwise have accomplished. He himself thought that the
+choice of his profession was the fatal mistake of his life; and perhaps
+he might have found a more congenial sphere. But it may be doubted
+whether his self-distrust might not have prevented him from putting
+forth his full strength, or rather, perhaps, from giving full play
+to his mind in any walk of literature or art. Even in those beautiful
+Oriental and Roman fictions there is a certain staidness, a measured
+step, from which he never departs. Even in some of those chapters
+of Zenobia, which a critic of the day pronounced to be `absolute
+inspiration,' the light glows through the smooth and polished sentences
+as through the crevices of plated armor. In fact, it was only in his
+familiar letters that his genius seemed to break out into perfect
+freedom. In these he approached the letters of Charles Lamb nearer than
+any writer of his day.
+
+"There is a curious and really amusing specimen of his modesty in a
+letter of his to a friend of the name of Dewey,--if we read the name
+rightly in his somewhat illegible manuscripts. This Dewey, it seems, had
+published some sermons, or volumes of sermons, we know not which,--for
+they are long since swept down beneath the flood of time to that
+oblivion to which many cart-loads of such things are worthily
+destined,--and the author of Zenobia really addresses this forgotten
+preacher as his superior in strength, in power, and, it would seem,
+even in the felicities of style. We hope [184] the good man had too
+much sense, or humility at least, to have his head turned by such
+inexplicable fatuity."
+
+Now I will thank you to preserve this letter among your papers, that the
+biographer 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. I
+am afraid I am not made for them. It wants a man, at any rate, with all
+his faculties about him, ready and apt and in full vigor; and mine are
+not,--certainly not now-a-days, if they ever are. The condition of my
+brain at present makes quiet necessary to me. Every exertion is now
+something too much.
+
+I have addressed the trustees of the church to-day, to express my
+conviction to them that, by next autumn, some material change must be
+made. By that time all my sermons will be preached to death, and I shall
+have no power to make new ones. The church must determine whether it
+will relinquish my services entirely, or have them one quarter or one
+third of the time.
+
+The thought of having soon to be clone with time and life has almost
+oppressed me for the year past, so constantly has it been with me. And
+indeed I have felt that there may be too much of this for the vigor, not
+to 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 the
+spirit of the "Saints' Rest," is the true spiritual condition. I have
+long wanted to review Baxter's work, in this and other views.
+
+With my love to your wife and children,--I mean, by your leave, your
+wife 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) where
+I am busy, I were not going to an equally awful country heat where
+I shall be lazy, I would put off writing a few days. . . . My
+principal--no, I won't say that--my most painful business is hunting
+up sermons fit to be preached. The game grows scarce, and my greatest
+vexation is that every now and then, when I think I have got a fox or a
+beaver, it turns out to be a woodchuck or a muskrat.
+
+From the tenor of some of our late letters, I believe we should be
+thought to belong to the "Mutual Admiration Society." I deny that of us
+both, though appearances are rather against us. I will have done, at any
+rate, for your last has quite knocked me down, or rather so outrageously
+set 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, about
+three months in a different connection, and the congregation, I am
+told, thought that in naming three they were conforming precisely to
+my wishes. But that will be arranged satisfactorily. I am to go out of
+town, 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,--twelve
+thousand dollars, perhaps, in all; so far I have carried out the plan
+you speak of. I have had reasons more than most others for attending to
+the means, for I am the only surviving male member of my family. I have
+had the satisfaction of doing something for them all along, and shall
+have that of leaving to my mother [186] and sisters a house to cover
+them, 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 into
+my head. Did you expect things coming from anywhere else, I would like
+to know? It's a pretty serious condition, however. Conceive--I am to
+write in total forgetfulness that I am a Dr., and without any fear
+before my eyes of having it printed in a biography. Bah! if anybody
+ever did write letters that never could be printed anywhere, I am
+that person. What the reason is precisely, I do not know, but I always
+fancied it was because I had no time and no superfluous energies to
+throw away upon letters, any pore than upon conundrums. And I have
+fancied, too that when the blessed leisure days should come in the
+quiet country,--not only the otium cum dignitate, but he silence and the
+meditation,--that then I should pour myself out in letters. But the time
+has 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. It
+is now Monday, 11: 20 A.M., and we did not arrive here till Saturday
+evening.
+
+Let me hear from you as soon as ten thousand things will let you. You
+will easily see that there is no good reason why I have written this
+letter but this,--that have left the greater part of my heart in New
+York and naturally turn back to find it. Remind your three [187] houses
+of the stock they have in it, bad as it is; and, to be most sadly
+serious, remember my very affectionate regards to Mrs. Kirkland, and
+give 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 five
+months, and am I not very glad of it? And yet I am very glad I came
+away. You have no idea how I am relieved, and I shall not go back
+empty-handed. But the relief I feel admonishes me never to return to the
+full 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 weighs
+upon 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 are
+anxious for many minds; and when, moreover, your studies are not of the
+habitudes of bees, and the length of butterflies' wings, but wasting
+thoughts of human souls in sorrow and peril, and your Sundays rack your
+sinews 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 interval
+between 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 laid
+at the door of my delinquencies. . . . Indeed, I rejoice in you always. I
+never hear of you but to hear good of you; and it is often that I
+hear. . . .
+
+As to the sermons I have been writing here, I consider your suggestion
+that you might read since you will not hear them such an enormous
+compliment, such a reckless piece of goodness, that all your duties in
+regard to them are fully discharged in the bare proposition. And I am
+not going to have you canonized and sent down to all ages as the most
+suffering saint in the nineteenth century, for having read twelve of
+Dewey's manuscript sermons. I have preached one of them this evening,
+and it made so much impression (upon, me) that I was quite taken
+by surprise. The title is "Nature.". . . Last week I wrote the most
+considerable lucubration of the winter, on the darkest problem in the
+philosophy of life and history, "the ministry of error and evil in the
+world," to wit, Polytheism, Despotism, War, and Slavery. . . . Always
+my poor mind and heart are struggling with one subject, and that is the
+great world-question.
+
+You speak of my opportunities here. Perhaps I have not improved them
+very well. I am not very enterprising in the social relations, and half
+of the winter I have not cared for Washington, nor anything else but
+what was passing in my own mind. . . . I have met some admirable persons
+here, of those I did not know before. Crittenden and Corwin and Judge
+McLean have interested me most; men they seem to me of as fine and
+beautiful natures as one can well meet. I have had two interviews with
+Calhoun that interested me much; [189] and the other evening I met
+Soule, the Louisiana senator, and had a long conversation with him,
+chiefly about slavery,--a very remarkable person. There is no face in
+the Senate, besides Webster's, so lashed up with the strong lines of
+intellect; and his smile shines out as brightly and beautifully from the
+dark 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 have
+it hereafter, if it makes you "demnition" mad; no appreciation of my
+delicacy 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 people
+retire up into the country, they grow monstrous avaricious, and exact
+everything that belongs to them; lay up their best clothes and go
+slip-shod. I'm preparing for that condition, mentally and bodily.
+You see I begin to slip already in language. Your mother is trying to
+persuade me to buy a dressing-gown. A dressing-gown! when I don't expect
+to dress at all. As if a beggar who never expects to dine were to buy a
+service of plate, or a starving man should have his picture taken, and
+give a hundred dollars for famine in effigy. I have ordered a suit of
+summer clothes, to be sure, because I feel very thin, and expect to feel
+very light some five weeks hence. I shall get some cigars by the same
+token, because all things with me are vanishing into smoke. And if
+thin clothes can't live, can't be distended, filled out, and look
+respectable, upon smoke, let 'em die, and be crushed before the moth.
+
+[190] Monday morning. These tantrums, dear Molly, were--what? cut
+up?-last night after preaching, and mortal tired I was too. I do not
+know how it is, but it seems to me that every sermon I take now, every
+poor, little, innocent sermon comes bouncing out in the pulpit like a
+Brobdingnag.
+
+To Rev. William Ware.
+
+SHEFFIELD, Aug. 22, 1847.
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--I don't like Commencements. I hate travelling. And just
+now I hate my pen so much that I can scarce muster patience to tell you
+so.
+
+I have been reading Prescott's "Peru." What a fine accomplishment there
+is about it! And yet there is something wanting to me in the moral
+nerve. History should teach men how to estimate characters. It should be
+a teacher of morals. And I think it should make us shudder at the names
+of Cortez and Pizarro. But Prescott's does not. He seems to have a kind
+of sympathy with these inhuman and perfidious adventurers, as if they
+were his heroes. It is too bad to talk of them as the soldiers of
+Christ. If it were said of the Devil, they would have better fitted the
+character.
+
+Monday morning. The shadows of the lilac fall upon my page, checkered
+with the slant rays of the morning light; there is a slope of green
+grass 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 October
+in New York, and my hand is commonly too weary, when engaged in such
+tasks, to turn to anything else.
+
+I sent the late edition of my--things (works, they call 'em) to the
+Harvard College Library, and if you will take the second volume, you
+will see, in a sermon "On the Slavery Question," how entirely I agree
+with you hat this is the great trial question of the country. And I
+think it will press upon the country this coming winter is it never has
+before. It certainly will if the Californias are ceded to us, and the
+Wilmot Proviso is brought before Congress, not for hypothetical, but
+for practical, actual decision. If it should be, I entertain the most
+painful apprehensions for the result. We have lost a host by the death
+of Silas Wright. A sagacious politician said to a friend of mine the
+other day, "It is a special providence, for it has saved us from a
+dissolution of the Union." His opinion was that Silas Wright, if he lad
+lived, would have been President; and you know that he would have taken
+his stand on the Proviso.
+
+The judgment of the individual to whom I have just referred presents the
+true issue. It is Policy against Right. I suppose there is not a man in
+New England who does not wish for the extinction of Slavery. I suppose
+there is hardly a man at the North who does not feel that the system is
+wrong, 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 and
+out of Congress will falter in their conviction before the determined
+stand of the South,--the determination, that is to say, to break off
+from the Union rather than submit to the Wilmot Proviso. And I do most
+seriously fear, for my part, that they would hold to that determination.
+But I am prepared, for myself, to say that, rather than yield the
+national sanction to this huge and monstrous wrong, I would take the
+risk of any consequences whatever. I reason for the nation as I would
+for myself. I say, rather than tell a lie, I would die. I cannot
+deliberately do wrong, and I cannot consent that my people shall. I
+would rather consent to the dismemberment of my right hand than to lay
+it in solemn mockery on the altar of injustice. As I have said in the
+sermon to which I have referred you, suppose that we were called upon
+to legalize polygamy or no marriage in California; would we do it?
+Certainly we would not, though all the Southern States should threaten
+to break off from us for our refusal, and should actually do it. I asked
+a similar question with regard to legalizing theft, in my sermon on the
+Annexation of Texas; and one of the stanchest opposers of the Wilmot
+Proviso once told me that that was the hardest instance he had ever been
+called upon to answer.
+
+But though he felt the force of the moral parallel, still policy was
+carrying it with him over the right; or rather I should say, perhaps,
+that he resolved the right' of the matter into temporary expediency. He
+did not mean to cross the line of conscience, but he thought it should
+sway to this great emergency.
+
+This, I say, is the great peril; and he who would raise up this
+nation to the height of this great argument, must [193] lift it to the
+determination to do no wrong,--must lift it high enough, in fact, to see
+that the right is the only true policy.
+
+Who shall do it? You exhort me to write. I shall do so as I am able, and
+see occasion, as I have done. I shall scarcely refrain, I suppose, from
+writing this winter. But alas! I am broken in health, and am totally
+unable fairly and fully to grapple with any great subject. I have more
+than I can well, or, I fear, safely do to meet the ordinary calls of my
+pulpit.
+
+In fact I am a good deal discouraged about my ability to do good in any
+way, unless it be by quiet study, and such fruits as may come of it. I
+have encountered so much misconstruction within a year past, or rather
+have come to the knowledge of so much, that I am seriously tempted, at
+times, to retire from the pulpit, from the church, from the open field
+of controversy in every form, and to spend the remainder of my days in
+studies, which, if they last long enough, may produce a book or two that
+will not subject me to that sort of personal inquisition which I find
+has beset me hitherto.
+
+You may be surprised at my saying this, and may ask if I have not had
+as much honor and praise as I deserve. I do not deny it. But still there
+is, unless I am mistaken, a sort of question about me as a professional
+person,--about my professional sanctity, or strictness, or peculiarity,
+that moves my indignation, I must say, but (what is more serious) that
+makes me doubt whether, as a clergyman, I am doing any good that is
+proportionate to my endeavors, and inclines me to retreat from this
+ground altogether. How, for instance, if I have any desirable place in
+one denomination, could the "Christian World" venture to say that I
+had done more hurt [194] by my observation about teetotalism in my
+Washington discourse than all the grog-shops in the land! How could a
+clerical brother of mine seriously propose, as if he spoke the sense of
+many, to have me admonished about my habits of living,--of eating,
+he said, but perhaps he meant drinking, too,--my habits, who am a
+remarkably simple and small eater; and, as to wine, do not taste it
+one day in twenty! Yet this person actually attributed my ill-health to
+luxurious living. I live as list; I feast as other men feast, when I am
+at a feast, which is very rarely; I laugh as other men laugh; I will
+not have any clerical peculiarity in my manners; and if his cannot be
+understood, I will retire from the profession, for I will be a man more
+than a minister. I came unto the profession from the simplest
+possible impulse,--from a religious impulse; I have spoken in it as I
+would,--with earnestness, if nothing else,--and I cannot throw away this
+earnestness upon a distrusting community. Besides, I confess that I
+am peculiarly sensitive to personal wrong. I do not suppose that this
+blackguardism of the Abolition press would have found anywhere a more
+sensitive subject than I am. It fills me with horror,--as if I had been
+struck 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. God
+bless 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. is
+getting along. I pray you to take your pen, if you are not too busy, or
+she too ill, and tell me how she is.
+
+And now, having my pen in hand, I could and should go on and write
+a letter to you, were it not that all ingenuity, fancy, liberty of
+writing, is put to a complete nonplus by the uncertainty in what state
+of mind my writing will find you. I must not write merrily, I would not
+write sadly. I hope all is well, I fear all is not, and I know not how
+to blend the two moods, though an apostle has said, "As sorrowful, yet
+always rejoicing." But apostolic states of mind somehow seem to me too
+great to enter into letters, and there is nothing to me more surprising
+than to find in biography--Foster's, for instance--long letters
+occupied with the profoundest questions in religion. If I were not
+habitually engaged in the contemplation of such subjects, if I had not
+another and appropriate vehicle for them, and if they did not always
+seem to me too vast for a sheet or two of paper, I suppose that my
+letters, too, might be wise and weighty. As it is, they are always mere
+relaxations, or mere chip-pings and parings from the greater themes, at
+the most. So you see that neither you nor the public lose anything by my
+being 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 getting
+well, but I am always anxious about that fever. Pray write a word to
+relieve my [196] solicitude, which my wife shares with me, as in the
+affectionate regard with which I am,
+
+Ever yours,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+Our kind remembrances to Mr. Lane. We are busy, Is city people cannot
+conceive 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 what
+you said the other morning; and though I expect to see you gain in a
+fortnight, I cannot let the interval pass without a few words. The new
+interest in your mind, as far is it is spiritual, and the new measures
+you propose to adopt in your church, so far as I understand them,
+have my entire sympathy. But I demur to your manner of stating the
+speculative grounds of this change in your feeling and view. Certainly
+my mind is, and has been or a long time, running in a direction contrary
+to your present leanings. I cannot think that human nature is o low and
+helpless as you seem to think, nor that the gospel is so entirely
+the one and exclusive remedy. And yet I agree, too, with much (in its
+practical bearing) of what you say, in the direction that your mind is
+taking. I have often insisted in the pulpit that the people do not yet
+understand Christianity; its spiritual nature, however, rather than its
+positive facts, its simple love and disinterestedness rather than its
+supernaturalism, were to me the points where they have failed. . . .
+fully admit, too, the need of progress in our denomination, but I do not
+believe in any grand new era to be [197] introduced into its history
+by the views you urge, or any other views. All good progress must be
+gradual. If there is a revolution in your mind, does it follow that that
+must 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 in
+you; your generous nature opens the doors of your mind to light from
+every quarter; need is, to carry on a strong discriminating work in
+a mind like yours. With your nature, so utterly opposed to everything
+sluggish and narrow, you have need of a large and well-considered
+philosophy, "looking before and after," and settling all things in their
+right places, and questioning every new-coming thought with singular
+caution, 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 with
+admiration, and sometimes--may I say?--with anxiety. There was a time
+when I greatly feared that you would go the lengths of Parker. The turn
+in your mind to what I deem healthier views took place about the time I
+went 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 go
+to the opposite extreme. The truth is, your intellectual insight seems
+to me greater than your breadth of view, your penetration greater than
+your comprehension; and the consequence has been a course of thought, as
+I believe you are aware, somewhat zigzag.
+
+Have I not thought of you, my dear fellow? I guess I have; and among
+other things I have so thought of you that I now entirely confide in the
+magnanimity of [198] your mind to receive with candor all this, and
+more if I should say it,--saying it, as I do, in the truest love and
+cherishing 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 your
+criticism on the sermon at Providence. She made the very rejoinder that
+I made to you,--"The power to cast one's self on the great Christian
+resource, to put one's self in relation with God the Father and with
+spiritual help, is the very power which he denies to human nature, and
+the very thing that Mr. H. contended for." Nor yet do I like your mode
+of statement, for Christianity does not represent itself to me as a sort
+of Noah's Ark, and human nature as in stormy waters,--to be saved if it
+can get its foot on that plank, and not otherwise. I prefer my figure of
+the shower specially sent on the feeble and half-withered plant. All the
+divines of every school have always said that there is light enough in
+nature, if with true docility and love men would follow it. Christ came
+to shed more light on our path, not the only light; to lift up the lame
+man, 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 of
+your mind; and that is, that your newly wakened zeal should fasten,
+as it seems to do, upon the positive facts and the supernaturalism of
+Christianity. Not, as I think, that I undervalue them. I do not know
+if any rational and thinking man that lays more stress on them in their
+place than I do. But certainly there is something beyond to which they
+point; and that is, the [199] deep spiritualism of the Gospel, the deep
+heart's repose and sufficiency in things divine and infinite. If your
+mind had fastened upon this as the newly found treasure in the Gospel, I
+should have been better satisfied. I am writing very frankly to you, as
+you are wont to write to me (and I believe that you and I can bear these
+terms, and bless them too), and therefore I will add that my greatest
+distrust of your spiritual nature turns to this very point: whether you
+have, in the same measure as you have other things, that deep heart's
+rest, that quiet, profound, all-sufficing satisfaction in the infinite
+resource, in the all-enbosoming love of the All-Good, in silent and
+solitary communion with God, settling and sinking the soul, as into
+the still waters and the ocean depths. Your nature runs to social
+communions, to visible movements, to outwardness, in short, more than to
+the central depths within. The defects in your preaching, which I have
+heard pointed out by the discerning, are the want of consistency,--of
+one six months with another six months,--and the want of spiritual depth
+and vitality; of that calm, deep tone of thought and feeling that goes
+to the depths of the heart.
+
+God knows that I do very humbly attempt to criticise another's religion
+and preaching, being inexpressibly concerned about the defects of my
+own. And, dear friend, I speak to you as modestly as I do frankly. I may
+be wrong, or I may be only partly right. But in this crisis I think that
+I ought to say plainly what I feel and fear. I cannot bear, for every
+reason,--for your sake and for the sake of the church, in which, for
+your age, you are rooting yourself so deeply,--that you should make any
+misstep 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 start
+from, though it have spent itself on the weary "Sermons." This is Monday
+morning, and I am not quite ready in mind to begin on a new one. The
+readiness, with me, is nine tenths of the battle. I never, or almost
+never, write a sermon unless it be upon a. subject that I want to write
+upon. I never cast about for a subject; I do not find the theme, but the
+theme finds me. Last week I departed from my way, and did lot make good
+progress. The text, "What shall it profit t man?" struck upon my heart
+as I sat down on Monday Horning, and I wrote it at the head of my usual
+seven sheets of white paper, and went on. But the awfulness if the text
+impressed me all the while with the sense of allure, and though the
+sermon 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 the
+simplest things become more and more weighty to me, so that a sermon
+does not require to be my thing remarkable to interest me deeply.
+Everything hat I say in the pulpit, I think, is taking stronger and
+stronger hold upon me, and that which might have been lull in my
+utterance ten years ago, is not so now. I say his to you, because it has
+some bearing on one of the natters discussed in our last letters; that
+is, whether I should leave the pulpit. If I leave it, it will be with a
+fresher life in it, I think, than has stirred in me at any previous part
+of my course. And certainly I have long believed that it was my vocation
+to preach, above all things,--more than to visit parishioners, though I
+always [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 is
+a great comfort to me). Certainly, then, I shall not retire from the
+pulpit, but upon the maturest reflection and for what shall seem to be
+the weightiest reasons. And I did not mean that the things I referred to
+should be prima facie reasons for retirement; but the question with me
+was whether my unprofessional way of thinking and acting were not so
+misconstrued as to lessen my power to do good; whether the good I do is
+in any proportion to the strength I lay out.
+
+But enough of myself, when I am much more concerned about you. I see
+plainly enough how intense is your desire to go to Rome. I see how all
+your culture and taste and feeling urge you to go, and yet more what a
+reason in many ways your health supplies. And I declare the author of
+Zenobia and Probus and Julian ought to go to Rome! There is a fitness in
+it, 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; but
+your health demands it. You must not be subject to sudden seizures in a
+strange city,--a stranger, alone. Your family never will consent to it,
+and I think never ought to. Do give up that idea entirely,--of going
+alone. Have patience. There will be somebody to go with next spring, or
+next summer. I would that I could go with you where you go, and lodge
+with you where you lodge. But somebody will go. Something better will
+turn up, at any rate, than to go alone. There are young men every year
+who want to go abroad in quest of art and beauty and culture, and to
+whom your company would be invaluable. I do not forget the difficulty
+about expense. But there are those who, like you, would be [202] glad to
+go directly by Marseilles or Leghorn. It is quite true that movement is
+the mischief with the purse.-Abiding in Rome or Florence, you can
+live for a dollar a day. A room, or two rooms (parlor and little
+sleeping-room), say near the Piazza di Spagna, or the Propaganda just
+by, can be hired, with bed, etc., all to be kept in order, for three
+or four pauls (thirty or forty cents, you know) a day. And you can
+breakfast at a colt; any time you fancy, while wandering about, for two
+pauls, and dine at a trattoria for from two to four pauls. I have more
+than once dined on a bowl of soup and bread and butter for two pauls. I
+hate heavy dinners. In Rome, one should always take a room in which the
+sun 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 with
+you. Don't fail to let me know if you set seriously about it, for I
+shall certainly come. The truth is, Airs. Ware should go with you. It is
+true the women are very precious when it comes to casting them up in a
+bill of expense, as in all things else. Does not that last clause save
+me, madam? And, madam dear, I want to talk with you about this project
+of William's, as much as I want to hear what he says.
+
+About the war, dear Gulielmus, and slavery, and almost everything else
+under heaven, I verily believe I think just as you do; so I need not
+write. 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 you
+be, then, when you descend upon us from the heights of Lenox,--from
+the schools of wisdom, from fiction and fine writing, from tragedy and
+comedy, from mountain mirrors reflecting all-surrounding beauty, down to
+plain, prosaic still-life in Sheffield? I look with anxiety and terror
+for the time; and, to keep you within the sphere of familiarity as
+much as possible, I think it best to write sometimes; and, to adopt
+the converse of the Western man's calling his bill "William," I call my
+William, bill,--my Mary, Molly, thereby softening, mollifying (as I may
+say) the case as much as possible.
+
+One thing I must desire of you. You are on an experiment. [FN: To
+try whether the air of Lenox, on the hills, would have any effect in
+averting an annual attack of hay-fever.] Now be honest. Don't bring
+any "sneeshin" down here to throw dust in our poor, simple eyes in the
+valley. Much as ever we can see anything for fogs. Mind ye, I shall be
+sharp, though. If you fall into any of those practices, I shall say you
+brought the trick from Lenox. You may say "I-ketch-you" as much as you
+please, 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. You
+ought to have written to me forty days ago. Your letter bears date
+of yesterday. I [204] received it this afternoon. I am replying this
+evening. How does your brain-pan feel, with this coal upon it? "How has
+it happened that there has been no communication?" Why, it has happened
+from your being the most unapprehensive mortal that ever lived, or from
+your having your wits whirled out of you by that everlasting New York
+tornado. As to letters, I wrote the two last, though the latter was a
+bit of one. As to the circumstances, my withdrawal from your society was
+involuntary, and painful to me. You should have written at once to your
+emeritus 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 exacting
+or punctilious person, and that is one reason why we have got along so
+well together 3 as well as that you are one whom nobody can know without
+taking a plaguy kindness and respect for, and can't help it. And
+all that you say about our past relation and intercourse I heartily
+reciprocate, excepting that which does you less than justice, and me
+more. As to deep talks, I really believe there is no chance for them in
+Gotham. And this reminds me that my wife has just been in my study to
+desire me to send a most earnest invitation to you and E. to come up
+here this winter and pass a few days with us. It will be easier than you
+may think at first. The New York and New Haven Railroad will be open in
+a few days, and then you can be here in seven or eight hours from your
+own 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 the
+world, measuring people's talent and [205] promise by their noses? . . .
+Why, man, Claude Lorraine and Boccaccio and Burke had "small noses;" and
+Kosciusko and George Buchanan had theirs turned up, and could n't help
+it. It reminds me of what a woman of our town said, who had married a
+very heinous-looking blacksmith. Some companions of our "smithess" saw
+him coming along in the street one day, and unwittingly exclaimed, "What
+dreadful-looking man is that?" "That's my husband," said the wife, "and
+God made him."
+
+To the Same.
+
+SHEFFIELD, Jan. 2, 1849.
+
+MY DEAR BELLOWS,--Your letter came on New Year's Day, and helped to some
+of those cachinnations usually thought to belong to such a time; though
+for my part I can never find set times particularly happy or even
+interesting,--partly, I believe, from a certain obstinacy of disposition
+that 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 congregation
+was about to do,--no idea of anything in my connection with the church
+that needed to be spoken of. I was indeed thinking, for some weeks
+before I went down, of saying to the congregation, that unless they
+thought my services very important to them, I should rather they would
+dispense with them, and my mind was just in an even balance about the
+matter. But one is always influenced by the feeling around him,--at
+least I am,--and when I found that every one who spoke with me about my
+coming again seemed to depend upon it, and to be much [206] interested
+in it, I determined to say nothing about withdrawing. My reasons for
+wishing to retire were, that I was working hard--hard for me--to
+prepare sermons which, as my engagement in my view was temporary, might
+be of no further use to me; and that if I were to enter upon a new
+course of life, the sooner I did so the better.
+
+And here I may as well dispose of what you and others say and urge with
+regard to my continuance in the profession. To your question whether I
+have not sermons enough to last me for five years in some new place, I
+answer, No, not enough for two. And if I had, I tell you that I cannot
+enter into these affecting and soul-exhausting relations again and
+again, any more than I could be married three or four times. The great
+trial of our calling is the wrenching, the agonizing, of sympathy with
+affliction; and there is another trying thing which I have thought
+of much of late, and that is the essential moral incongruity of such
+relations, and especially with strangers. I almost feel as if nobody but
+an intimate friend had any business in a house of deep affliction. In a
+congregation ever so familiar there is trial enough of this kind. If my
+friend is sick or dying, I go to his bedside of course, but it is as a
+friend,--to say a word or many words as the case may be; to look what
+I cannot say; to do what I can. But to come there, or to come to the
+desolate mourner, in an official capacity,--there is something in this
+which is in painful conflict with my ideas of the simple relations of
+man with man. Now all this difficulty is greatly increased when one
+enters upon a new ministration in a congregation of strangers. Therefore
+on every account I must say, no more pastoral relations for me. I cannot
+take [207] up into my heart another heap of human chance and change
+and sorrow. Do you not see it? Why, what takes place in New Bedford now
+moves me a hundred times more than all else that is in the world. And so
+it will always be with all that befalls my brethren in the Church of the
+Messiah.
+
+As to the world's need of help, I regard it doubtless as you do; and I
+am 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 the
+pulpit called "supplying "; nor can I go out on distant missionary
+enterprises,--to Cincinnati, Mobile, or New Orleans. The first would
+yield 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 world
+as much good as action. And there is no doubt what direction my studies
+must take. Why, I have written out within a week--written incontinently
+in my commonplace book, my pen would run on--a thesis on Pantheism
+nearly as long as a sermon. And as to preaching, what ground have I
+to think that mine is of any particular importance? Not that I mean to
+affect any humility which I do not feel. I profess that I have quite a
+good opinion of myself as a preacher. Seriously; I think I have one or
+two rather remarkable qualifications for preaching,--a sense of reality
+in 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 commonplace
+character from discourse. Oh! if I could add, a full sense of the
+divineness of the thing, I should say all. Yet something of this, too, I
+hope; and I hope to grow in this as I hope to live, and do not dread
+to 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 against
+it, does it not?
+
+As ever, yours,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+In connection with this letter, and with his own frank but moderate
+estimate of his gift as a preacher, it is interesting to read the
+following extract from a paper in his memory, read before the annual
+meeting of the American Unitarian Association by Rev. Dr. Briggs, May
+30, 1882:
+
+"I remember well the way in which he seemed to me to be a power in the
+pulpit. 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 I
+was to walk in from the Theological School at Cambridge to hear him when
+there was an opportunity to do so in any of the pulpits of Boston. I
+remember walking with my classmate, Nathaniel Hall,--when the matter
+of 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. My
+Brother Hall was not drawn there simply for the sake of his brother's
+installation, I, not from the fact that Providence was the home of my
+boyhood; but both of us, more than by anything else, by our eager desire
+to hear this preacher where he might give us a manifestation of his
+power. And, as he spoke from the text, I have preached righteousness in
+the great congregation,' we felt that we were well repaid for all our
+efforts to come and listen to him.
+
+"I have heard of some one who heard him preach from the text on dividing
+the sheep from the goats, and as he came away, he said, I felt as if I
+were standing before [209] the judgment-seat.' I remember hearing him
+preach from the text, Thou art the man,' and I felt that that word was
+addressed to me as directly as it was by the prophet to the king. His
+was a power scarcely known to the men of this later generation.
+
+"It would be difficult, I think, to analyze his character and mind, and
+to say just in what his power consisted. He did not have the reasoning
+power that distinguished Dr. Walker; he did not have the poetic gift
+that gave such a charm to the sermons of Ephraim Peabody; he did not
+have that peculiarity of speech which made the sermons of Dr. Putnam so
+effective upon the congregation, and yet he was the peer of any one of
+them. It was, I think, because the truth had possession of his whole
+being when he spoke. It was because he always had a high ideal of the
+pulpit, and was striving to come up to it, and because he went to the
+pulpit 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 but
+this afternoon to reflect upon your letter. But I see that you ought to
+have an answer immediately; and my reply to your proposition to me grows
+out of such decided considerations, that they seem to me to require no
+longer deliberation. I see that you desire my help, and I am very sorry
+that I cannot offer it to you; but consider. You ask of me what, with my
+habits of thought and methods of working, would be equal to writing one
+sermon is a fortnight. I [210] would rather do this than to write four
+or even three columns for the "Inquirer," considering, especially, that
+I must find such a variety of topics, and must furnish the tale of
+brick every week. I have always been obliged to work irregularly, when I
+could; and this weekly task-work would allow no indulgence to such poor
+habits 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 do
+nothing else,--nothing to supply my lack of means to live upon. I could
+better take the "Christian Examiner;" it would cost me much less labor,
+and it would give me the necessary addition to my income, provided I
+could find some nook at the eastward where I could live as cheaply as I
+can here.
+
+I think the case must be as plain to your mind as it is to mine. If
+I were to occupy any place in your army, it would be in the flying
+artillery; these solid columns will never do for me. Why, I can't
+remember the time when I have written twenty-five sermons in a year, and
+that, I insist, is the amount of labor you desire of me. You may think
+that I overrate it, and you speak of my writing from "the level of my
+mind." 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 think
+that I shall let the said mind lie as fallow ground for a while, hoping
+that, through God's blessing, leisure and leisurely studies may give
+strength for some good work by and by. How to live, in the mean time, is
+the question; but I can live poor, and must, if necessary, trench upon
+my principal. But if I am driven to this resort, I will make thorough
+work of it; I will bind myself to no duty, professional, literary, or
+journalistic; if a book, or a little course of lectures, or any other
+little 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, though
+the things to do be as thick as blackberries. There's my profession
+of--duty! I have worked hard, however imperfectly. I have worked in
+weariness, in tribulation, and to the very edge of peril; and I believe
+that the high Taskmaster, to whom I thus refer with humble and solemn
+awe, will pardon me some repose, if circumstances beyond my control
+assign it to me for my lot.
+
+As to the "Inquirer," in times past, you should remember that in what
+I said of it that was disparaging, I excepted your part in it. That
+certainly has not lacked interest, whatever else it has lacked.
+You have, I think, some remarkable qualifications for the proposed
+enterprise; and if you could give your whole mind and life to it, I
+should augur more favorably of such a monarchy than of the proposed
+oligarchy. You are a live man; you have a quick apprehension of what is
+going on about you; you have insight, generosity, breadth of view. And
+yet, if I were fully to state what I mean by this last qualification, I
+should say it is breadth rather than comprehension. You see a great way
+on one side of a subject, rather than all round. This requires a great
+deal of quiet, silent study, and where you are going to find space for
+it, I do not see, look all round as I may, or may pretend to. What I
+shall most fear about the "Inquirer" is, that it will give an uncertain
+sound; and this danger will be increased by the number of minds brought
+into it. Associate editors ought to live near to each other, and to
+compare 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. But
+your stamp has been rather indefinite as yet. "Shaper and Leader," say
+you? Suggester and Pioneer, rather, is my thought of your function. This
+is pretty plain talk; but, confound you, you can bear it. And I can bear
+to say it, because I love--because I like you, and because I think of
+you as highly, I guess, as you ought to think of yourself. After all, I
+do expect a strong, free, living journal from you, and the men of your
+age, or thereabouts, who are united with you.
+
+You say that I do not understand a "certain spirit of expectation and
+seeking" in these men. Perhaps not; it is vaguely stated, and I cannot
+tell. One of these days you will spread it out and I shall see. I have
+ideas of progress, with which my thoughts are often wrestling, and I
+shall be glad to have them made more just, expanded, and earnest. With
+love to all,
+
+Yours ever,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+To Rev. William Ware.
+
+SHEFFIELD, May 25, 1849. MY DEARLY BELOVED AND LONGED FOR,--I can't have
+you go to New York and not come here; and my special intent in writing
+now is to show you how little out of your way it is to return to
+Cambridge by Berkshire, and how little more expense it is. I trust that
+Mrs. Ware is to be with you.
+
+There! it's a short argument, but a long conclusion shall follow,--a
+week long of talk and pleasure, which shall be as good as forty weeks
+long, by the heart's measurement. [213]Alas! these college prayers! If
+I had anything to do with them, it would be upon the plan of remodelling
+hem 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 do
+what my heart night prompt in the great hours of adoration. Reading the
+Scriptures with a word of comment, sometimes, or t word uttered as the
+spirit moved, without reading; or instead, a matin hymn or old Gregorian
+chant, solemn seasons, free breathings of veneration and joy; sometimes
+he reading of a prayer of the Episcopal Church, or of he venerable olden
+time, always a bringing down A the great sentiment of devotion into
+young life, to De its guidance and strength,--this should be college
+prayers. . . .
+
+To Rev. Henry W. Bellows.
+
+SHEFFIELD, Feb. II, 1850.
+
+My DEAR FRIEND,--In the first place, La Bruyere was the name of the
+French satirist that I could not remember the other day. In the second
+place, I have a letter from Mr. Lowell, inviting me to deliver the
+second course of lectures, and the time fixed upon is the winter after
+next; 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 should
+as lief say, "On the Problem of Evil in the World." You said of me once
+in some critique, I believe, that I always seemed to write as in the
+presence of objectors. I shall be very likely to do so now. Well, here
+is work for me for two years ahead, if I have life and health, and work
+that I like above all other. In the third place, I don't think I shall
+do much for the "Inquirer." My name has really [214] no business on the
+first 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 such
+persons would help you. With my habits of writing, I am better able to
+write long articles than short ones; and the "Christian Examiner" pays
+more than you, and I am obliged to regard that consideration. I must
+have three or four hundred dollars a year beyond my income, or sell
+stock,--a terrible alternative. In the fourth place, every man is right
+in his own eyes; I am a man: therefore I am right in my eyes. I am very
+unprofessional; that is, in regard to the etiquette and custom of the
+profession. I am; and in regard to the professional mannerism and spirit
+of routine, I am very much afraid of it. But I do not think that many
+persons have ever enjoyed the religious services of our profession more
+than I have; the spiritual communion, which is its special function,
+and that, not through sermons alone, but in sacraments, in baptisms, in
+fireside conference with darkened and troubled minds, has long been to
+me a matter of the profoundest interest and satisfaction. It is the
+one reigning thought of my life now to see and to show how the Infinite
+Wisdom and Loveliness shine through this universe of forms. To this will
+I devote myself; nay, am devoted, whether I will or not. This will I
+pursue, 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? You
+think so. Perhaps you are right. Any way, it is not a matter of much
+importance, I suppose. There is a great deal too much of preaching, such
+as it is. The world is in danger of being preached out of all hearty and
+spontaneous religion. What would you think, if the love of parents and
+chil-[215] dren were made the subject of a weekly lecture in the
+family, and of such lecture as the ordinary preaching is? Oh if a Saint
+Chrysostom, or even a Saint Cesarius, or a Robert Hall could come along
+and speak to us once in half a year, they would leave, perhaps, a
+deeper imprint than this perpetual and petrifying drop-dropping of the
+sanctuary.
+
+By the bye, read those extracts from the sermons of Saint Cesarius, in
+the sixteenth lecture of Guizot on French civilization, and see if they
+are not worth inserting in the "Inquirer." The picture which Guizot
+gives in that and the following lecture, of Christianity struggling in
+the bosom of all-surrounding wrong, cruelty, and sensualism, is very
+beautiful. It is one of the indications of the raging ultraism of the
+time, that the calm wisdom and piety of such a man as Guizot should be
+so little appreciated.
+
+When I read such writers as this, I am rather frightened at my
+undertaking; but I believe there is a great deal to be said to the
+people that is not beyond me, and I shall modestly do what I can. I
+began yesterday to study Hegel's "Philosophy of History," and though I
+can read but a few pages a day, I believe I shall master it; and after
+one gets through with his theory, I imagine, in looking at his topics
+ahead, that I shall find matters that are intelligible and practical. I
+am, as ever,
+
+Yours,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY. To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.
+
+SHEFFIELD, Feb. 25, 1850.
+
+MY DEAR BRYANT,--You will remember, perhaps, our conversation when
+you were last up here, about our Club [216] of the XXI. You know my
+attachment to it. The loss of those pleasant meetings is indeed one of
+the things I most regret in leaving the city. I cannot bear to forfeit
+my place in that good company. In this feeling I am about to make a
+proposition which I beg you will present for me, and that you will, as
+my advocate, try to explain and show that it is not so enormous as at
+first it may seem. I pray, then, my dear Magnus, [FN 1] that you will
+turn your poetical genius to account by describing the beautiful ride up
+the valley of the Housatonic, and this our beautiful Berkshire, and will
+put in the statistical fact that it is but six hours and a half from New
+York to Sheffield, [FN 2] and then will request the Club to meet at my
+house 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,-seeing
+Bashpish, and, if possible, the Salisbury Lakes. And I will thank you,
+as my faithful solicitor, that, if you are obliged of your knowledge
+to confess to the fact of my very humble housekeeping, you will also
+courageously maintain that with the aid of my friends I can make our
+brethren as comfortable as people expect to be on a frolicking bout, and
+that I can easily get good country wagons to take them on a jaunt among
+the 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 the
+gentlemen seem to think it would be a pleasant thing.
+
+And when you write, tell me whether you or Mrs. Bryant chance to know of
+any person who would like to [217] come up here this summer and teach
+French in my sister's school an hour or two a day for a moderate
+compensation. It must be a French person,--one that can speak the
+language. 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 and
+Fanny, 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 your
+father doing in Sheffield?" you may tell them that I have taken to
+lecturing the people, and that I give a second lecture to-morrow
+evening, 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 a
+government of women, "ein Weiberstaat," in Africa, where they killed all
+the men in the first place, and then all the male children, and finally
+destined all that should be born to the same fate. And what do you think
+your mother said when I told her of these atrocities? Even this: "That
+shows what bad creatures the men must have been." And that's all I get
+when trying to enlighten her upon the wickedness of her sex.
+
+And I'm just getting through with Guizot's four volumes, too. Oh, a very
+magnificent, 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 if
+pushed in the way the Northern doctrinaires desire. I feel it so from
+what I saw of Southern feeling in Washington the winter I passed
+there. I fear disunion, and no mortal line can sound the depth of that
+calamity. I sometimes think that it would be well if we could wear
+around this last, terrible, black headland by sounding, and trimming
+sails, rather than attempt to sail by compass and quadrant. Do not
+mistake my figure. I am no moral trimmer, and that you know. Conscience
+must be obeyed. But conscience does not forbid that we should treat the
+Southern people with great consideration. What we must do, we may do
+in the spirit of love, and not of wrath or scorn. Oh, what a mystery
+of Providence, that this terrible burden--I had almost said
+millstone--should ever have been hung around the neck of this
+Confederation!
+
+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't
+have been master of the French language, and you should n't have been
+Mr. Bryant, and, in fact, you should n't have been at all, if you
+expected to escape all sorts of trouble in this world! Since all these
+conditions pertain to you, see the inference, which, stated in the most
+skilfully inoffensive way I am able, stands or runs thus:
+
+[Here followed a request that Mr. Bryant would make [219] some inquiries
+concerning a French teacher who had applied, and the letter continued:]
+
+Now, in fine, if you don't see that all this letter is strictly
+logical,--an inference from the premises at the beginning,--I am sorry
+for you; and if you do see it, I am sorry for you. So you are pitied at
+any rate.
+
+The 19th draws nigh. If any of the Club are with you and Mrs. Bryant
+in coming up, do not any of you be so deluded as to listen to any
+invitation 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 for
+natzir, anyhow. Art, to be sure, is out of the question, as it is when
+I subscribe myself, and ourselves, to you and Mrs. Bryant, with
+affectionate 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, to
+read it again, thinking you had desired me to write immediately. "How
+affectionate!" thinks I to myself; "that must have been a good letter
+that I wrote him last; I really think some of my letters must be pretty
+good ones, after all; I hate conceit,--I really believe my tendency is
+the 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 he
+would be pleased to have me, pleased as the Laird of Ellangowan said of
+the king's commission,--good honest gentle-[220] man, he can't be more
+pleased than I am!" But oh! the slips of those who are shodden with
+vanity! I read on, thinking it was a nice letter of yours,--feeling
+something startled, to be sure, at the compellation, as if you were
+mesmerise, and had got an insight (calls me bambino half of the
+time)--looking at your mood reverential as a droll jest,--vexed at
+first, but then reconciled, about the book and the lecturing,--charmed
+and grateful beyond measure at what you say about your health,--when!
+at last!! I fell upon your request: "Now give me one brief epistle
+between this and our seeing you."!!! BETWEEN! what a word! what a
+hiatus! what a gulf! Down into it tumbled pride, vanity, pleasure,
+everything. Well, great occasions call out virtue. As I emerged, as I
+came up, I came up a hero; the vanities of this world were all struck
+off from me in my fall, and I came up a hero; for I determined I would
+write to you immediately. There! beat that if you can! I give you a
+chance,-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 before
+quite so modest as I am now. Not that I have n't enough to say, and all
+my faculties leap to the task; but all the while there looms up before
+me an ideal of what such a course of lectures might be, that I fear I
+shall never reach up to, no, nor one twentieth part of the way to
+it. . . .
+
+[221]To Mrs. David Lane.
+
+SHEFFIELD, Jan. 25, 1851.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--You won't come, and I will write to you! See the
+difference. See how I return good for evil!
+
+I say, you won't come; for I have a letter from Mrs. Curtis, from which
+it is evident the will not, and so I suppose that laudable conspiracy
+falls to the ground. However, we shall sort o' look for you all the
+week. But you won't come. I know it to my fingers' ends. Cradled in
+luxury, wrapped in comfort, enervated by city indulgences, sophisticated
+by fashionable society--well, I won't finish the essay; but you won't
+come.
+
+Ah! speaking of fashionable society,--that reminds me,--you ask a
+question, and say, "Answer me." Well, then,--society we must have;
+and all the question I should have to ask about it would be whether it
+pleased me,--not whether everybody in it pleased me, but whether its
+general tone did not offend me, and then, whether I could find persons
+in it with whose minds I could have grateful and good intercourse. If
+I could, I don't think the word "fashion," or the word "world," would
+scare me. As to the time given to it, and the time to be reserved for
+weightier matters, that is, to be sure, very material. But the chief
+thing is a reigning spirit in our life, gained from communion with
+the highest thoughts and themes, which consecrates all time, and
+subordinates 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 at
+present. I finished my eighth lecture yesterday. This is my poor service
+to the world in these days,-since you insist that I have relations to
+the 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 your
+letter with nothing in it, and the postage paid on the contents, is
+on the way to me; but I am writing to all my friends, to celebrate the
+Independence-day of friendship and to help the revenue, and not to write
+to you would be lese-majesty to love and law.
+
+Is it not a distinct mark higher up on the scale of civilization,--this
+cheap postage? The easier transmission of produce is accounted such a
+mark,--much more the easier transmission of thought.
+
+Transmission, indeed! When I had got so far, I was called away to direct
+Mr. P. about the sink. And do you know what directing a man is, in the
+country? Why, it is to do half the work yourself, and to take all the
+responsibility. And, in consequence of Mr. P., you won't get a bit
+better letter than you proposed to send.
+
+Where's your book? What are you doing? What do you think of your Miss
+Martineau now? Is n't the Seven Gables a subtile matter, both in thought
+and 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 way
+we seem not to have thought of. Is n't there a story somewhere of a
+man 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-disturbing
+propagandist, a loud pleader for justice and freedom, who does not want
+to settle, but to fight; who will not rest upon his country's
+wrongs, nor let anybody else if he can help it; who does not care for
+processions nor entertainments, but wants help. Kossuth has doubtless
+made a great mistake in taking his position here; it is the mistake of a
+word-maker and of a relier on words, and he has not mended the matter
+by defining. But I declare he is infinitely more respectable in my eyes
+than if he had come in the character in which we expected him,--as the
+protege and beneficiary of our people, who was to settle down among us
+and 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 solemn
+abstraction in Washington to a clergyman. What has he to do, but what's
+solemn? The gayety passes him by; the politics pass him by. Nobody wants
+him; nobody holds him by the button but some desperate, dilapidated
+philanthropist. People say, while turning a corner, "How do you
+do, Doctor?" which is very much as if they said, "How do you do,
+Abstraction?" I live in a "lone conspicuity," preach in a vacuum, and
+call, with much ado, to find nobody. "What doest thou here, Elijah?" one
+might say to a prophet in this wilderness.
+
+What a curious fellow you are! calm as a philosopher, usually, wise as a
+judge, possessed in full measure of the very Ware moderation and wisdom,
+and yet every now and then taking some tremendous lurch--against England
+or for Kossuth! I go far enough, go a good way, please to observe,--but
+to go to war, that would I not, if I could help it. Fighting won't
+prepare men for voting. Peaceful progress, I believe, is the only thing
+that can carry on the world to a fitness for self-government. I have no
+idea that the Hungarians are fit for it. See what France has done with
+her free constitution! Oh! was there ever such a solemn farce, before
+Heaven, 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. I
+admire his grand and simple, reverent and affectionate Norwegian nature
+very much. He has come out here now with views connected with the
+welfare [225] of his countrymen; I do not yet precisely understand
+them. Is it not remarkable that he and Jenny Lind should have this noble
+nationality 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 cannot
+possibly be delivered as Wegotisms. Don't be stiff about the matter. I
+tell you there is no other way; and indeed I think it no harm, but an
+advantage, to diversify the form, and leave out the solemn and juridical
+Wego 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 you
+for? Oh! for little K.'s sake. Well, anything for little K.'s sake.
+Indeed, it's the duty of parents to sacrifice themselves for their
+children. It's the final cause of parents to mind the children. Poor
+little 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 for
+nestling. How I want to see the good little comfort! Is she little? Tell
+us how she looks and does.
+
+Yesterday, beside preaching a sermon more than half new, and attending a
+funeral (out of the society), I read skimmingly more than half Nichol's
+"Architecture of the Heavens." I laid aside the book overwhelmed. What
+shall we do? What shall we think? Far from our [226] Milky Way,--there
+they lie, other universes,--rebuke resolved by Rosse's telescope into
+stars, starry realms, numerous, seemingly innumerable, and as vast as
+our system; and yet from some of them it takes the light thirty--sixty
+thousand years to come to us: nay, twenty millions, Nichol suggests,
+I know not on what grounds. And yet in the minutest details such
+perfection! A million of perfectly formed creatures in a drop of water!
+I do not doubt that it is this overwhelming immensity of things that
+leads some minds to find a sort of relief, as it were, in the idea of
+an Infinite Impersonal Force working in all things. But it is a child's
+thought. Nay, does not the very fact that my mind can take in so vast a
+range of things lead me better to conceive of what the Infinite Mind can
+do? An ant's mind, if it had one, might find it just as hard to conceive
+of 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 invited
+over here to settle, and who is much more likely to unsettle us. How far
+would you have him unsettle us? To the extent of carrying us into a war
+with Russia, or of banding us, with all liberal governments, in a war
+with the despotic governments, so that Europe should be turned into a
+caldron of blood for years to come, millions of people sacrificed, [227]
+unutterable miseries inflicted, the present frame of society torn in
+pieces; 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 should
+accomplish. Any expression of opinion that he can get here, from the
+people or the government, asserting the rights of nations and the
+wrong of oppression, let him have,--let all the world have it. Moral
+influence, gradually changing the world, is what I want. But Kossuth
+and 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 fairly
+broached the question of intervention here, and that in two years
+it will enter the ballot box. I fear these tendencies to universal
+overthrow that are now revealing themselves all over the civilized
+world.
+
+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 not
+wonder if he was now feeling something of Hamlet's burden: "The time is
+out 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 never
+saw; it haunted her.
+
+It was on his return to his Berkshire home, after this winter in
+Washington, that the next merry little letter, describing his renewed
+acquaintance with his country neighbors, was sent to me. The custom of
+ringing the church bell at noon and at nine in the evening had not then
+been 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 we
+arrived! Mrs. K. as usual. Mrs. B. is on a visit to her friends; the
+children with their grandmother. . . . Mr. D. does n't raise any tobacco
+this summer. I saw Mr. P. lying fiat on his back yesterday,--not
+floored, however, but high and dry on Mr. McIntyre's counter. Mr. M.
+has succeeded Doten, Root, and Mansfield. These three gentlemen have
+all flung themselves upon the paper-mill, hardly able to supply
+the Sheffield authors. Mr. Austin continues to announce the solemn
+procession of the hours. Mr. Swift is building an observatory to see 'em
+as they pass. There are thoughts of engaging me to note 'em down, as I
+have nothing else to do.
+
+I am particularly at leisure, having demitted all care of the farm to
+Mr. Charles, and committed all the income thereof to him, down to the
+smallest hen's-egg.
+
+Your mother is always doing something, and always growing handsomer and
+lovelier, so that I told her yesterday I should certainly call her a
+sa-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 beautiful
+outlooks on every side to the horizon, my thoughts seem ever to mingle
+with the universe; they bear me beyond the horizon of life, and your
+reflections, therefore, fall as a touching strain upon the tenor of
+mine. Experience, life, man, seem to me ever higher and more awful; and
+though there is constantly intervening the crushing thought of what a
+poor thing I am, and my life is, and I am sometimes disheartened and
+tempted to be reckless, and to say, "It's no matter what this ephemeral
+being, this passing dust and wind, shall come to,"--yet ever, like the
+little eddying whirlwinds that I see in the street before me, this dusty
+breath of life struggles upward. I am very sad and glorious by turns;
+and sometimes, when mortality is heavy and hope is weak, I take refuge
+in simple resignation, and say: "Thou Infinite Goodness! I can desire
+nothing better than that thy will be done. But oh! give me to live
+forever!--eternal rises that prayer. Give me to look upon thy glory and
+thy glorious creatures forever!" What an awful anomaly in our being
+were it, if that prayer were to be denied! And what would the memory of
+friends be, so sweet and solemn now,--what would it be, but as the taper
+which 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 whole
+moral being shrinks from the position [230] of the writer (which brings
+down the majesty of the Gospel almost to the level of Millerism), that
+Jesus supposed the end of the world to be at hand, and that he should
+come in the clouds of heaven, and be seated with his disciples on
+airy thrones, to judge the nations. No; the false double ethics of the
+pulpit, which I have labored, though less successfully, all my life to
+expose, has its origin, I believe, in later superstition, and not in the
+teachings of Christ.
+
+The passages referred to by the writer, I conceive to be more
+imaginative, 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! you
+see how naturally and affectionately my pen turns out the old beloved
+name)--a happy New Year. After all, it isn't so bad; a happy New Year
+and a happy New York must be very near neighbors with you. I sometimes
+wish they could have continued to be so with me, for those I have learnt
+to live with most easily and happily are generally in New York. Our
+beloved artists, the goodly Club, were a host to me by themselves. I
+wish I could be a host to them sometimes.
+
+Well, heigho! (pretty ejaculation to come into a New Year's
+greeting--but they come everywhere!) Heigho! I say submissively
+--things meet and match us, perhaps, better than we mean. I am not a
+clergyman--perhaps was never meant for one. I question our position more
+and more. We are not fairly thrown into the field of life. We do not
+fairly take the free and [231] unobstructed pressure of all surrounding
+society. We are hedged around with artificial barriers, built up by
+superstitious reverence and false respect. We are cased in peculiarity.
+We meet and mingle with trouble and sorrow,--enough of them, too
+much,--but our treatment of them gets hackneyed, worn, weary, and
+reluctant. They grapple with the world's strife and trial, but it is an
+armor. 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 at
+ninety-three, And fingers feel like sticks of sealing-wax, Yet I will
+write thee.
+
+This evening I saw Professor Henry, who said he saw you at the Century
+Club last Wednesday evening; that le did not speak to you, but that you
+seemed to be enjoying yourself. I felt like shaking hands with him on
+the occasion, but restrained myself. But where are you, child, this
+blessed minute? . . . I would have you to know that it is a merit to
+write 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, but
+I can't think you can, conscientiously, without telling me of it.
+
+My love to the Bryants. I hope it may greet the Grand Panjandrum
+himself. Tell Mrs. C. I should write to her, but I have too much regard
+for her to think of [232] such a thing with the thermometer at 93
+degrees, 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 the
+clapboarding of a house? I want you to ask your father if he thinks
+that a good plan; if he knows of any ill effect, as, for instance, there
+being a smell of tar about the house, or the tar's running down between
+the 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 state
+precisement, and number the queries, because nobody ever yet answered
+all the questions of a letter. I hope in your reply you will achieve a
+distinction 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, are
+most satisfactory. I have thoughts of sending your letter to the Crystal
+Palace. I am much obliged to your father, and I will avail my-self of
+his kindness, if I should find it necessary, next rear, when I may be
+building an addition here.
+
+I am sorry things don't go smoothly with-; but I guess nothing ever did
+go on without some hitches, that s, on this earth. It is curious, by the
+bye, how we go in blindly, imagining that things go smoothly with many
+[233] people around us,--with some at least,--with some Wellington, or
+Webster, or Astor, when the truth is, they never do with anybody. To
+take our inevitable part with imperfection, in ourselves, in others, in
+things,--to take our part, I say, in this discipline of imperfection,
+without surprise or impatience or discouragement, as a part of the fixed
+order of things, and no more to be wondered at or quarrelled with than
+drought 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 me
+of 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 is
+spreading itself among all the newspapers,--I mean the abominable smell
+caused by the sizing or something else in the manufacture? For a long
+time it was the "Christian Register" alone that had it, and I used to
+throw it out of the window to air. Now I perceive the same thing in
+other papers, and at length it has reached the "Post." Somebody is
+manufacturing a villanous article for the paper-makers (I state the fact
+with an awful and portentous generality.) But do you not perceive what
+the nuisance is? It is a stink, sir. I am obliged to sit on the windward
+side of the paper while I read its interesting contents, and to wash my
+hands afterwards--immediately.
+
+But, to change the subject,--yes, toto aelo,-for I turn to something as
+fragrant as a bed of roses,--will [234] not you and Mrs. Bryant come to
+see us in June? Do. It is a long time since I have sat on a green bank
+with you, or anywhere else. I want some of your company, and talk, and
+wisdom. The first Lowell Lecture I wrote was after a talk with you
+here, three or four years ago. Come, I pray, and give me an impulse for
+another 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 see
+you, 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, in
+1821, and early in 1855 he lost also his mother from her honored place
+at his fireside. He was, nevertheless, obliged to leave home in
+March, to fulfil an engagement made the previous autumn to lecture in
+Charleston, S. C.
+
+To his Daughter Mary.
+
+CHARLESTON, March 16, 1855.
+
+I HAVE been trying four hours to sleep. No dervish ever turned round
+more 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 the
+celebrated Club 3 and, whether it is that I was seven consecutive hours
+in company, or that I drank a cup of coffee,
+
+The reason why, I cannot tell, But this I know full well, [235] that
+here 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 interest
+which the G.'s and D.'s, and indeed many more, take in the phenomenon of
+the lectures. The truth is, that their attention to the matter, and
+the intelligence of the people, and the merits of the lecturer, must
+be combined to account for such an unprecedented and beautiful
+audience,-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), under
+a clouded sky, and in face of a threatening thunder-gust, was a greater
+wonder, some one said, than any I undertook to explain.
+
+Bah! what stuff to write I But all this is such an agreeable surprise
+to me, and will, I think, give me so much better a reward for this weary
+journey and absence than I expected, that you must sympathize what you
+can with my dotage.
+
+As to the "Corruptions of Christianity," dear, if you don't find enough
+of them about you,--and you may not, as you live with your mother
+mostly,--you will find them in the library somewhere. There were, I
+think, two editions, one in one volume, and another in two. There are a
+hundred in the world.
+
+The Club mentioned in this letter was that of which my father wrote in
+his Reminiscences: "This Charleston Club, then, I think, forty years
+old, was one of the most remarkable, and in some respects [236] the most
+improving, 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 read
+for the essay a eulogy upon Napoleon III. It was written con amore, and
+was really quite sentimental in its admiration,--going back to his very
+boyhood, his love of his mother, and what not. I could not help touching
+the elbow of the gentleman sitting next me and saying, Are n't we a
+pretty set of fellows to be listening to such stuff as this? He showed
+that 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 was
+considerably struck up,' to be the first person asked, and confessed
+to some embarrassment. I was a stranger among them, I said, and did
+not know but my views might differ entirely from theirs. I was not
+accustomed to think myself illiberal, or behind the progress of opinion,
+and I knew that this man, Louis Napoleon, had his admirers, and perhaps
+an increasing number of them; but if I must speak,--and then I blurted
+it out,--I must say that it was with inward wrath and indignation that
+I had listened to the essay, from beginning to end. There was a marked
+sensation all round the circle; but I defended my opinion, and, to my
+astonishment, all but two agreed with me."
+
+The following winter he was invited to repeat his lectures in
+Charleston, and passed some time there, accompanied by his family. In
+March, 1856, he went with Mrs. Dewey to New Orleans, and, returning to
+Charleston 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,--and
+such nice places for sleeping! Not a long, monotonous, merely animal
+sleep, but intellectual, a kind of perpetual solving of geometric
+problems, as, for instance,--given, a human body; how many angles is it
+capable of forming in fifteen minutes? or how many more than a crab
+in the same time? And then, no crying children,--not a bit of
+that,--singing cherubs, innocently piping,--cheering the dull hours with
+dulcet sounds.
+
+I write in the saloon, on this jarring boat, that shakes my hand and
+wits alike. We are getting on very prosperously. Your mother bears the
+journey well. This boat is very comfortable-for a boat; a good large
+state-room, and positively the neatest public table I have seen in all
+the South.
+
+There! that'll do,--or must do. I thought wife would do the writing, but
+I 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 in
+the evening right earnestly on "The Body and Soul," I came home very
+tired, and sat down with a cigar, and passed an hour among the scenes of
+the olden time. I thought of my father, when, a boy, I used to walk with
+him to the fields. Something way-[238] ward he was, perhaps, in his
+moods, but prevailingly bright and cheerful,--fond of a joke,--strong
+in sense and purpose, and warm in affection,--steady to his plans, but
+somewhat impulsive and impatient in execution. Where is he now? How
+often do I ask! Shall I see him again? How shall I find him after
+thirty, forty years passed in the unseen realm? And of my mother you
+will not doubt I thought, and called up the scenes of her life: in the
+mid-way of it, when she was so patient, and often weary in the care
+of us all, and often feeble in health; and then in the later days, the
+declining years, so tranquil, so gentle, so loving,--a perfect sunshine
+of love and gentleness was her presence.
+
+But come we to this St. Charles Hotel, where we have been now for a
+week, as removed as possible from the holy and quiet dreamland of past
+days. Incessant hubbub and hurly-burly are the only words that can
+describe it, seven hundred guests, one thousand people under one roof.
+What a larder! what a cellar! what water-tanks, pah! filled from the
+Mississippi, clarified for the table with alum. People that we have
+known cast up at all corners, and many that we have not call upon
+us,--good, kind, sensible people. I don't see but New Orleans is to be
+let into my human world.
+
+You see how I blot,--I'm nervous,--I can't write at a marble table. Very
+well, however, and wife mainly so. Three weeks more here, and then back
+to Savannah, where I am to give four lectures. Then to Charleston, to
+stay till about the 25th May.
+
+The lectures go here very fairly,--six hundred to hear. They call it a
+very large audience for lectures in New Orleans. . . . With our love to
+all 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 of
+late by the illness and death of Mr. Charles Sedgwick. The funeral was
+on last Tuesday, and Mr. Bellows was present, making the prayer, while I
+read passages, and said some words proper for the time. They were hearty
+words, you may be sure; for in some admirable respects Charles Sedgwick
+has scarcely left his equal in the world. His sunny nature shone into
+every crack and crevice around him, and the poor man and the stranger
+and whosoever was in trouble or need felt that he had in him an adviser
+and friend. The Irish were especially drawn to him, and they made
+request to bear his body to the grave, that is, to Stockbridge, six
+miles. And partly they did so. . . . It was a tremendous rain-storm, but
+the procession was very long.
+
+But I must turn away from this sad affliction to us all,--it will be
+long before I shall turn my thought from it,--for the world is passing
+on; it will soon pass by my grave and the graves of us all. I do not
+wonder that this sweeping tide bears our thoughts much into the coming
+world,--mine, I sometimes think, too much.
+
+But we have to fight our battle, perform our duties, while one and
+another drops around us; and one of the things that engages me just
+now, is to prepare a discourse to be delivered under our Elm Tree on the
+21st.
+
+The Elm Tree Association, before which the address just alluded to was
+made, was a Village Improvement Society, of which my father was [240]
+one of the founders, and which took its name from an immense tree, one
+of the finest in Massachusetts, standing near the house of his maternal
+grandfather. To smooth and adorn the ground around the Great Elm, and
+make it the scene of a yearly summer festival for the whole town, was
+the first object of the Society, extending afterwards to planting trees,
+grading walks, etc., through the whole neighborhood; and it was one
+of the earlier impulses to that refinement of taste which has made of
+Sheffield one of the prettiest villages in the country. With its
+fine avenue of elms, planted nearly forty years ago, its gardens and
+well-shaven turf, it shows what care and a prevailing love of beauty
+and order will do for a place where there is very little wealth. It was
+about this time that my father planted in an angle of the main street
+the Seven Pines, which now make, as it were, an evergreen chapel to his
+memory, 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 which
+are still living, though the building they were intended to shade is
+gone.
+
+The Elm Tree Association, however, from one cause and another, was
+short-lived; but "It lived to light a steadier flame" in the Laurel Hill
+Association, of Stockbridge, which, taking the idea from the Sheffield
+plan, continues to develop it in a very beautiful and admirable manner.
+[241] The address at the gathering in 1856 was chiefly occupied with a
+review of the history of the town, and with the thoughts appropriate
+to the place of meeting; and at the close the speaker took occasion to
+explain to his townspeople his ideas upon the national crisis of the
+day, and the changed aspect that had been given to the slavery question
+by the fresh determination of the South to maintain the excellence of
+the system and to force it upon the acceptance of the North in the new
+States then forming. Against this he made earnest and solemn protest,
+with a full expression of his opinion as to the innate wrong to the
+blacks, and the destructive effects on the whites, of slavery; but
+at the same time he spoke with large and kindly consideration for the
+Southerners. After doing justice to the care and kindness of many of
+them for their slaves, he said, in close:--
+
+"I have listened also to what Southern apologists have said in another
+view,--that this burden of slavery was none of their choosing; that it
+was entailed upon them; that they cannot immediately emancipate their
+people; that they are not qualified to take care of themselves; that
+this state of things must be submitted to for a while, till remedial
+laws and other remedial means shall bring relief. And so long as they
+said that, I gave them my sympathy. But when they say, 'Spread this
+system,--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 national
+institution, make the compact of the Constitution carry it into all
+Territories, cover it with the national images, set it up as part of our
+great republican profession, stamp on our flag and our shield and our
+scutcheon the emblem of human slavery,' I say,--no--never-God forbid!"
+
+It seems strange now that so temperate and candid a speech should have
+raised a storm of anger when read in Charleston. But the sore lace
+was too tender for even the friendliest such, and of all those who
+had greeted him here so cordially the winter before, but two or three
+maintained 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 it
+should turn out that I cannot agree with you? What if my opinions, when
+properly understood, should displease many persons? Is it the first time
+that honest opinions have been proscribed, or the expression of them
+thought "unfortunate "?
+
+I appreciate all the kindness of your letter, and your care for my
+reputation; but you are not to be told that here is something higher
+than reputation.
+
+You write with the usual anti-slavery assurance that our opinion is the
+correct one. It is natural; it is the [243] first-blush, the impromptu
+view of the matter. But whether there is not a juster view, coming
+out of that same deliberateness and impartiality that you accuse me
+of,--whether there is not, in fact, a broader humanity and a broader
+politics 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 this
+question; your willingness to bring the whole grand future of this
+country to the edge of the present crisis; your idea of this crisis as a
+second Revolution, and of the cause of liberty as equally involved; your
+thinking it so fatal to be classed with Tories, or with-, and-, and your
+regret that I should have gone down South to lecture. It all looks to me
+narrow.
+
+I may address the public on this subject. But if I do, I shan't do it
+mainly for my own sake; at any rate, I shall write to you when I get
+leisure.
+
+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 I
+saw 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 very
+much the same as when I was in Boston,--riding out in the morning, and
+passing, I fear, the same sad and weary afternoons. I wish I were near
+you this winter, that is, if I could help you at all through those heavy
+hours. [244] I am writing a lecture on "Unconscious Education;" for I
+want to add one to the Baltimore course. And is not a great deal of our
+education unconscious and mysterious? You do not know, perhaps, all that
+this long sickness and weariness and prostration are doing for you. I
+always think that the future scene will open to us the wonders of this
+as 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 imagine
+sometimes 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 know
+of 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 sigh
+sometimes, to the all-loving Father. We believe in Him. Let us "believe
+the 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 were
+addressed 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, and
+yet why I cannot help it? Since last I spoke to you, such an event has
+passed, that I tremble to go over the abyss and speak to you again. But
+you and your children stand, bereft and stricken, on [245] the shore, as
+it were, of a new and strange world,--for strange must be the world to
+you where that husband and father is not,--and I would fain express the
+sympathy which I feel for you, and my family with me. Yet not with many
+words, but more fitly in silence, should I do it. And this letter is
+but as if I came and sat by you, and only said, "God help you," or knelt
+with you and said, "God help us all;" for we are all bereaved in your
+bereavement.
+
+True, life passes on visibly with us as usual; but every now and then
+the thought of you and him comes over me, and I exclaim and pray at
+once, in wonder and sorrow.
+
+But the everlasting succession of things moves on, and we all take
+our place in it-now, to mourn the lost, and now, ourselves to be
+mourned--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 the
+death of her husband, a worthless person; and she spoke of it with no
+more interest than if a log had rolled from the river-bank and
+floated 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 which
+nothing 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 my
+table 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 very
+hard last evening. I don't know but these people are all crazy, but they
+make me feel repaid. The church was full, as I never saw it before. The
+lecture Saturday evening was crowded. So I go.
+
+I am reading Dr. Kane's book. Six pages could give all the actual
+knowledge it contains; but that fearful conflict of men with the most
+terrible powers of nature, and so bravely sustained, makes the story
+like tragedy; and I read on and on, the same thing over and over, and
+don't skip a page. But Mrs.--has just been in, and sat down and opened
+her widowed heart to me, and I see that life itself is often a more
+solemn tragedy than voyaging in the Arctic Seas. Nay, I think the deacon
+himself, when he accepted that challenge (how oddly it sounds!), must
+have 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, an
+indispensable comfort. . . .
+
+This will be with you before the Thanksgiving dinner. Bless it, and you
+all, prayeth, giving thanks with and for you,
+
+Your
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+[247]Mr. Dewey had been asked repeatedly, since his retirement from New
+York, to take charge of Church Green, in Boston, a pulpit left vacant by
+the death of Dr. Young; and he consented to go there in the beginning of
+1858, 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 the
+people and less exhausting to the minister than the ordinary afternoon
+service, which very few attended, and those only from a sense of duty.
+He had written for this purpose a series of "Instructions," as he called
+them, 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 exhaustion
+that follows the morning service. Many people have no idea, nor even
+suspicion, of the difference between praying and preaching for an hour,
+with the whole mind and heart poured into it, and any ordinary public
+speaking for an hour. They seem to think that in either case it is vox
+et preterea nihil, and the more voice the more exhaustion; but the truth
+is, 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 four
+times after the dramatic (I mean the true dramatic) fashion, all is
+told. It makes me think of what Mrs. Kemble told us the other day. In
+a play where she acted the mistress, and her lover was shot,--or
+was supposed to be, but was reprieved, and came rushing to her
+arms,--instead of repeating a long and pretty speech which was set down
+for 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 our
+hearts; and without waiting for forty things to be done, all working you
+like 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,-homo
+multi-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 watermelon
+in two, lengthwise, and you have them; [249]my legs are cornstalks,
+and my feet, potatoes. I eat nothing but these things, and I am
+fast becoming nothing else. I am potatoes and corn and cucumber and
+cabbage,--like the chameleon, that takes the color of the thing it lives
+on. Dr. Jackson will have a great deal to answer for to the world. Had
+n't you better come into town and see about it? Perhaps you can arrest
+the 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--to
+the mosquitoes. You see they don't know what to make of it; and very
+likely their legs and wings get caught sometimes in the "decussated,
+reticulated interstices," as Dr. Johnson calls them. At any rate, from
+their noise, they evidently consider themselves as the most ill-treated
+and unfortunate outcasts upon earth. Paganini wrote the "Carnival
+of Venice." I wonder somebody does n't write the no-carnival of the
+mosquitoes.
+
+To the Same.
+
+BOSTON, Dec. 30, 1858.
+
+DEAR MY FRIEND,--I cannot let the season of happy wishes pass by without
+sending mine to you and yours. But you must begin to gather up patience
+for your venerable friend, for the happy anniversaries somehow begin to
+gather shadows around them; they are both reminders and admonishers.
+
+Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the "Happy New Year!" is never
+sounded out in the minor key; always it has a ring of joyousness and
+hope 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 send
+you the volume 1 by this mail. Ah! what a clear sense and touching
+sensibility and bracing moral tone there is, running through the whole
+volume! But I was going to say that that little piece tells you what I
+would 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 a
+heap of you, and a heap of good wishes.
+
+My poor head is rather improving, but it is n't worth much yet, as you
+plainly 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 I
+remember my whole lifetime in the same way. And even if it had been
+less 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 and
+cloud and darkness may grow brighter, and in the world beyond may shine
+as the stars forever. I heard Father Taylor last Sunday afternoon.
+Towards the close he spoke of his health as uncertain and liable to
+fail; "But," said he, "I have felt a little more of immortality come
+down 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, and
+desolate 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 the
+nightingale's song in the grove," that I ought to write a word to fill
+the void. I should have said, on coming away, like that interesting
+child 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 to
+decline. Am I such a stupid visitor? Did I not play at bagatelle with
+L.? Did I not read eloquently out of Carlyle to you and C.? Did I not
+talk wisdom to you by the yard? Did I not let drop crumbs of philosophy
+by the wayside of our talk, continually? Above all, am I not the veriest
+woman, 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 a
+man must have, to gulp down the "Everlasting Yea." And a great swallow
+implies 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 I
+Well, I am mad, and expect to be so,-at least I think I have a right to
+be so, in the proportion of one hour to twenty-four, being so rational
+the rest of the time. I think it's but a reasonable allowance. [252] You
+will judge that this is my mad hour to-day, and it is; nevertheless, I
+am, soberly,
+
+Your friend,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+In the winter of 1859 he writes to the same friend upon New York City
+politics with a passionate vivacity that old New Yorkers will sadly
+appreciate.
+
+"I took up the paper this morning that announced Fernando Wood's
+election by two thousand plurality. If you had seen the way in which
+I brought down my hand upon the table,--minding neither muscle nor
+mahogany, you would know how people at a distance, especially if they
+have ever lived in New York, feel about it. I hope he will pay you
+well. I wish he would take out some of your rich, stupid, arms-folding,
+purse-clutching millionnaires into Washington Square and flay them
+alive. Something of the sort must be done, before our infatuated city
+upper 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 these
+movements, this way and that way, as a part of that great oscillation in
+which the world has been swinging, to and fro, from the beginning, and
+always advancing. These are the natural developments of the freed mind
+of the world; and whoever lives now, and yet more, whoever shall live
+through this century, must take this large and calm philosophy to his
+heart, or he will find himself cast upon the troubled waters without
+rudder [253] or compass. Daniel Webster, one day at Marshfield, when his
+cattle came around him to take an ear of corn each from his hand, said
+to Peter Harvey, who was by, as he stood looking at them, "Peter, this
+is better company than Senators." So I am tempted to turn from all the
+religious wranglings and extravagances of the time, to nature and to the
+solid and unquestioned truths of religion. I sometimes doubt whether I
+will ever read another word of the ultraists and the one-sided men. They
+will do their work, and it will all come to good in the long run; but it
+is 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 be
+heard 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 or
+a Welshman could write such a reply. Do you know I am Welsh? So was
+Elizabeth, Tudor; so is Fanny Kemble, and other good fellows.
+
+Well, I take your poetry as if it were just as good as prose. But you
+don't consider, my dear fellow, that if we make our visit when I go down
+to preach for Bellows, that I can't preach for your Orthodox
+friend. . . .
+
+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 it
+is, you always say, what I think; except sometimes, when you scathe the
+opponents,--for I am tenderhearted. I don't like to have people made
+to feel so "bad." Seriously, I wonder that some of you editors are not
+beaten to death every month. Ours is a much-enduring society. I could
+enlarge, but I have n't time; for I must go and set out some trees--for
+posterity.
+
+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 in
+troublous times),--Indeed I am sad and troubled, under the most
+favorable view that can be taken of our affairs; for though all this
+should blow over, as I prevailingly believe and hope it will, yet the
+crisis has brought out such a feeling at the South as we shall not
+easily forget or forgive. To be sure, as the irritation of an arraigned
+conscience, we may partly overlook it, as we do the irritation of a
+blamed child,--as an arraigned, and, I add, not quite easy conscience;
+for surely conscious virtue is calmer than the South is, today. I know
+that other things are mixed up with this feeling of the South; but if
+it felt that its moral position was high and honorable and unimpeachable
+before the world, it would not fly out into this outrageous passion. If
+the 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,--ever
+since it has assumed that the slave system is right and good and
+admirable [255] and ought to be perpetual,--it has been growing more and
+more passionate. Well, we must be patient with them. For my part, I am
+frightened at the condition to which their folly is bringing them. It
+is terrible to think that the distrust and fear of their slaves is
+spreading itself all over the South country. To be sure, they, in their
+unreasonableness, blame us for it. They might as well accuse England;
+they might as well accuse all the civilized world. For the conviction
+that slavery is wrong, that it ought not to be advocated, but to be
+condemned, and ultimately removed from the world,-this conviction is
+one of the inevitable developments of modern Christian thought and
+sentiment. It is not we that are responsible for the rise and spread of
+this 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 union
+with it? Why, that we shall say and vote that we so much approve of
+the slave-system, that we are willing, not merely that it should exist
+untouched by us,--that is not the question,--but that it should be
+taken to our bosom as a cherished national institution.
+
+I hope we shall firmly but mildly refuse to say it. It is the only
+honorable or dignified or conscientious position for us of the
+North. But, do you see the result of these municipal elections in
+Massachusetts? That does not look like firmness. There may be flinching.
+But so it is, under the great Providence, that the world wears around
+questions which it cannot sharply meet.
+
+These matters take precedence of all others now-adays, or else my first
+word would have been to say how glad we were to hear that C. is well
+again.
+
+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 this
+evening and got your letter. For my one want has been to know how that
+tremendous Thursday afternoon and night took you; that is, whether it
+took you off the ground, or the roof off the house. Here, it did not
+unroof any houses, but it blew over a carryall in Beacon Street; and
+when Dr. J. went out, like a good Samaritan, to help the people, it
+did not respect his virtue at all, but blew him over. Blew him over the
+fence, it was said; at any rate; landed him on his face, which was much
+bruised, and dislocated his shoulder. So you see I could not tell what
+pranks the same wind might play around the corners of certain houses or
+barns afar off.
+
+Was there ever anything like the swing of the weather? Now it is warm
+here again, and ready to rain. Agassiz told me that the change in
+Cambridge, 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 "the
+Mathematics in the Cosmos." The object is to show that the same ideas,
+principles, relations, which the mathematician has wrought out from his
+own mind, are found in the system of nature, indicating an identity
+of 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 the
+close, "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 of
+light here and there, and for these I come.
+
+A. Why, yes, I understand him. Just now, when he drew that curious
+diagram to illustrate a certain principle, I saw it clearly, for I know
+the same thing in organic nature.
+
+D. Aha! the Mathematics in the Cosmos!
+
+Was it not striking? Here are the Mathematics (Peirce), and Natural
+Science (Agassiz), and they easily understand each other, because the
+lecturer's principle is true.
+
+The three or four years which Mr. Dewey spent in Boston with his family
+were full of enjoyment to him; but in December, 1861, he withdrew
+finally to Sheffield, which he never left again for more than a few
+weeks 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 Sanitary
+Commission are doing for our people in the camps It goes to my heart to
+be sitting here in quiet and comfort, these lovely summer days, while
+they [258] are braving and enduring so much. And so, though of silver
+and gold I have not much, I send my mite, to help, the little that I
+can, the voluntary contribution for your purposes.
+
+Last Monday night [Alluding to the battle and rout of Bull Run, July
+1861] was the bitterest time we have had yet some, even in this quiet
+village, did not sleep a wink. Confound sensation newspapers and
+newspaper correspondents that fellow who writes is enough to drive one
+mad. The "Evening Post" is the wisest paper. But it is too bad that
+that rabble of civilians and teamsters should have brought this apparent
+disgrace upon us.
+
+We have an immense amount of inexperience, and of rash, opinionated
+thinking 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 a
+little breathing-time with us. Come any time; we have always a bed for
+you.
+
+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 with
+my life, or--I will not say I shall drown myself in the Housatonic, but
+I 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 old
+home. I feel as if I had arrived after a long voyage, or were reposing
+after a day's [259] work that had been forty years long. Indeed, it is
+forty-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 as
+temporary. Indeed, I have never before had the means to retire upon. And
+although it is but a modest competence, $1,500 a year [FN: He had just
+received a legacy of $5,000 from Miss Eliza Townsend, of Boston]-yet I
+am most devoutly thankful to Heaven that I have it, and that I am not
+turned out, like an old horse upon the common. To be sure, I should be
+glad to be able to live nearer to the centres of society; but you can
+hardly imagine what comfort and satisfaction I feel in having enough to
+live upon, instead of the utter poverty which I might well have feared
+would 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 were
+in it,--all doors open, as in summer, a summer temperature from the
+furnace, 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 surrounding
+cold, and boundless fields of snow,--it seems a miracle of comfort.
+
+And then, this surrounding splendor and beauty,-the valley, and the
+hills and mountains around,--the soft-falling snow, the starry crystals
+descending through the still air,--the lights and shadows of morning and
+evening,--this wondrous meteorology of winter--but you know all about
+it. 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 is
+rose-colored to him!" Well, nay, but it is literally [260] so. The white
+hill opposite, looking like a huge snow-bank, only that it is checkered
+with strips and patches of wood, dark as Indian-ink, is stained of that
+color every clear afternoon, and rises up at sundown into a bank of
+roseate or purple bloom all along above the horizon.
+
+6th. I did n't get through last evening. No wonder, with so much heavy
+stuff to carry. Did I ever write such a stupid letter before? Well, do
+not say anything about it, but quickly cover it over with the mantle of
+one of your charming epistles. It is not often that one has a chance
+to show so much Christian generosity. Besides, consider that I do not
+altogether despair of myself. I am reviving; and you don't know what a
+letter 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 49th
+Massachusetts Regiment.
+
+To his Daughters.
+
+SHEFFIELD, Oct. 13, 1862.
+
+MY DEAR GIRLS, Charles has enlisted. It was at a war-meeting at the
+town-hall last evening. You have known his feelings, and perhaps will
+not be surprised. I did not expect it, and must confess I was very much
+shaken in spirit by it. But, arriving through some sleepless hours at a
+calmer mood, I do not know that it is any greater sacrifice than we as a
+family ought to make.
+
+Although it will throw a great deal of care upon me, and there is all
+this extra work to do, yet, that excepted, perhaps he could not go at
+any better time than now. [261] It is for the winter, and nine months
+is a fitter term for a family man, circumstanced as he is, than three
+years; and this enlistment precludes all liability to future draft. This
+is in the key of prudence; but I do think that men with young families
+dependent upon them should be the last to go. And yet I had rather have
+in C. the patriotic spirit that impels him, than all the prudence in the
+world.
+
+To the Same.
+
+Oct. 16, 1862.
+
+C. is steadily and calmly putting all things into order that he
+can. . . . He came in the morning after he had enlisted, and said to me
+with a bright, vigorous, and satisfied expression of countenance, "Well,
+you see what I have done." I believe some people have been very much
+stirred and moved by his decision. It is said to have given an impulse
+to the recruiting, and the quota, I am told, is now about full and there
+will be no drafting here.
+
+Thinking of these things,--thinking of all possible good or ill to
+come, your mother and I go about, from hour to hour, sometimes very much
+weighed down, and sometimes more hopeful and cheerful; and poor J., with
+the tears ready to come at every turn, is yet going on very bravely and
+well. . . . Cassidy is to look after barn-yard, etc., for the winter.
+
+But all this is nothing. Good heaven! do people know, does the world
+know, what we are doing, when we freely send our sons from peaceful and
+happy homes to meet what camp-life, and reconnoissances, and battles may
+bring 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 knew
+what had befallen her, and in that letter sent a message to you, to know
+of your whereabouts, provided you were still in town. I don't expect
+an answer from her now, of course, though I have written her since; but
+thinking that you are probably in New York, I write.
+
+I had hoped to hear from you before now. Through this heavy winter cloud
+I 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 is
+too 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 the
+passing of mighty floods, that may sweep away thousands of dwellings,
+and mine with them. And though I lift my thoughts to Heaven, there are
+times when I dare not trust myself to pray aloud; the burden is too
+great for words. It is singular, but you will understand it,--I think
+there was never a time when there was less visible devotion in my
+life than now, when my whole being is resolved into meditations, and
+strugglings of faith, and communings with the supreme and holy will of
+God.
+
+I am writing, my friend, very solemnly for a letter; but never mind
+that, for we are obliged to take into our terrible questioning now what
+is always most trying in the problem of life,--the results of human
+imperfection--
+
+[FN: Mrs. George Curtis, of New York, whose son, Joseph Bridgham Curtis,
+lieutenant-colonel, commanding a Rhode Island regiment, had just fallen
+at Fredericksburg, Va.]
+
+[263] human incompetence, brought into the most immediate connection
+with our own interests and affections. See what it is for our friend
+Mrs. Curtis to reflect that her son was slain in that seemingly reckless
+assault upon the intrenchments at Fredericksburg, or for me that my
+son may be sent off in rotten transports that may founder amidst the
+Southern seas.
+
+But do I therefore spend my time in complainings and reproaches, and
+almost the arraigning of Providence? No. I know that the governing
+powers are trying to do the best they can. The fact is, a charge is
+devolved upon them almost beyond human ability to sustain. Neither
+Russia nor Austria nor France, I believe, ever had a million of soldiers
+in the field, to clothe, to equip, to feed, to pay, and to direct.
+We have them,--we, a peaceful people, suddenly, with no military
+experience, and there must be mistakes, delays, failures. What then?
+Shall we give up the cause of justice, of lawful government, of
+civilization, and of the unborn ages, and do nothing? If we will
+not,--if we will not yield up lawful sovereignty to mad revolt, then
+must we put what power, faculty, skill, we have, to the work, and amidst
+all our sacrifices and sorrows bow to the awful will of God.
+
+Have you seen Mrs. Curtis? In her son there was a singular union of
+loveliness and manliness, of gentleness and courage, and, high over all,
+perfect self-abnegation. A mother could not well lose in a son more than
+she has lost. I hope she does not dwell on the seeming untowardness of
+the event, or that she can take it into a larger philosophy than that of
+the 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 wrote
+to us on the 9th, full of joy, and glorying over the event; but, poor
+fellow, he had only time to wash in the conquered Mississippi, before
+his regiment was ordered down to Fort Donaldsonville, and took part in
+a fight there on the 13th; and we have private advices from Baton Rouge
+that the brigade (Augur's) is sent down towards Brash-ear City. . . .
+Now, when we shall hear of C. I do not venture to anticipate, but
+whenever 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 frightful
+cloud between us and the glorious events in Pennsylvania and
+the Southwest, we should have burst out into illuminations and
+cannon-firings all over the North. But the good time is coming FN We
+shall be ready when Sumter is taken. I hardly know of anything that
+would 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 is
+Draper'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 these
+inland waters this good while. Complain of heat! Why, it is as good as
+champagne to you. Well, I shan't hesitate to write to you, for fear of
+adding to your overwhelming burdens. A pretty picture your letter is,
+of a man overwhelmed by burdens! And weigh a hundred and eighty! I
+can't believe it. Why, I never have weighed more than a hundred and
+seventy-six. Maybe you are an inch or two taller; and brains, I have
+often observed, weigh heavy; but yours at the top must be like a glass
+of soda-water! Nature did a great thing for you, when it placed that
+buoyant fountain within you. I have often thought so.
+
+But let me tell you, my dear fellow, that with all the stupendous share
+you have had in the burdens of this awful time, you have not known, and
+without knowing can never conceive, of what has weighed upon me for the
+last nine months. . . . I thank you most heartily for your sympathy with
+C. After all, my satisfaction in what he has done is not so great as in
+what 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 days
+ago. I am very sorry to see that you are laboring under the mistaken
+impression that I [266] have lost my son in the war. Something you
+misapprehended in-'s letter. You seem to suppose that it was Charles who
+used that striking language, "Is old Massachusetts dead? It is sweet to
+die for our country!" No; it was Lieutenant-Colonel O'Brien, who fell
+immediately afterwards. Charles was one of the storming party under
+O'Brien. He stepped forward at that call, for they had all hesitated
+a moment, as the call was unexpected; it came upon them suddenly. He
+behaved as well as if he had fallen; but, thank God, he is preserved
+to us, and, is among us in health, in these Thanksgiving days. All
+were around my table day before yesterday,--three children, with their
+mother, and three grandchildren.
+
+To Mrs. David Lane.
+
+SHEFFIELD, Dec. 29, 1863.
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--Our life goes on as usual, though those drop from it that
+made a part of it. We strangely accustom ourselves to everything,--to
+war and bloodshed, to sickness and pain, to the death of friends; and
+that which was a bitter sorrow at first, sinks into a quiet sadness. And
+this not constant, but arising as occasions or trains of thought call
+it forth. Life is like a procession, in which heavy footsteps and gay
+equipages, and heat and dust, and struggle and laughter, and music and
+discord, mingle together. We move on with it all, and our moods partake
+of it all, and only the breaking asunder of the natural bonds and
+habitudes of living together (except it be of some especial heart-tie)
+makes affliction very deep and abiding, or sends us away from the great
+throng to sit and weep alone. Of friends, I [267] think I have suffered
+more 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 than
+to any similar one that has ever occurred to me. I shall miss E. S. from
+my path more than any friend that has ever gone away from it into the
+unknown realm.
+
+Oh! the unknown realm! Will the time ever come, when men will look
+into it, or have it, at least, as plainly spread before them as to the
+telescopic view is the landscape of the moon? I believe that I have
+as much faith in the future life as others,--perhaps more than most
+men,--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 great
+procession moves on,--past the solemn bier, past holy graves. You are in
+it, 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 am
+exhausted 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 Sanitary
+Commission, and of which Mrs. Lane was the chief manager and inspiring
+power.]
+
+[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 is
+to be done with slavery?" You have been saying something about it, and I
+rather 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 to
+him; "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 be
+successfully placed on entirely new ground in five years, all historical
+experience is against you."
+
+However, the real and practical question now is, How ought the
+Government to proceed? Upon what terms should it consent to receive back
+and recognize the Rebel States? I confess that I am sometimes tempted to
+go with a rush on this subject,--since so fair an opportunity is given
+to destroy the monster,--and to make it the very business and object of
+the war to sweep it out of existence. But that will be the end; and for
+the way, things will work out their own issues. And in the mean time I
+do not see that anything could be better than the cautious and tentative
+manner in which the President is proceeding.
+
+One thing certainly has shaken my old convictions about the feasibility
+of immediate emancipation, and that is the experiment of emancipated
+labor on the Mississippi and about Port Royal. But the severest trial
+of emancipation, as of democracy,--that is, of freeing black men as of
+freeing 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 much
+indebted to you all for our four pleasant days in the great city, that
+I think we ought to write a letter to you. We feel as if we had come out
+of the great waters; the currents of city life run so strong, that it
+seems 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 the
+very sailors are so thoroughly alive, that--that--how shall I end the
+sentence? Why, thus, if you please,--that it seems to me as if I ought
+to be there six months of the year, and that somebody ought to want me
+to 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 never
+caught him, though he was hunting for him all his life,--always hoped
+the 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 and
+tasks, and I am not turned out, at the end, on to the bare common of the
+world, to starve. I have a family, priceless to me. I have many dear and
+good friends, and above all I have learned to draw nigh to a Friendship
+which embraces the universe in its love and care, if one may speak so of
+That which is almost too awful for mortal word. . . .
+
+But leaving myself, and turning to you,--what a monstrous person you
+are! a prodigy of labor, and a prodigy in some other ways that I could
+point 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 was
+quite 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 Sheffield
+teapot; for we have a fair on the 22d, and they have determined here
+that they won't have raffles.
+
+What made you think that I "dread public prayers "? Did I say anything
+to 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 called
+prayer becomes more and more easy, or at least inevitable to me; but the
+action has become so stupendous and awful to me, that I more and more
+desire the privacy in it of my own thoughts. "Prayers,"-"saying one's
+prayers," grows distasteful to me, and a Liturgy is less and less
+satisfying. Communion is the word I like better.
+
+But I have touched too large a theme. With our love to E. and your
+lovely 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 have
+written to me; and indeed they told me so when I was in New York the
+other day. I wrote you a good (?) long letter about New Year's,
+which "the human race running upon our errands" (as Carlyle says) has
+delivered to you, unless in the confusion of these war times it has
+let 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, do
+you know, I find great help by merging myself in the human race. It has
+taken a vast deal of worry to wash and brush it into neatness, and to
+train it to order, virtue, and sanctity; why should I not have my
+share in the worry and weariness and trouble? Many have been sick and
+suffering,--all mankind more or less; why should not I be? All the human
+generations have passed away from the world; Walter Scott died; Prescott
+died; Charles Dewey, of Indiana, died; E. S. has died; who am I, that I
+should ask to remain?
+
+E.'s passing away was very grand and noble,--so cheerful, so
+natural,--so full of intelligence and fuller of trust,--this earthly
+land to her but a part of the Great Country that lies beyond. She left
+such an impression upon her family and friends, that they hardly yet
+mourn her loss as they will; they feel as if she were still of them and
+with 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, for
+Charles says you wrote to him that you knew I should n't have those
+grapes unless you sent them to me. And I am afraid it's true; for I have
+had such poor success in my poor grape-culture, that I had about given
+up in despair.
+
+[272] Nonetheless, I have had these set out, according to the best of my
+judgment, in the best place I could find in the open garden, and I will
+have a trellis or something for them to run upon; and then they may do
+as they have a mind to.
+
+I have delayed to acknowledge the receipt of the grape-roots,--Charles
+is n't to blame, I told him I would write,--because I waited for the
+cider to come, that wife and I might overwhelm you with a joint letter
+of thanks, laudation, and praise. But I can wait no longer. That is, the
+cider 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 as
+drank some of that Long Island champagne. Speaking of poets reminds me
+that I did n't tell you how charmed I was with those translations from
+the Odyssey; the blank verse is so simple, clear, and exquisite, so I
+think.
+
+To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick.
+
+SHEFFIELD, May 5, 1864.
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--Dear B. did you no wrong, and me much right, in giving
+me 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 read
+this long time. It was that in which you spoke of Mr. Choate. It was
+evidently written with effort and with interruptions,--it was not like
+your finished, though unstudied letters, of which I have in my garner
+a goodly sheaf; but oh! my friend, take me into your [273] realm, your
+frame of mind, your company, wherever it shall be. The silent tide is
+bearing us on. May it never part, but temporarily, my humble craft from
+your lovely sail, which seems to gather all things sweet and
+balmy-affections, friendships, kindnesses, touches and traits of humanity,
+hues and fragrances of nature, blessings of providence and beatitudes of
+life--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, flashes
+from the sky, essences from Arabia, seem unconsciously to drop into it!
+I have been reading him, in consequence of what you wrote. It is strange
+that with all his seeking for perfection in this kind he did not succeed
+better. But it would seem that his affluent and mysterious genius could
+not be brought to walk in the regular paces. He was certainly a very
+extraordinary person. I understand better his generosity, candor,
+amiableness, playfulness. I understand what you mean by the resemblance
+between 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 with
+documents, papers, letters, and what not, on matters connected with
+the Sanitary. I should like to have you recognize that there are other
+people who need to be healed and helped besides soldiers; and that there
+are other interests beside public ones to be looked after. Are not all
+interests individual interests in [274] the "last analysis," as the
+philosophers say? But I am afraid you don't believe in analysis at all.
+Generality, combination, is everything with you. One part of the human
+race is rolled up into a great bundle of sickness, wounds, and misery;
+and the other is nothing but a benevolent blanket to be wrapped round
+it. And if any one thread--videlicet I--should claim to have any
+separate existence or any little tender feeling by itself, immediately
+the manager of the Great Sanitary Fair says, "Hush! lie down! you are
+nothing but a part of the blanket." But a truce to nonsense. Since
+writing the foregoing, the news has come from Atlanta. Oh! if Grant
+could do the same thing to Lee's army, not only would the Rebellion be
+broken, but the Copperhead party would be scattered to the winds! Do
+you read anything this summer but reports from Borrioboola Gha? The
+best book I have read--Ticknor's "Prescott," Alger's "Future
+Life," Furness's "Veil Partly Lifted," etc., notwithstanding--is De
+Tocqueville'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 to
+the world"! If the people that do the most good, or get it to be
+clone,--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? Where
+Howard, but for cruel sailors? Where Brace, but for naughty boys? Where
+our noble President of the Sanitary, but for the wicked Rebels? And how
+should I ever have known that Mrs. Lane was capable of such a fine and
+eloquent indignation, if, instead of being a bad boy, "neglecting
+the opportunities" thrown in my way, I had been just a good sort of
+middle-aged man, "in the prime of life," doing as I ought? Really, there
+ought 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 a
+noble man!" And it was an Orthodox, formerly a member and elder of
+Dr. Spring's church. And what do you think he said to me? "Don't you
+remember me?"--"No."--"Don't you remember when you were a young man,
+in Dodge Sayre's bookstore, that Jasper Corning and I set up a
+Sunday-school for colored people in Henry Street, and that you taught in
+it for several months? And a good teacher you were, too." Not a bit of
+it. Oh, dear me! I hope there are some other good things which I have
+done in the world that I don't remember. "A grand sermon," you heard
+last Sunday, hey? And then went to the "Century" Rooms, to see the
+decorations of the Bryant Festival! It seems to me that was rather a
+queer thing to do, after sermon! You will have to write a letter to me
+immediately, to relieve my anxieties about your religious education.
+Was the text, "And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt
+sacrifices and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat
+and 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 the
+surface, 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 pleasant
+to any company of friends to think that the hour for parting was near.
+Death is a solemn and painful dispensation. I will have no hallucination
+about it. I "wait the great teacher, Death." I do not welcome it. It
+is a solemn change. It is a dread change to natures like ours. I do not
+believe that the Great Disposer meant that we should approach it with
+a smile, with an air of triumph,--with any other than feelings of lowly
+submission and trust. I do not want to die. I never knew anybody that
+did, except when bitter pain or great and irremediable unhappiness made
+the 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 I
+believe that it is better to depart; but it is a kind of reluctant
+conclusion. It may be even cheerful; but it does not make it easy for
+me to tear myself from all the blessed ties of life. I submit to God's
+awful will; but it is with a struggle of emotions, that is itself
+painful and trying,--that tasks all the fortitude and faith of which
+I am capable. [277] Will you tell me that our Christian masters and
+martyrs 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 bloody
+battles, though we desire it! Do you feel that I am not writing to you
+in the high Christian strain? Perhaps not. But I confess I am accustomed
+to bring all that is taught me--all that is said in exceptional
+circumstances like those of the apostles-into some adjustment with a
+natural, necessary, and universal experience. Besides, Jesus himself did
+not 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 calmness
+or strength, no braving of martyrdom,--not half so fine and grand, to a
+worldly and superficial view, as many a martyr's death! But oh, what
+a blending in him of everything that makes perfection,--of pain and
+patience, of trial and trust! But I am writing too long a letter for you
+to 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 the
+kindest 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 to
+bear,--to be so praised to your very face. . . . Your reply was
+admirable,--simple, modest, quiet, graceful,--in short, I don't see how
+it could be better. For the rest, I think our cousin Waldo chiselled out
+the 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, and
+should have done so before now, but my mind has been engrossed with
+a great anxiety and sorrow; my grandson and namesake was taken with
+a fever, which went to the brain, and he died last Monday evening. I
+cannot tell you--you could hardly believe what an affliction it has been
+to me. He was five years old, a lovely boy, and, I think, of singular
+promise,--of a fine organization, more than beautiful, and with a mind
+inquiring into the causes and reasons of things, such as I have rarely
+seen. . . . We meant to educate this boy; I hoped that he would bear up
+my name. God's will be done!
+
+It was of the coming Convention that I was going to write to you; but
+now, just now, I have no heart for it. But I feel great interest in the
+movement. Would that it were possible to organize the Unitarian Church
+of America,--to take this great cause out of the hands of speculative
+dispute, and to put it on the basis of a working institution. To find
+a ground of union out of which may spring boundless freedom of
+thought,--is it impossible? I should like to see a church which could
+embrace 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 these
+blessed days. Did you observe what the papers say about the manner in
+which they received the Great News yesterday in New York [The surrender
+of the Rebel army],--not with any loud ebullition of joy, but rather
+with a kind of religious silence and a gratitude too deep for utterance?
+And I see that they propose to celebrate, not with fireworks and firing
+of cannon, but with an illumination,--the silent shining out of joy from
+every house. Last evening the locomotive of the freight train expressed
+itself in a singular way. Not shutting its whistle when it left the
+station, it went singing all down through the valley. For my part, I
+feel a solemn joy, as if I had escaped some great peril, only that it is
+multiplied 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 our
+simple republican regime and peaceful order, was tame and uneventful;
+given over to quiet comfort and prosaic prosperity; never startled by
+anything more notable than a railroad disaster or a steamer burnt at
+sea. Events that were typified by the sun turning to darkness and the
+moon to blood, and stars falling from heaven,--distress of nations with
+perplexity of men's hearts, failing them for fear,--all this seemed to
+belong to some far-off country and time.
+
+[280] But it has come to us. God wills that we should know all that any
+nation has known, of whatever disciplines men to awe and virtue. The
+bloody mark upon the lintel, for ten thousands of first-born slain,--the
+anxiety and agony of the struggle for national existence,--the
+tax-gatherer taking one fourth part of our livelihood, and a deranged
+currency nearly one half of the remainder,--four years of the most
+frightful war known in history,--and then, at the very moment when our
+hearts were tremulous with the joy of victory, and every beating pulse
+was growing stiller and calmer in the blessed hope of peace, then the
+shock of the intelligence that Lincoln and Seward, our great names
+borne up on the swelling tide of the nation's gratulation and hope, have
+fallen, in the same hour, under the stroke of the assassin,--these are
+the awful visitations of God!. . . As I slowly awake to the dreadful
+truth, the question that presses upon me--that presses upon the national
+heart--is, what is to become of us? If the reins of power were to fall
+into competent hands, we could take courage. But when, in any view, we
+were about to be cast upon a troubled sea, requiring the most skilful
+and trusted pilots, what are we to do without them? Monday morning,
+17th. Why should I send you this,--partly founded on mistake, for later
+telegrams lead us to hope that Mr. Seward will survive,--and reading,
+too, more like a sermon than a letter? But my thoughts could run upon
+nothing else but these terrible things; and, sitting at my desk, I let
+my pen run, not merely dash down things on the paper, as would have been
+more natural. But for these all-absorbing horrors, I should have [281]
+written you somewhat about the Convention. It was certainly a grand
+success. I regretted only one thing, and that was that the young men
+went away grieved and sad. . . . I think, too, that what they asked was
+reasonable. That is, if both wings were to fly together, and bear on the
+body, no language should have been retained in the Preamble which both
+parties 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 sermon
+this very evening,--a sermon of reasonings, in part, upon this very
+matter on which you speak; that is, the difference of opinion in the
+Convention. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Radicalism
+and Conservatism. The Convention took the ground that both, as they
+exist in our body, could work together; it accepted large contributions
+in money from both sides, and it is not necessary to decide which side
+is right, in order to see that a statement of faith should have been
+adopted in which both could agree. I was glad, for my part, to find that
+the conservative party was so strong. I distrust the radical more than
+I do the conservative tendencies in our church; still I hope we are too
+just, not to say liberal, to hold that mere strength can warrant us in
+doing any wrong to the weaker party. [282] To be sure, if I thought, as
+I suppose--and--do, that the radical ground was fatal to Christianity, I
+should oppose it in the strongest way. But the Convention did not assume
+that position. On the contrary, it said, "Let us co-operate; let us put
+our money together, and work together as brethren." Then we should not
+have 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, or
+as having a commission and power to save beyond that and different from
+it,--one may not be sure. But of this I am sure, that he who takes upon
+his heart the living impression of that divinest life and love is saved
+in the noblest sense. And I do not see but there is as much of this
+salvation 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 not
+which of them is right, but whether I am right,--and that in something
+far more vital than opinion. It does seem as if one who has lived as
+long as I have, ought to have overcome all his spiritual foes; but I do
+not find it so. I feel sometimes as if I were only struggling harder and
+harder 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 how
+it is with you in these winter days, the [283] last of the year. I hope
+that they do not find you oppressed with weakness or suffering; and if
+they do not, I am sure that your spirit is alert and happy, and that the
+bright snow-fields and the lovely meteor of beauty that hangs in the air
+in 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 rays
+shining through our souls,--streaming from the Infinite Light,--that
+make us feel that they are made to grow brighter and brighter forever?
+Ah! our confidence in immortality must be this feeling, and never a
+thing 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 as
+surely as if you uttered them.
+
+This year is to be momentous to us, if for no other reason, that K. is
+to be married. And we are to be no more together much, perhaps, in this
+world. It is an inconceivable wrench in my existence. This marrying
+is the cruellest thing; and it is a perfect wonder and mystery of
+Providence 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 my
+nook,--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 nor
+destroy," 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 to
+all this! "Ahem! not so fast, my friend," say you; "other places are
+blessed and happy besides valleys and mountains." Yes, I know. And I
+confess my late experience inclines me to think that, for the mind's
+health and sharpening, cities are desirable places to be in, for a part
+of the year, notwithstanding all the notwithstandings. Of course, strong
+and collected thought works free and clear everywhere, or tends that
+way; but it did seem to me that the whirl of the great maelstrom left
+but few people in a condition to think, or to form well-considered
+opinions, or to meditate much upon anything. Yes, I know it,--"The mind
+is its own place," (nothing was ever better said), and it may be fretted
+and frittered away to nothing in country quiet, and it may be strong and
+calm and full in the city throng. . . . And more and more do I feel
+that this nature of mine is the deep ground-warrant for faith in God and
+immortality. Everywhere in the creation there is a proportion between
+means and ends,--between all natures and their destinies. And can it be
+that 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 and
+welfare wrapped up in those sublime verities, is made to strive and sigh
+for them in vain, to stretch out its hands to--nothing? This day rises
+upon us fair and beautiful,--the precursor, [285] I believe, of endless
+days. If not, I would say with Job, "Let it be darkness; let not God
+regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it; for darkness
+and the shadow of death stain it." But what a different staining was
+upon it this morning! As I looked out upon the mountain just before
+sunrise, it showed like a mountain-rose blossoming up out of the
+earth,--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, from
+your own pen, to provide me with all my reading. Look which way I
+will,--towards the "Inquirer," the "Monthly," or the "Examiner,"--and
+H. W. B. is coming at me with an article, and sometimes with both hands
+full. You must write like a horse in full gallop. And yet you don't seem
+to. 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 me
+exceedingly. Only one thing I questioned; and that is, putting the
+plea for universal suffrage on the ground that it is education for the
+people. One might ask if it were well to put a ship in the hands of
+the crew because it would be a good school for them. And looking at
+our popular elections, one, may doubt whether they are a good school.
+I should be inclined to say that if the people could consent that only
+property holders who could read [286] and write should vote, it would
+be better. But they will not consent; we are on the popular tide, and
+suffrage must be universal, and the freedmen eventually must and will
+have the franchise.
+
+But with the general strain of your writing I agree entirely. What you
+say of the exceptional character of the Southern treason is true, and
+it has not been so distinctly nor so well said before. I had thought the
+same myself, and, of course, you must be right! Yet we must take care
+lest the concession go too far. Treason must forever be branded as the
+greatest of crimes. It aims not to murder a man, but a people. And as
+to opinion and conscience, I suppose all traitors have an opinion and a
+conscience.
+
+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 is
+excellent; it appreciates him and his time. One laments that his mind
+had so hard a lot; but every real man must, in one way or another, fight
+a 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, by
+consequence, whether the immortality which lay open to his vision is but
+a dream of weary and burdened humanity? Herbert Spencer believes in no
+such God and Father, and his religion, which he vaunts so much, is but
+a hard and cold abstraction. On other subjects he is a great writer; and
+in his volume of essays there is not one which is not marked with strong
+and original thought. It is a prodigious intellect, certainly, and
+struggling hard with the greatest questions. [287] May it find its way
+out to light! Thus far its light is, to my thinking, the profoundest
+darkness. 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 any
+one to-day, it must be to some one whose friendship is nearly as old as
+myself. Looking about me, I find no such one but you. Fifty years I have
+known 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's
+loveliness set at defiance--been less so since. Forty years I think I
+have known you well. Thirty years we have been friends; and that word
+needs no epithet nor superlative to make it precious. This morning I
+called my wife to come and sit down by me, saying, "I will read you an
+old 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 more
+than that it was to us--for it was true.
+
+The greatest disappointment that I meet in old age is that I am not so
+good as I expected to be, nor so wise. I am ashamed to say that I was
+never so dissatisfied with myself as I am now. It seems as if it could
+not be a right state of things. My ideal of old age has been something
+very different. And yet seventy years is still within the infancy of the
+immortal life and progress. Why should it not say with the Apostle, "Not
+as though [288] I had attained, neither were already perfect." I can say
+with him, in some respects, "I have fought a good fight." I have fought
+through early false impressions of religion. I have fought through many
+life problems. I have fought, in these later years, through Mansel and
+Herbert Spencer, as hard a battle as I have ever had. But I have come,
+through all, to the most rooted conviction of the Infinite Rectitude
+and Goodness. Nothing, I think, can ever shake me from this,-that all
+is well, and shall be forever, whatever becomes of me. . . . Ever your
+friend,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+To Mrs. David Lane.
+
+SHEFFIELD, July 9, 1866.
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--I am etonne, as the French have it; at least Moliere and
+Corneille--whom I have been reading by and large of late, having read
+all the new things I could get hold of-are continually having
+their 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 Miss
+Julia Mannering, when he was confounded with her vivacity. What! two
+letters to my one! I do believe you are going to be literary.
+
+And then,--was ever seen such an ambitious woman! Reading Mill, and
+going 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, "I
+wish,--but what 's the use!" You are through with the great absorbing
+mother's cares, and can undertake studies, and I believe there is no
+study so worthy of our attention as our literature. I confess that I
+have come [289] to a somewhat new thought of this matter of late. What
+is there on the earth upon which we stand,--what is there that offers to
+help us, to lift and build us up, that can compare with the productions
+of the greatest minds which are gathered up in our literature? Whether
+we would study human nature or the Nature Divine,-whether we would study
+religion, science, nature in the world around us, in the life within
+us,--these are the lights that shine upon our path. For those who have
+time to read, it seems a deplorable mistake not to turn their thoughts
+distinctly to what the greatest minds have said; that is, upon as many
+subjects as they can compass.
+
+If I were to undertake anything in the way of education, I would set up
+in New York an Institute of English Literature. I do not know but--might
+do something of the kind,--have a house and receive classes that
+should come once or twice in a week and read in the mean time under her
+direction, 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 thus
+making them acquainted with the finest productions of the English mind;
+and, what is better, inspiring them with an enthusiasm and taste for
+pursuing, for reading such things, instead of sensation novels and such
+stuff.
+
+Moliere and Corneille have struck me much on this reading,--the first
+with the tenuity of his thought, the slender thread on which he weaves
+his entertaining and life-like drama, making it to live through the ages
+simply by sticking to nature, making his personages speak so naturally;
+and the second, with the real dramatic [290] grandeur of his genius. I
+feel that I have never done justice to Corneille before, I have been
+so dissatisfied with the formal rhyme, the want of the natural dramatic
+play of language in his work, the stilted rhetoric. And when I heard
+Rachel in the Cid, I thought, by the rapid, undramatic way in which she
+hurried through his declamations, while, in a few exclamatory bursts,
+she swept everything before her, that she justified my criticism. But
+this was the misfortune of Corneille; he walked in shackles imposed
+by the taste of his time. Yet it was a lofty stride. I am particularly
+struck with his grand moral ideals. I wish I had a good life of him. He
+must have been a good man. Like Beethoven and Michael Angelo, he does
+not seem to have liked flattery, court, or ceremony. But I guess that is
+the 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 I
+am almost afraid you are glad of it, not having to answer. You must
+acknowledge, however, that I have always offered you the easiest terms
+of exchange; two for one, three, four, anything you liked. . . . I have
+been lately with Mr. Bryant, in his great affliction, staying with my
+sisters, who occupy one of his cottages, but spending all the time I
+could 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 felt
+that he was losing his chief earthly [291] treasure. His wife was
+that to him, by her simplicity, her simple truthfulness, her perfect
+sincerity and heart-earnestness, latterly of a very religious character,
+and by her good judgment also; he told me that he always consulted her
+upon everything he published, and found that her opinion was always
+confirmed by that of the public, that is, as to the relative merit of
+his writings. He was bound to her the more, because his ties of close
+affection with others are so very few. Sometimes he could not repress
+his tears in our talking; and they told me that in the morning, when
+he went to her bedside, he often sat weeping, saying, "You have been
+suffering all night, and I have been sleeping." In the last days she
+longed to depart, and often said to him, "You must let me go; I want to
+go" And so she went, peacefully to her rest.
+
+We have had a very pleasant visit from Mr. R. . . . His visits are
+always 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 I
+listened to him last evening, I could not help feeling that I knew
+nothing as he knows that, and thinking that if there are infant schools
+in 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 the
+coming month. It is what we have not been able to do in the present
+month at all,--by a fire, rather, in the parlor, half the time.
+
+. . . With our affectionate remembrances to those around you, hold me to
+be, 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 write
+to 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. "But
+how is the sermon?" you 'll say. Why, as inimitable as the writer. But
+really, I think it is worth something. I did think, indeed, when I took
+my pen, that I could write a stronger argument for immortality than I
+ever saw, that is, in any one sermon or thesis. And if I have failed
+entirely, and shall come to think so, as is very likely, it will be
+no worse, doubtless, than my presumption deserved. You and K., who
+are satisfied with your spiritual instincts, would think it no better,
+probably, than a belt of sand to bolster up a mountain. Well, every one
+must help himself as he can. This meditation certainly has strengthened
+my own faith in the immortal life.
+
+I should like to go to church with you this morning, where you are
+probably going; but the places are very few where I should want to
+go. More and more do all public services dissatisfy me,--all devout
+utterances, my own included. Communion with the Highest, with the Unseen
+and Unspeakable, seems to me to consist of breathings, not words, and
+requires a freedom of all thoughts and feelings,--of awe and wonder, of
+adoration and thanksgiving, of meditations and of stirrings of the deeps
+within 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 Syracuse
+Conference, which I thought so excellent, that I told the editor it was
+itself worth a quarter's payment. Your mother admires it, too. Though
+she has no sympathy, as you well know, with Abbot's Left-Wing views, her
+righteous nature warmly takes part with his argument. The fact is, the
+Conference is wrong. If it expects the young men to act with it,
+it should adopt a platform on which they can conscientiously and
+comfortably stand. The conduct of the majority, in my opinion, is
+inconsistent and ungenerous. Either take ground upon which all
+can stand,--and I think there is such ground,--or else say to the
+ultra-liberals, "We cannot consent that any part of our common means
+shall 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 it
+is written, as I preferred to do, before the warm and cold, wet and dry
+meslin 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 do
+not make yourself uneasy. There will be nothing in the address of what
+you call "a defection to the radical side," simply because, in opinion,
+I cannot take that ground. I do not and cannot give up the miraculous
+element in Christianity. But I [294] embrace our whole denomination in
+my sympathies and do not think our differences so important as you do.
+That religion has its roots in our nature, if that is radicalism, I
+strongly hold and always have. And in its development and culture I have
+never given that exclusive place to Christianity that many do. I confess
+that I always disliked and resisted the utterances of the extreme
+conservatives on this point, more than those of their opponents. So you
+see that M. was mainly right. And certainly I think the minority in the
+Conference has had hard measure from the majority; and I liked Abbot's
+sermon 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 of
+in your letter which crossed mine? How vain to attempt to discuss such
+matters 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 miraculous
+element in it. The miraculous is but an attestation to that. That is
+authority to me. The authority of God is more clearly and unquestionably
+revealed to me, than in anything else, in the inborn spiritual
+convictions of my nature, without which, indeed, I could not understand
+Christianity, nor anything else religious. These convictions accord with
+the deepest truths of Christianity, else I could not receive it. Jesus
+has strengthened, elevated, and purified these natural [295] convictions
+in such a way,--by such teachings, by such a life, by such an
+unparalleled beauty of character,-that I believe God has breathed a
+grace into his soul that he never-has [given] in the same measure and
+perfection to any other. Effects must have causes, and such an effect
+seems to me fairly to indicate such a cause.
+
+But there are those who cannot take this view; who look upon the gospel
+as simply the best exposition of national religion ever given, without
+any other breath of inspiration upon the record than such as was
+breathed upon the pages of Plato or Epictetus. Now, if they went
+further, and disowned the very spirit of Jesus, rejected the very
+essence of the gospel, certainly they would not be Christians. But this
+they 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 persons
+as outcasts from the Christian fold, to refuse them my sympathy, to
+accord them only my "pity "? Certainly, I can take no such ground.
+
+The peculiarities of certain individuals--the "cold abstractions" of
+one, and the rash utterances of another--have nothing essentially to
+do with the case; nor has the hurt they may be thought to do to our
+Unitarian cause anything to do with the essential truth of things. Nor
+do I know that extreme Radicalism does us any more harm than extreme
+Conservatism. I belong to neither extreme; and my business is, without
+regard 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 do
+justice to the radical side. But consider that such men as Martineau,
+Bartol, Stebbins, [296] Ames, and Abbot are mainly on that side, and
+that it will not do to cast about scornful or pitying words concerning
+such. As to __ I give him up to you, for I don't like his writing any
+better than you do.
+
+I think the great Exposition which you are soon to see may give you a
+liberalizing hint. There, the industry of all nations will be exhibited.
+All are bent, honestly and earnestly, upon one point,--the development
+of the human energies in that direction. And it will infer nothing
+against their good character, or their titles to sympathy and respect,
+that they differ more or less with regard to the modes and means of
+arriving at the end.
+
+Well, you will go before I come to New York. God bless and keep you, and
+bring you safely back!
+
+Ever your friend,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+There are some passages in an unpublished sermon, preached by my father
+at Church Green, in 1858, which I will quote presently, as illustrative
+of the same tone of thought shown in these letters. His clinging to
+the miraculous element in the life of Jesus, while refusing to base any
+positive authority upon it, is equally characteristic of him, arising
+from the caution, at once reverent and intellectual, which made him
+extremely slow to remove any belief, consecrated by time and affection,
+till it was proved false and dangerous, and from his thorough conviction
+that every man stands or falls by so much of the Infinite Light and Love
+as he is able to receive directly into his being. He was conservative
+by [297] feeling, and radical by thought, and the two wrought in him
+a grand charity of judgment, far above what is ordinarily called
+toleration.
+
+These are the extracts referred to:
+
+"Society as truly as nature, nay, as truly as the holy church, is a
+grand organism for human culture. I say emphatically,--as truly as the
+holy church; for we are prone to take a narrow view of man's spiritual
+growth, and to imagine that there is nothing to help it, out of the pale
+of Christianity. We make a sectarism of our Christian system, even as
+the Jews did of the Hebrew, though ours was designed to break down all
+such narrow bounds; so that I should not wonder if some one said to
+me,--Are you preaching the Christian religion when you thus speak of
+nature and society?' And I answer, 'No; I am speaking of a religion
+elder than the Christian.' . . .
+
+"There was a righteousness, then, before and beside the Christian. Am I
+to be told that Socrates and Plato, and Marcus Antoninus and Boethius,
+had no right culture, no religion, no rectitude? and they were cast upon
+the bosom of nature and of society for their instruction, and of that
+light 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" last
+week! But think especially of eminent French critics, and Marmontel
+among them (in the preface), praising it to the stars, saying that some
+of the [298] passages are superior to Homer and Virgil! However, it is
+really better than I expected, and I read on, partly from curiosity and
+partly for the history. The French would have been very glad to find
+it an epic worthy of the name, for they have n't one. Voltaire frankly
+confesses that the French have not a genius for great poetry,--too much
+in 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 of
+characterization; but the moment he touches the social relations, and
+should be dramatic, he is struck with total incapacity. Indeed, what one
+novelist has been perfect in dialogue, making each person say just what
+he 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 put
+up peaches in a little box by themselves. But the fact is, peaches can't
+travel, unless they are plucked so early as nearly to spoil them of all
+their "deliciarunz,"--which we are enjoying in those we eat here. And
+Bryant with us,--fruity fellow that he is!--I am glad we have some good
+fruit to give him. Yesterday we had a very good cantelope, and pears are
+on hand all the while. I am sorry that I could not get the pears to you
+just in eating condition, and the Hurlbut apples too; but they'll all
+come right.
+
+Yes, fruity,--that 's what Bryant is; but rather of the quality of dried
+fruits,--not juicy, still less gushing, but [299] with a good deal of
+concentrated essence in him (rather "frosty, but kindly "), exuding
+often in little bits of poetical quotations, fitly brought in from
+everywhere, and of which there seems to be no end in his memory.
+
+The woods are beginning to show lovely bits of color, but the great
+burden of leaves remains untouched. Bryant and I walked out to the Pine
+Grove, and on to Sugar-Maple Hill. Your mother admires him for his much
+walking; 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 other
+copy. Bryant commended it, and said he thought the argument against the
+Incomprehensible'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 need
+n'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 has
+partaken with me in that infirmity of noble minds,--a desire to look
+through the haze of this mundane atmospheric environment, and predict
+the future. But, alas I there is an infirmity of vision; we see through
+a glass darkly. We can't see through a millstone. The firmament has
+been very like that, for some days,--all compact with clouds. We thought
+something 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 the
+breakfast 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 any
+more!"
+
+Ask my dear M., pray her, to try to come up to the height of that great
+resolution. I know the difficulty,-the strain to which it will put all
+her 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 bird
+that has sung, for two evenings past, between ten and twelve, as gayly
+as the nightingales of Champel. It is the cat-bird, the same that
+comes flying and pecking at our windows. What has come over the little
+creature? I suppose the season of nest-building and incubation is one
+of great excitement,--the bird's honeymoon. And then, the full moon
+shining down, and the nights warm as summer, and thoughts of the nice
+new house and the pretty eggs, and the chicks that are coming,--it could
+not contain itself.
+
+Well, as I sit in my porch and look at the birds, they seem to me a
+revelation, as beautiful, if not so profound, as the Apocalypse. What
+but Goodness could have made a creature at once so beautiful and so
+happy? Mansel and Spencer may talk about the incomprehensibility of
+the First Cause; I say, here is manifestation. The little Turdus
+Felivox,--oho! ye ignorant children, that is he of the cat,--it sits
+on the bough, ten feet from me, and sings and trills and whistles, and
+sends [301] out little jets of music, little voluntaries, as if it were
+freely and irrepressibly singing a lovely hymn.
+
+This morning there is the slightest little drizzle, a mere tentative
+experimenting towards rain, no more,-I keep to facts. Well, all the
+township is saying, no doubt, "Now it is coming!" Catch me a-doing so! I
+was left to say, in an unguarded moment, "If C. had mowed his meadow
+two or three days ago, he would have got it all in dry." I feel a little
+guilty. I am afraid that incautious observation was the nuance of the
+shadow of an intimation of an opinion, bearing the faintest adumbration
+of a prediction: I am sorry for it. I am very sorry. I ought to have
+kept my lips shut. I ought to have put sealing-wax upon them the moment
+I 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't
+believe it, because thee will think I lack the calmness and staidness
+that 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. Dear
+me! 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 these
+days. But, avaunt expediency! Let me stick to my principles, and be a
+rounded mediocrity, pelted on every hand, and pleasing [302] nobody. By
+the bye, Mrs. Gibbons [Mrs. James Gibbons of New York, daughter of
+Isaac T. Hopper] I has just sent me a fine medallion of her, father,
+beautifully mounted. It is a remarkable face, for its massive strength
+and the fun that is lurking in it. Hopper might have been a great man in
+any other walk,--the statesman's, the lawyer's; he was, in his own.
+
+. . . I want to say something, through the "Post," of the abominable
+nuisance of the railroad whistle. I wrote once while you were gone, and
+Nordhoff (how do you spell him?) did n't publish my letter, but only
+introduced some of it in a paragraph of his own. If I write again, I
+shall want your imprimatur. This horrible shriek, which tears all our
+nerves to pieces, and the nerves of all the land, except Cummington and
+such lovely retirements, is altogether unnecessary; a lower tone would
+answer 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 the
+upshot; that is, you got there. But, pest on railroad cars I they are
+mere torture-chambers, with the additional chance, as Johnson said of
+the ship, of being land-wrecked. Some people like 'em, though. And there
+are dangers everywhere. The other day-a high windy day--a party went to
+the mountain, and had like to have been blown off from the top. But
+they said it was beautiful. I don't doubt, if the whole bunch had been
+tumbled over and rolled down to the bottom, they would all have jumped
+up, exclaiming, "Beautiful! [303] beautiful!" People so like to have it
+thought they have had a good time. One day they went up and all got as
+wet 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 be
+writing. 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 be
+met and mastered with healthy faculties. You can't fight with it, as you
+can with poverty, bankruptcy, mosquitoes, a smoky chimney, and the like.
+I can't be thankful enough that I have had, through my life, so little
+pain. What I shall do with it, if it comes, I don't know. Perhaps I need
+it for what Heine speaks of; that is, to make me "a man." I am afraid I
+am a chicken-hearted fellow. But I cannot help thinking that different
+constitutions 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 I
+feel myself unequal. The awfulness of prayer to me inclines me more and
+more to make it silent, speechless. It is so overwhelming, that I am
+losing all fluency, all free utterance. What it is fit for a creature
+to say to the Infinite One--to that uncomprehended Infinitude of
+Being--makes me hesitate. My mind addressing a fellow mind is easy; and
+yet 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 my
+mind addressing itself, its [304] thought and feeling, to the Infinite,
+Infinite Mind,--I faint beneath it. It is higher than heaven; what can
+I 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, and
+I will speak." And indeed, so much praying,-this imploring the love and
+care of the Infinite Providence and Love, of which the universe is the
+boundless and perpetual evolution,--can that be right and fit? I often
+recall what Mrs. Dwight, of Stockbridge, said of the public devotions
+of old Dr. West,--one of the most saintly beings I ever knew,--that she
+had observed that they consisted less and less of prayers, and more and
+more 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 to
+have a wider flow than through the pages of the "Examiner." It ought to
+be read not by two thousand, but by two million persons. I wish there
+were a popular organ, like the "Ledger" (in circulation), for the
+diffusion of the best thoughts, where the best minds among us could
+speak of the country to the country, for never was there a people that
+more needed to be wisely spoken to. And you are especially fitted to
+speak to it. Your conservative position in our Unitarian body, however
+it 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 so
+essential a part of Christianity. Yet I see and feel the force of what
+you say about it. And the argument is [305] put in that article of yours
+with great weight and power. For myself, I cannot help feeling that at
+length the authority of Jesus will be established on clearer, higher,
+more indisputable and impregnable grounds than any historic, miraculous
+facts.
+
+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 over
+me, 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 a
+dozen houses, and three of them your own to live in,--down, I say, upon
+my humble gratitude. Can it be, by the bye, that Cicero had fourteen
+villas? I am sure Middleton says so. I should think they must have been
+fourteen of what Buckminster, in a sermon, called "bundles of cares and
+heaps 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 have
+a pleasant time with him,--tecum jocari,-and says, "When you come this
+way, don't go down to your Apulia,"--to wit, Cummington. Nam si illo
+veneris, tanquam Ulysses, cognosces tuorum neminem. Now don't quote
+Homer to me when you answer, for I am nearly overwhelmed with my own
+learning.
+
+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 great
+and inspiring to see the whole broad, bright, white, crystal world, and
+the whole [306] horizon round, instead of looking upon brick houses. But
+you will say, the human horizon widens in cities. Yes; but if there are
+six bright points in it you are fortunate, while here, the whole horizon
+round is sapphire and purple and gold.
+
+Well, peace be with you wherever you are, and with your house. My wife
+and 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 winter
+evening readings have been very fortunate this season. First, "Lord
+Jeffrey's Life and Letters," and now, "Draper's Intellectual Development
+in Europe." I had read it before, but it is a greater book than I had
+thought. I must say that I had rather pass my evenings as we do,--some
+writing, some reading, then a quiet game, and then at my desk
+again,--than to take the chances of society, in town or country. If I
+can get you to think as I do, we shall pass a happy life here. Heaven
+grant that I may not fall into a life of pain! With our good spirits, as
+they now are, we every day fall into a quantity of dramatic capers that
+are enough to make a cat laugh,--no bigger animal.
+
+Hoping you may have as much folly, for what saith Paley? "He that is not
+a fool sometimes, is always one,"--and wishing you all merry, I am as
+ever,
+
+Your loving father,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+[307] Nothing can be imagined more peaceful than the retirement of
+Sheffield. Removed from the main lines of traffic and travel, even now
+that a railroad passes through it, the village remains, as it has been
+for a hundred and fifty years, the quiet centre of the quiet farms
+spread for four or five miles about it. The Housatonic wanders at its
+own sweet and lazy will among the meadows, turning and returning upon
+itself till it has loitered twenty miles in crossing the eight-mile
+township, but never turning a mill or offering encouragement to any
+industry but that of the muskrats who burrow in its banks, or the
+kingfishers who break its glassy surface in pursuit of their prey. No
+busy factories are there; no rattle of machinery or feverish activity
+of commerce disturbs the general placidity; and the still valley lies
+between its enclosing hills as if it were, indeed, that happy Abyssinian
+vale my father fancied it in his childhood.
+
+The people share the calm of the landscape. Like many New England towns
+where neither water-power nor large capital offers opportunity for
+manufactures, and where farming brings but slow returns, the village
+has been gradually drained of the greater part of its active and
+enterprising younger population, and is chiefly occupied by retired and
+quiet persons who maintain a very gentle stir of social life, save for
+a month or two in summer, when the streets brighten with the influx of
+guests from abroad.
+
+[308] It must have been very different seventy years ago. Instead of
+three slenderly attended churches, divided by infinitesimal differences
+of creed, and larger variations of government and discipline, all the
+people then were accustomed to meet in one well-filled church; and the
+minister, a life resident, swayed church and congregation with large
+and unquestioned rule. There were several doctors with their trains of
+students, and lawyers of county celebrity, each with young men studying
+under his direction; and all these made the nucleus of a society that
+was both gay and thoughtful, and that received a strong impulse to
+self-development from the isolated condition of a small village in those
+days. Railroads and telegraphs have changed all this, and scarcely a
+hamlet is now so lonely as not to feel the great tides of the world's
+life sweep daily through it, bringing polish and general information
+with them, but washing away much of the racy individuality and
+concentrated 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 is
+more light reading and less hard reading, much more acquaintance with
+newspapers and magazines, and less knowledge of great poets, than in my
+father's youth; but his love for his birthplace remained unchanged,
+and his eyes and his heart drank repose from its peaceful and familiar
+beauty.
+
+[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 well
+enough, if you can't do better; only "my dear Sir" I do hate, between
+good old friends such as we are, as much as Walter Scott did. But, as I
+was saying, you are like grapes yourself,--fair, round, self-contained,
+hanging gracefully upon the life-vine, still full of sap; shining under
+the covert of leaves, but more clearly seen, now that the frosts of age
+are descending, and causing them to fall away; while I am more
+like--but I have so poor an opinion of myself, that I won't tell you
+what. This is no affected self-depreciation. I can't learn to be old,
+but am as full of passion, impatience, foolishness, blind reachings
+after wisdom, as ever. Instance: I am angry with the expressman because
+he did not bring the grapes to-day; angry with the telegraph because it
+did not bring a despatch to tell how a sick boy was, under nine
+hours. . . .
+
+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! It
+has been prodigious, the highest known for many years; water, water all
+around, from beside the road here to the opposite hill. It is curious to
+see 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 to
+drive home one way and could n't,--going round to a bridge and finding
+that swept away,--dams torn down and mills toppled over, and half the
+"sure and firm-set earth" turned into water-courses and
+flood-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 your
+having 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, to
+bear affiches testifying to the people of their wickedness? The express
+is the most slovenly agent and the most irresponsible tyrant in the
+country. What it brings is perhaps ruined by delay,--plants, for
+instance. No help. "Pay," it says to the station-master, "or we don't
+leave 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, at
+half-past nine, they were sent down from the station,--and in remarkably
+good order, considering, and in quantity quite astonishing. The basket
+seemed like the conjurer's hat, out of which comes a half-bushel of
+flowers, 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 not
+speak.
+
+To the Same.
+
+ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 28, 1870.
+
+MY DEAR BRYANT,--The volume has not come, but the kindness has, and I
+will acknowledge the one without [311] waiting for the other; especially
+as it is not a case where one feels it expedient to give thanks for
+a book before he has read it. We all know the quality of this, from
+passages of the work printed in advance. It will be the translation into
+English of the Iliad, I think, though not professing to be learned in
+translations of Homer, still less in the original.
+
+I read your preface in the "Post." Nothing could be better, unless it
+is your speech at the Williams dinner, which was better, and better than
+any occasional speech you have given, me judice.
+
+Great changes are projected in Sheffield,--you will have to come and see
+them and us,--a widening of the village on the east, towards the meadow
+and pine knoll, and--what do you think?--a railroad to the top of
+Taghkonic! 'T is even so-proposed. An eastern company has bought the
+Egremont Hotel, and the land along the foot of the mountain down as
+far as Spurr's ( a mile), and they talk seriously of a railroad. So the
+Taghkonic is to be made a watering-place, if the thing is feasible, in
+quite another sense than that in which it has long sent its streams and
+cast its lonely shadows upon our valley.
+
+We are having winter at last, and our ice-houses filled with the best of
+ice, and the prospect is fair for the wood-piles. The books you sent are
+turning to great account with us. In that and in every way I am obliged
+to 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 the
+case, nor to get up a procession, nor to have the bells rung, if we
+win; but just to sympathize, so far as mid-life vigor can, with an aged
+couple, who have lived together half a century, and would much rather
+live it over again than not to have lived it at all; who have lived in
+that 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 and
+love of each other to this day (at least one of them has); one of whom
+finds his mate more beautiful than when he married her, though the
+other's condition, in that respect, does n't admit of more or less,
+being a condition of obstinate mediocrity; and who, both of them, look
+with mingled wonder and gratitude to their approaching Golden Wedding
+Day.
+
+So you can look upon us with pleasure, on the day after Christmas, and
+think of us as surrounded by all our children and grandchildren.
+And that is all we shall make, except in our thoughts, of our great
+anniversary.
+
+Adieu. I shall not descend in this letter to meaner themes, but with our
+love 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. He
+was a sailor, and more than [313] forty years ago he came from before
+the mast into the pulpit. He brought with him, I suppose, something of
+the roughness of his calling; for I remember hearing of his preaching
+in the neighborhood of New Bedford when I first went there, and of his
+inveighing against paid preachers as wretched hirelings, "rocked upon
+five feather-beds to hell." This, I was told, was meant for me, as I had
+just been settled upon the highest salary ever paid in those parts.
+In after years I became acquainted with him, and a very pleasant and
+cordial acquaintance it was. His preaching improved in every way as he
+went on; the pulpit proved the best of rhetorical schools for him,
+and he became one of the most powerful and impressive preachers in the
+country. He was one of nature's orators, and one of the rarest. It was
+said of him that he showed what Demosthenes meant by "action." The
+whole man, body and soul, was not only in action, but was an action
+concentrated 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 him
+preach. As we went along, speaking of his pathos, he said, "You 'll have
+to guard yourself to keep from crying." So warned, I thought myself safe
+enough. But I was taken down at the very beginning of the service. The
+prayers of the congregation were asked by the family of a young man,--a
+sailor, who had been destroyed by a shark on the coast of Africa. In'
+the prayer, the scene was touchingly depicted,--how the poor youth went
+down 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 the
+summer sea of pleasure, might sink into the jaws of destruction that
+were opened beneath. I think the prayer left no dry eyes.
+
+Father Taylor was a man of large, warm-hearted liberality. He was a
+Methodist; but no sect could hold him. He often came to our Unitarian
+meetings and spoke in them. In addressing one of our autumnal
+conventions in New York, I recollect his congratulating us on our
+freedom from all trammels of prescription, creed, and church order, and
+exhorting us to a corresponding wide and generous activity in the cause
+of religion. He was always ready with an illustration, and for his
+purpose used this: "We have just had a visit in Boston," he said, "from
+an Indian chief and some of his people. They were invited to the house
+of Mr. Abbot Lawrence. As Mr. Lawrence received them in his splendid
+parlor, the chief, looking around upon it, said, It is very good; it
+is beautiful; but I--I walk large; I go through the woods and
+hunting-grounds one day, and I rise up in the morning and go through
+them the next,--I walk large. "Brethren," said the speaker, "walk
+large."
+
+Taylor's great heart was not chilled by bigotry; neither was it by
+theology, nor by philosophy. His prayer was the breathing of a child's
+heart to an infinitely loving father; it was strangely free and
+confiding. I remember being in one of the early morning prayer-meetings
+of an anniversary week in Boston, and Taylor was there. As I rose to
+offer a prayer, I spoke a few words upon the kind of approach which we
+might make to the Infinite Being. Something like this I said,--that as
+we 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 forth
+a portion of His own nature to dwell in these forms of frail mortality
+and imperfection, and no darkness, no sorrow, nor erring of ours could
+reach to Him; might we not think,--God knows, I said, that I would be
+guilty of no irreverence or presumption,-but might we not think that
+with infinite consideration and pity he looks down upon us struggling
+with our load; upon our weakness and trouble, upon our penitence and
+aspiration?
+
+As the congregation was retiring, and I was passing in the aisle, I saw
+Father Taylor sitting by the pulpit, and he beckoned me aside. "Brother
+Dewey," he said, in his emphatic way, "did you ever know any one to say
+what you have been saying this morning?"-"Why," I replied, "does not
+every one say it?"--"No," he answered; "I have talked with a thousand
+ministers, 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 the
+diminishing days, as a bankrupt his parting ducats. I never heard you
+say anything of the sort before, and have only thought of you as growing
+richer in every way. I don't in any way; but though well, considering, I
+find myself losing strength and good condition every year. That is why
+I move about less and less, sticking closer to my own bed and board,
+furnace and chimney-nook,--shelf for shoes, and pegs for coat and
+trousers. [316] I am very glad to hear from you, and that you will come
+and see us on your way home. Don't slip by us. Don't be miserly about
+time. Odysseus took a long time for his wanderings; take a hint from the
+same, 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," what
+would be the condition of us both? I very empty, and you with a great
+clatter 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 empty
+hopper, and if I could "find it in my heart to bestow all my tediousness
+upon you," you would laugh at me too. Ay, but in what sense would you
+laugh? That is the question. I laugh at myself, proudly, for calling
+myself empty; and you, perhaps, would laugh at me piteously, on finding
+me so.
+
+But a truce with this nonsense. Anybody will find enough to write who
+will write out what is within him. Did you ever read much of German
+letters,--those, for instance, of Perthes and his friends? They are full
+of religion, as our American letters, I think, are not. We seem to
+have been educated, especially we Unitarians, to great reserve on this
+subject. I remember Channing's preaching against so much reserve. It is
+partly, I believe, a reaction against profession. But there is another
+reason; and that is, in religion's having become, under a more rational
+culture, so a part of our whole life and thought [317] and being, that
+formally to express our feelings upon it seems to us unnecessary, and
+in bad taste, as if we were to say how much we love knowledge or
+literature, or how much we love our friends or our children. Much talk
+of this sort seems to bring a doubt, by implication, upon the very thing
+talked 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 "Palissy
+the Potter" are among the most interesting biographies I know.
+
+It is grim November weather up here, and I like it. Everything in its
+place; and we are having considerable rain, which is more in place,
+as winter is approaching, than anything else could be. Wife and I are
+bunged up with colds. No, I am; that ugly epithet can't attach to the
+grace and delicacy of her conditions and proportions. But alas! I am
+losing my old and boasted security against colds. I but went out one
+evening, to give a lecture at the Friendly Union [The Sheffield Friendly
+Union is the name of an association for purposes of social entertainment
+and culture, which meets one evening in the week, during winter, at
+a 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 the
+latter part of the evening; and there is a small but good library,
+slowly enlarging, and much used and valued by the members. The
+subscription fee is small, and the meetings are seldom of less than
+one hundred or two hundred people, many coming three or four miles. The
+society was started in 1871, and Dr. Dewey took a great interest in
+it from the first. It was he who chose its name; and while his health
+lasted, he was a frequent attendant, and always lectured or read a play
+of Shakespeare before it two or three times every winter.] and this is
+the way I [318]pay for it. If there is any barrel in town bigger than my
+head, I should like to buy it, and get in.
+
+I was sorry not to see Coquerel, and pleased to hear that he had the
+grace to be disappointed at not seeing me. But I don't seek people
+any more. Why, I don't think I should run in the mud to see Alexis I
+himself. And to a New York lady I suppose that is about the strongest
+thing 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 President
+of the Bellevue Local Visiting Association. Was there nobody else
+that could take that charge? Was it not enough for you to have the
+Forty-ninth Street Hospital to look after? But M. says, "Let her; let
+her work." And she talks about "living while you live," and comes at me
+with such saws. Saws they may well be called, for they sever prudence
+from virtue, instead of making them a rounded whole. The fact is, nobody
+has 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 you
+call working? And why not let other people work? Is Mrs. Lane to be made
+the queen bee of New York philanthropy, and to become such an enormous
+conglomeration of goodness [319] that she can't get out of her hospital
+hive to visit her friends, nor let them visit her, with any chance of
+seeing her? And is nobody worth caring for unless he has been knocked
+down 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 your
+taking another hospital, or the visitation of it, in charge. It must
+devolve an immense deal of care and thinking upon somebody. There 's
+reason in all things, or ought to be. Your brains and eyes ought to be
+spared 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 climate
+of New England nowadays, else they would be all blown away. It 's awful
+weather in New York too, I hope. I don't go out much. Really, if this
+March were not-a march to spring, it would be a hard campaign. With love
+to all your house, I am, as affectionately and warmly as the weather
+will 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 be
+proud, but it is "real good" of you. If "a saint in crape is twice
+a saint in lawn," a friend in winter is twice a friend of any other
+season. "If I shall be away?" Only by being beside myself could I be
+away in winter. "Or have other guests." No, indeed, they don't fly like
+doves to our winter [320]windows. But the white snowflakes do, and it
+will do your eyes good to see the driven and drifted snow. We have had a
+very quiet winter, and few drifts, but to-night, I see, is blowing them
+up. I should not wonder if they blocked the road and kept my letter back
+a day or two.
+
+To the Same.
+
+March 5, 1873.
+
+. . . WE thought you might be stopped somewhere, and not to go at all
+would be the worst "go" that could be. All Sunday we kept speaking about
+it, with a sort of feeling as if we were guilty of something; so that
+I felt it necessary to calm the family distress by setting up a new and
+original view of the whole matter, to this effect: "Well, if he has been
+stopped over Sunday at the State Line, or Chatham Four Corners, it
+may be the most profitable Sunday he ever passed. What a time for calm
+meditation and patience!--better things than preaching. You know he
+lives in a throng; this will be a blessed 'retreat,' as the Catholics
+call it. He is stomach-full of prosperity; perhaps he needed an
+alterative. Introspection is a rare thing in our modern outward-bound
+life. He is accustomed to preach to great admiring audiences; to-day he
+will preach to his humble, non-admiring self."
+
+Well, I am glad,--so ready, alas! are we to escape from discipline,--but
+I am glad that you got through, though by running a gauntlet that we
+shivered to read of. But you did get through, and got home, having
+accomplished what you went for. Any way, you did us so much good that it
+paid, on the great scale of disinterested [321] benevolence, for a great
+deal 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 the
+gift acknowledged in the next letter to the old friend through whose
+hands it was conveyed to him. It will be seen, that in the private
+letter accompanying this response, he was under the mistaken impression
+that Mr. Bryant was writing a history of the United States, while, in
+fact, 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, crowns
+the birthday tokens and expressions of regard which I have received
+from many. It takes me entirely by surprise, only exceeded by the
+gratification I feel at having s: a generous gift from my friends in New
+York and elsewhere. I thank them, and more than thank them, and you, for
+being the medium of it. I am alike honored by both. Thanks is a little
+word, and dollars is called a vulgar one; but two thousand two hundred
+and 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 my
+sense of their good will and good esteem, but I pray you will-do so
+as largely as you can; and to Dr. Osgood particularly for the care and
+trouble I cannot but suppose he has taken in this matter. I am sure it
+will please them to know, that on account of the increased expenses
+of living, and the failure of some stocks, this gift is especially
+convenient 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 on
+behalf of my kind friends in New York and elsewhere, but I must have a
+little 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 very
+best, of the little speeches that you have ever made. But good gracious!
+to think of your undertaking a Popular History of the United States! The
+only thing that troubles me for you is the taskwork of investigation.
+Supposing you to have the whole subject in your mind, nobody can write
+the story better than you can. Put fire into it, my dear Senior; or
+rather do what you can do,--for I have seen it,--so state things in your
+calm way as to put fire into others.
+
+[323] This is a great work that you have in hand; everybody will read
+it, and will be instructed by it, I trust, in sound politics, and
+stirred 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 have
+raised 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 is
+to be society in the next world, what can save it from the weariness of
+society in this,--save it, in other words, from bores? The spiritists
+say that Theodore Parker gives lectures there to delighted audiences.
+And, truth to say, I do not know of any other social occupation that
+would be so satisfactory as that of teaching or learning. What is
+all the highest conversation here, but that by which we help one
+another--teaching or being taught--to higher and juster thoughts? That
+would shake off the yoke of boredom under which so many groan now. If,
+instead of eternal surface-talk, we could strike down to reality, to
+something that interested our minds and hearts, fresh streams would
+flow over the arid waste of commonplace. Real thoughts would be a
+divining-rod. If, when a man calls upon me, he could, teach me something
+upon 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, to
+be serious, so much am I bored with general society, that I am inclined
+to say I had rather live as I do here in Sheffield. Is n't Cummington a
+blessed place for that?
+
+But alas! it don't save you from being bored with letters,--vide, for
+example, this, perhaps, which I am now writing.
+
+But, O excellent man! though you never bored me in talk, you have lately
+bored 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 mean
+to say that Mr. Bryant's name will appear on the title page of this
+work, 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 believe
+that, and was declining to subscribe, when my wife--that woman has a
+great respect for you--called me aside and said, "I wish you would take
+this book." So I turned back and said, "My wife wants this book, and I
+will 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 means
+not that you wrote the book, but seem to father it. Next year a man
+will come along with "Bryant's Popular History of the United States
+of America," and the year after, for aught I know, with "Specimens of
+American Literature," by W. C. B. I do seriously beseech you, my friend,
+to look into this. These people take advantage of your good-nature; and
+ill-nature will spring up about it, if this kind of thing goes on. With
+love 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 sad
+and amusing story you repeated of Mr. G., I will give you a recital of
+the same mixed character.
+
+I have been this evening to hear the Hampton Singers. Two of them, by
+the bye, are our guests,--for we offered to relieve the company of all
+expenses if they would come down here,--and very well behaved young
+men they are. The tunes they sing, remember, come from the tobacco and
+cotton 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 by
+the slaves of the old time. Is it not an extraordinary thing? I do not
+believe 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 people
+have I imagine that no such musical development, no such number of
+songs, can be found among any other people in the world,
+
+The chief interest with me in hearing them was thinking where they came
+from, what was the condition that gave birth to them. Their singing is
+both sad and amusing, but partakes more of aspiration than of dejection;
+and it has not a particle of hard or revengeful feeling towards their
+masters. But here again,--what sort of a people it is! The words of
+their songs are of the poorest; not a soul among them has arisen to give
+us anything like the German folk-songs, or like Burns's. Still, their
+songs are a wonderful revelation from the house of [326] bondage; such
+sadness, such domestic tenderness, such feeling for one another, such
+hopes 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 the
+Great Theme. What a subject for a letter! And yet the most we can say
+seems 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 to
+describe the Infinite Cause." I suppose no word can be found that is
+not subject to exceptions. The final words that I fall back upon are
+righteousness and love. Even the word intelligence is perhaps more
+questionable. If it implies anything like attention to one person and
+thing or another, anything like imagination, comparison, reasoning, we
+must 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. To
+suppose the cause of all things to be ignorant of all things seems like
+a contradiction in terms. It would be, in fact, to deny a cause; to
+say that the universe is what it is without any cause. Even that
+awful supposition, the only alternative to theism, comes over the mind
+sometimes; 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; and
+I say sometimes, is it not a false idea of greatness, to suppose the
+Infinite Greatness cannot [327] regard me? Worldly great men shrink from
+little things, from little people. But it is not so with the most truly
+great. 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 before
+I sink into unconsciousness, thinking of this bodily frame, with its
+million harmonious agencies, and the mind more wonderful still; or when
+I sit down in my daily walk, and sink into the bosom of nature, with
+light and life and beauty all around me,--surely the author of all this
+is good. It would be monstrous fatuity to question it, utter blindness
+not to see it.
+
+And yet again, I say, there are relations between the finite and the
+Infinite, between my mind and the Infinite mind, between my weakness
+and the Infinite power. And why should conscious Omnipresence in our
+conception localize it? Presence is not limited to contact. I am present
+here in my room; I am present in the field where I sit down. Why, with
+the whole universe, should not the Infinite Being thus be present?
+
+What a wonderful chapter is the twenty-third of Job! There are many
+things in that book which touch upon our modern experience. "Oh! that I
+knew 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 perceive
+him; on the left hand where he cloth work, but I cannot behold him; for
+he hideth himself on the right hand that I cannot see him." But I come
+with undoubting faith to Job's conclusion: "But he knoweth the way that
+I take; when he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold." There are
+deep trials, at times, in the approach to God, in lifting the weak
+thoughts of our minds to the [328] Infinite One; there are struggles and
+tears which none may ever witness; but still I say, "0 God, thou art my
+God, 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 all
+the world in us with joy, upon the cold and dreary waste of atheism; I
+will not. I should turn rebel to all the great instincts within me, and
+all the great behests of nature and life around me, if I did. Ah! the
+confounding, ever-troubling difficulty is not to believe, but to feel
+the great Presence all the day long. This is what I think of, and long
+have, with questioning and pain. What beings should we become--what to
+one another--under that living and loving sense of the all-good, the
+all-beautiful and divine within us and around us! And, for ourselves,
+what a perfect joy it is to feel that, in this seemingly disturbed
+universe, all is order, all is right, all is well, all is the best
+possible!
+
+Yours ever,
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+From a Note-Book.
+
+THE pain of erring,--the bitterest in the world,--is it not strange that
+it should be so bitter? Is it not strange that growth must be attained
+on such hard terms? Nay, but is it not simply applying the sharpest
+instrument to the cutting and carving of the finest and grandest form of
+things on earth,--a noble character?
+
+The work is but begun on earth. Man is the only being in this world
+whose 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 that
+presided over his formation. Any way it would be unaccountable, not to
+say 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. But
+when the process, unlike that in animals, which is all facility and
+pleasure, is full of difficulty and pain, then for the unfinished work
+to be dropped would be, not as if a sculptor should go on blocking
+out marble statues only to throw them away half finished, but as if he
+should take the living human frame for his subject, and should cut and
+gash 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. I
+did want and never expected to have them. But I had no idea Allibone was
+such a big thing. All the bigger are my thanks. What an ocean of drowned
+authors it is,--only here and there one with masts up and the flags
+flying!
+
+My little oracular, pro-Indians admonition was correctly printed, and
+the changes you made were good.
+
+Do you know that to-day sol stat? I don't believe that you mind it in
+the city as we do in the country. To-day the glorious orb pauses
+and rests a little, to turn back and march up and along the mountain
+top,-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 about
+the 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 my
+mind these two or three weeks past to write to you; and I really believe
+that what most hindered me was that I had so many things to say. And
+yet, I solemnly declare that I cannot remember now what they were. They
+were things of evanescent meditation, phases of the Great Questions; but
+for a week or two I have been saying, I will not weary myself so much
+with them. So you have escaped this time. One thing, however, I do
+recall, though not of those questions; and that is, reading the Psalms
+through for my pillow-book. And it is with a kind of astonishment that
+I have read them. Did you ever look into them with the thought of
+comparing them with the old Hindoo and Persian or Mohammedan or Greek
+utterances of devotion? How cold and formal these are, compared with
+the earnestness, the entreaty, the tenderness of David and Asaph,-the
+swallowing up of their whole souls into love, trust, and thankfulness!
+What is this, whence came it, and what does it mean? This phenomenon
+in Judaa, how are you to explain it, without supposing a special
+inspiration breathed into the souls of men from the source of all
+spiritual life and light? The Jewish nature was not [331] more keen than
+the Greek, or perhaps the Arabians, yet all their religious utterances
+are but apothegms in presence of the Jewish vitality and experience.
+I do not deny their grandeur and beauty; but the Bible brings me into
+another world of thought and feeling,--into a new creation. And when we
+take into the account the Gospels, we seem to be brought alike out of
+the old philosophy and the new,--out both from the old formalism and the
+vast inane and unknown, which the science of to-day conceives of, into
+new 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, thoughtful
+letters. My thoughts in these days run in other directions. I cannot
+tell you what they are; no language can; at least, I never used any that
+did. Almost all human experience has been described; but what are the
+thoughts and feelings of a man who says with himself as he walks along
+upon the familiar path, "A few more steps and I shall be gone;--what and
+where shall I be then?" No mortal speech can tell. Meditations come, you
+may imagine, at such a crisis in one's being, too vast, too trying for
+utterance. Wearied and weighed down by them, I sometimes say, "I will
+think no more about it; all my thinking will alter nothing that is to
+be; 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 what
+God appoints?" [332] Yet, after all, I am far from losing my interest
+in the world I am leaving. I am much struck with what you say about
+the press,--the money interest involved, and the direction which that
+interest is likely to give it. I wish there were a distinct education
+for editorship, as there is for preaching, or for the lawyer or
+physician. There is an article of Greg's in the last "Contemporary
+Review," following out his "Rocks Ahead," that it has distressed me to
+read. The great danger now is the rise of the lower and laboring classes
+against capital and intelligence. And nothing will save the world,
+but for the higher classes to rouse themselves to do their duty,--in
+politics, in education, and in consideration and care for the lower.
+Have you seen the pamphlet of Miss Octavia Hill, of England? That is
+the spirit, and one kind of work that is wanted. O women! instead of
+clamoring for your rights, come up to this!
+
+This is the most beautiful summer that I remember. I am glad to hear of
+your enjoying it, and of the bevy of young people around you. Such I see
+every day in the street and the grounds, as if Sheffield were the very
+paradise 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 and
+Whittier's verse Collections, and especially your good opinion of
+Cranch'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 in
+what those old [333] atheists, Lucretius and Omar Khayyam, say. Have you
+seen the "Rubaiyat" of the latter? And, by the bye, have you an English
+translation of Lucretius's "De Rerurn Natura"? It must be a small
+volume, only six books; and if it is not too precious an edition, I pray
+you to lend and send it to me by mail.
+
+What atheism was to the minds of these two men amazes me. Lucretius
+was an Epicurean in life, perhaps, as well as philosophy, but I want to
+understand him better. I want to see whether he anywhere laments over
+the desolation of his system. That a man of his power and genius should
+have 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 very
+deftly, and I cannot but think that his resort is something like the
+drunkard'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 as
+you 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 of
+it. 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 you
+suppose I am going to say?--that I utterly reject and cast away the kind
+things you say of me? No, I don't; that is, I won't. I am determined to
+make 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 eyes
+and 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 I
+have 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 my
+hands, with confusion.
+
+But enough of personalities, except to say that I think you exaggerate
+and fear too much the trials that old age, if it come, will bring upon
+you. Not to say that your temperament is more cheerful and hopeful than
+mine, you are embosomed in interests and friendships that will cling
+about you as long as you live. I am comparatively alone. . . .
+
+But after all, the burden of old age lies not in such questions as
+these. 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 and
+all the happiness I see. Of the latter, I count A.'s being "better," and
+of 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 never
+did before. I have felt so [335] young, so much at least as I always
+have done, that I could n't fairly take in the idea. The giftie has n't
+been gi'ed me to see myself as others see me. Even yet, when they get up
+to offer me the great chair, I can't understand it. But at length I have
+so far come into their views as seriously to ask myself what it is fit
+for an old man to do, or to undertake. And I have come to the conclusion
+that the best thing for me is to be quiet, to keep, at least, to my
+quiet and customary method of living,-in other words, to be at home.
+My wife is decidedly of that opinion for herself, and, by parity of
+reasoning, for me; and I am inclined to think she is right.
+
+This parity, however, does not apply to you. You are six months younger
+than I am, by calendar, and six years in activity; you go back and forth
+like Cicero to his country villas; pray stop at my door some day, and
+let me see you.
+
+You see where all this points. I decide not to go to New York at
+present, notwithstanding all the attractions which you hold out to me.
+I don't feel like leaving home while this blustering March is roaring
+about the house. And from the mild winter we have had, I expect it to
+grow 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 but
+how good you must be, to see so much good in others! That is what
+always strikes me [336] in your oraisons funebres, and equally, the fine
+discrimination you always show. And both appear in your loving notice
+of my volume.' Well, I take it to heart, and accept, though I cannot
+altogether understand it. Such words, from such a person as you, are a
+great thing to me. It is to me a great comfort to retire from the scene
+with such a testimony, instead of a bare civil dismissal, which is all I
+was looking for from anybody.
+
+Mr. Dewey was urged to the publication of this last volume of sermons
+by several of his most valued friends; and its warm acceptance by the
+public justified their opinion, and gave him the peculiar gratification
+of feeling that in his old age and retirement his words could yet have
+power 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, my
+father 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 write
+a 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 editorial
+courtesy, I can only say that it did not seem to me as such merely, but
+something heartier,--and finer, by itself considered. I was glad to have
+praise 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 of
+that volume with serious misgiving, feeling as if the world had had
+enough of me, and it would be fortunate for me to be let off without
+criticism. 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, I
+found that he had n't read the praise part at all. His wife told me that
+he never read anything of that sort about himself. Well, he was
+half drowned with it; but for me, I think it is right to express my
+obligation 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 answer
+before now, but I have had little to tell you. Unless I tell you of our
+remarkable 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 they
+were driving a trade; or of our sunsets, which flood the south mountain
+with splendor, and flush the sky above with purple and vermilion, as if
+they said, "We are coming, we are coming to bring light and warmth and
+beauty with us." You can hardly understand, in your city confines, how
+lovely are these harbingers of spring. And see! it is only two months
+off. And withal we are ploughing through the winter in great [338]
+comfort and health. No parties here, to be sure; no clubs, no oysters
+and champagne, but pleasant sitting around the evening fire, with loud
+reading,--Warner's "Mummies and Moslems" just now, very pleasantly
+written. . . . Have you seen Huidekoper's "Judaism in Rome"? It has
+interested me very much. The Jews, as a people, present the greatest of
+historic problems. A narrow strip of land, that "scowl upon the face
+of the world,"--a small people, no learning, no art, no military power;
+yet, by the very ideas proceeding from it,-Christianity included,-has
+influenced the world more than Greece or Rome. Huidekoper's book is very
+learned. I am glad to see such a book from our ranks. We have done too
+little elaborate work in learning or theology. Your Ministers' Institute
+promises 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, and
+leading us to wonder where your whereabouts are now. Such an 4,-nis
+fatuus you have proved for the month past! With plans of goings and
+comings, with engagements and disengagements, you have slipped by us
+entirely, so that the kind of assurance I have had that you would come
+and pass two or three weeks with us before going eastward has come
+utterly to nought. You should have come; our chances of seeing one
+another are narrowing every year. But we will not dwell gloomily upon
+it. We may live three or four years longer,--people do; and I think I
+am more afraid of a longer than of a shorter term. [339] The "pain at
+heart," of which you speak at putting a wider space between us, is what
+I, too, have felt; and your thoughts, taken literally, are pleasant,
+while spiritualized, they are our only resource. Yes, the heavenly
+spaces unite us, while the earthly separate. Oh! could we know that we
+shall 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 the
+poorest 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 and
+goodness. Where and how creatures should begin to exist would be as much
+mysterious 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 in
+May, 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 top
+to toe; in my ankle, so that I could not walk, only limp about; in my
+left arm, so that I could not lift it to my head, and, of course, a
+pretty uncomfortable housekeeper all that time. Nevertheless, I expect
+May 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 the
+Martineau book, skippingly. . . . It seems that Miss M. was not an
+atheist, [340] after all. She believed in a First Cause, only denying
+that it is the God of theology,--which who does not deny?-denying,
+indeed, with Herbert Spencer, that it is knowable. But if they say that
+it 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 as
+to what would become of her, seems to me altogether unnatural, on her
+ground or any other. Any good or glad hold on existence implies the
+desire for its continuance. She had no hope nor wish for it, as well as
+no belief in it.
+
+As to belief in it, or hope of it, why should not the law of development
+lead to such a feeling? The plant, having within it the power to produce
+flower 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 life
+is 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 that
+point which is called death. Development is impossible to him, unless
+he continues to exist, and to go onward. And why should not the same
+argument apply to what may trouble some people to think of,--that is, to
+the three hundred and fifty millions of China, or even the troglodytes,
+the cave-dwellers? To our weakness and ignorance, it may seem easier to
+sweep the planet clean every two or three generations. But of the realms
+and 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, apart
+from his [341] brain trouble, he had always been so well that any
+interruption 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 the
+morning, and his toilet was a very active one. He took an air-bath for
+fifteen minutes, during which he briskly exercised himself,--and this
+custom he thought of great importance in hardening the body against
+cold. Then, after washing, dressing, and shaving, breakfast must come
+at once,--delay was not conducive to peace in the household; and
+immediately after breakfast he sat down to his desk for one, two, or
+three hours, as the case might be. He was singularly tolerant of little
+interruptions, although he did not like to have any one in his room
+while he was writing, and when his morning's task was done, especially
+if he were satisfied with it, he came out in excellent spirits, and
+ready for outdoor exercise. He walked a great deal in New York, but
+never 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 hour
+or 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 the
+post-office.
+
+After his early dinner he invariably took a nap; and after tea, went
+again to his desk for an hour, and then came to the parlor for the
+evening's [342] amusement, whether reading, or music, or talk, or a game
+of whist, of which he was very fond; and in all these occupations his
+animation was so unfailing, his interest so cordial, that family and
+guests gladly followed his leadership.
+
+But in this spring of 1877 the rheumatic attack of which he speaks was
+the beginning of a state of languor which in July became low bilious
+fever. He was not very ill; kept his bed only one day, and by the
+autumn recovered sufficiently to walk out; but from that time he was an
+invalid, 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 cannot
+do it. You ought to be glad, not that I cannot, and indeed that would
+not be strictly true, but that I do not judge it best. I really think
+that I myself should be afraid of a man, that is, of a man-visitor, in
+his eighty-fourth year. But what decides me now is that my rheumatism
+still holds on to me, and does not seem inclined to let me go, or rather
+to let go of me. This weather, chilly and penetrating to the bones and
+marrow, 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 winter
+till March came, and never had any before. Was n't it the Amalekites
+that were smitten "hip and thigh"? Well, I am an Amalekite, and no more
+expected to be knocked over so than they did.[343] I have read with
+extraordinary pleasure Frank Peabody's sermon on "Faith and Freedom." I
+saw 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, even
+more marked than those of heredity and association are those imposed
+by the law of our nature. I am not free to think that two and two make
+five, or that a wicked action is good and right. But am I not free
+to pursue the worst as well as the best? But I am not fit to discuss
+anything.
+
+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 up
+of what may be called his life-work, that is, the setting forth of the
+character of the Master. The book is very interesting, and not merely
+a repetition of what he has said before. To be sure, I cannot go along
+with him when he maintains that the power of Christ's spirit naturally
+produced those results which are called miracles. You know what Stetson
+said,--that if that were true, Channing ought to be able to cure a
+cut finger. But the earnestness, the eloquence, the spirit of faith
+pervading the book are very charming. Look into it, if you can get hold
+of it. The chapter on Faith in Christ is very admirable, and that on
+Easter is a very curious and adroit piece of criticism. I wish that
+Furness 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! Now
+I wish you could sit down by my side and tell me all about it. I think
+preaching was always my greatest pleasure; and in my dreams now I think
+I am oftenest going to preach. People try to sum up the good that life
+is to them. I think it lies most in activity. Bartol, and that grand
+soul, Clarke, discussed it much.
+
+To the Same.
+
+May 13, 1878.
+
+DEAR FRIEND,-I am so much indebted to your good long letters, that I am
+ashamed to take my pen to reply. . . .
+
+Your Sanitary Commission Report came to hand two days ago, and I began
+at once to read it, and finished it without stopping, greatly interested
+in all the details, and greatly pleased with the spirit. What a
+privilege to be allowed to take such a part in our great struggle! I
+cannot write about it, nor anything else, as I want to. I don't know why
+it is, but I have a strange reluctance to touch my pen. I see that the
+death of Miss Catherine Beecher is announced. There were fine things
+about her. What must she not have suffered, of late years! But I am
+disposed to say of the release of every aged person, "Euthanasia."
+
+6th. I will finish this and get it off to you before Sunday. You have
+a great deal to do before vacation. Let me enjoin it upon you to have a
+vacation when the [345] time comes. Don't spend your strength and life
+too fast. Live to educate those fine boys. Thank you for sending us
+their picture. See what Furness does. That article on Immortality is as
+good as anything he ever wrote. Did you read the paper on the Radiometer
+in the last "Popular Science"? What a (not world merely) but universe do
+we live in! I am not willing to go out of the world without knowing all
+I can know of these wonders that fill alike the heavens above and every
+inch of space beneath. What a glorious future will it be, if we may
+spend uncounted years in the study of them! And, notwithstanding the
+weight of matter-of-fact that seems to lie against it, I think my hope
+of it increases. This blessed sense of what it is to be,--this sweetness
+of 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 my
+experience,--that in which you speak of my "standing so long upon
+the verge." To stand as I do, within easy reach of such stupendous
+possibilities,--that of being translated to another sphere of existence,
+or of being cut off from existence altogether and forever,--does
+indeed fill me with awe, and make me wonder that I am not depressed or
+overwhelmed by it. Habit is a stream which flows on the same, no matter
+how the scenery changes. It seems as if routine wore away the very sense
+of the words we use. We speak often of immortality; the word slides
+easily over our lips; but do we consider what it means? Do you ever
+ask yourself whether, after having lived a hundred thousands or [346]
+millions of years, you could still desire to go on for millions
+more?--whether a limited, conscious existence could bear it?
+
+I read the foregoing, and said, "I don't see any need of considering
+matters so entirely out of our reach;" but the question is, can we help
+it? Fearfully and wonderfully are we made, but in nothing, perhaps, more
+than this,--that we are put upon considering questions concerning God,
+immortality, the mystery of life, which are so entirely beyond our reach
+to comprehend.
+
+To the Same.
+
+ST. DAVID'S, July 19, 1879.
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--After our long silence, if it was the duty of the ghost to
+speak first, I think it should have been me, who am twenty years nearer
+to being one than you are; but it would be hardly becoming in a ghost
+to be as funny as you are about Henry and the hot weather. A change has
+come now, and the dear little fellow may put as many questions as he
+will. It is certainly a very extraordinary season. I remember nothing
+quite so remarkable.
+
+Have you Professor Brown's "Life of Choate" by you? If you have, do read
+what he says of Walter Scott, in vol. i., from p. 204 on. I often turn
+to Scott's pages now, in preference to almost anything else, as I should
+to the old masters in painting.
+
+Good-by. Cold morning,--cold fingers,--cold everything, but my love for
+you 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 new
+birth, and now it is more evident than ever. Everybody will tell you
+that 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 was
+grand and admirable; the last, more than admirable,--unequalled, I
+think. . . .
+
+Take care of yourself. Don't write too much. Your long, pleasant letter
+to me shows how ready you are to do it. May you live to enjoy the
+budding life around you. . . .
+
+My writing tells you that I shan't last much longer. Then keep fresh the
+memory 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 5th
+is too much for me, let alone the effort to do it. It seems absurd for
+me to have such a correspondent, and would be, if he were not of the
+dearest of friends. For its pith and keenness, I have read over this
+last letter two or three times. . . . I see that you won't come here in
+June. Don't try. That is, don't let my condition influence you. I shall
+probably, too probably, continue to live along for some time, as I have
+done. No pain, sound sleep, good [348] digestion,--what must follow from
+all this, I dread to think of. Only the weakness in my limbs--in the
+branches, so to say--admonishes me that the tree may fall sooner than I
+expect.
+
+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 a
+bit in them? However, I do make a reservation for my preaching ten years
+in 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 his
+best 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 than
+anything 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 which
+came to hand yesterday and was opened in the midst of us with due
+admiration, and with pleasure at the prospect it held out for the
+winter. My wife, I say; for she is the great reader, while I am, in
+comparison, like the owl, which the showman said kept up-you remember
+what sort of a thinking. But, comparisons [349] apart, it is really
+interesting to see how much she reads; how she keeps acquainted with
+what is going on in the world, especially in its philanthropic and
+religious work.
+
+Then, in the old Bible books she is the greatest reader that I know. I
+wish you could hear her expatiate on David and Isaiah; and she is in
+the right, too. They leave behind them, in a rude barbarism of religious
+ideas, Egypt and Greece. By the bye, is it not strange that the two
+great literatures of antiquity, the Hebrew and Grecian, should have
+appeared in territories not larger than Rhode Island? This is contrary
+to Buckle's view, who says, if I remember rightly, that the literature
+of genius naturally springs from a rich soil, from great wealth and
+leisure 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 gives
+you 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 you
+must be.
+
+Yes, Carlyle's "Reminiscences" must be admired; but it will take all the
+sweets about his wife to neutralize his
+
+"Helps to Devout Living" is the name of a collection of beautiful and
+valuable passages, in prose and verse, compiled by Miss J. Dewey, in
+the second edition of which she included, at her brother's request,
+Mr. Wasson's "Bugle Notes," a poem which had been for years one of
+his peculiar favorites. [350] supreme care for himself, and careless
+disparagement of almost everybody else. Genius is said to be, in its
+very nature, loving and generous; it seems but the fit recognition of
+its own blessedness; was his so? I have been reading again "Adam Bede,"
+and I think that the author is decidedly and unquestionably superior to
+all her contemporary novel-writers. One can forgive such a mind almost
+anything. But alas! for this one--. . . It is an almost unpardonable
+violation 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 the
+steps of the world's religious progress. The Aryan idea, so far as we
+know anything of it, was probably to worship nature. The Greek idolatry
+was a step beyond that, substituting intelligent beings for it. Far
+higher was the Hebrew spiritualism, and worship of One Supreme, and far
+higher is Isaiah than Homer, David than Sophocles; and no Hebrew prophet
+ever said, "Offer a cock to Esculapius." So is Christianity far beyond
+Buddhism; and far beyond Sakya Muni, dim and obscure as he is, are the
+concrete realities of the life of Jesus. Whether anything further is to
+come, 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 express
+the sense of comfort and satisfaction which, first your sermon years
+ago,' and now your letter of yesterday, have given me? Ah! there is a
+spot in every human soul, I guess, where approbation is the sweetest
+drop that can fall. I will not imbitter it with a word of doubt or
+debate. . . .
+
+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 whether
+you have been to Meadville or not. . . . In that lovely but just picture
+which you draw of my wife, and praise her patience at the expense
+of mine, I doubt whether you fairly take into account the difference
+between the sexes, not only in their nature, but in their functions.
+We men take a forward, leading, decisive part in affairs, the women
+an acquiescent part. The consequence is that they are more yielding,
+gentler under defeat, than we. When I said, yesterday, "It costs men
+more to be patient, to be virtuous, than it costs you,"--"Oh! oh!" they
+exclaimed. But it is true. . . .
+
+Sept. 26. 1881
+
+WHAT a day is this! A weeping nation [See p. 358], in all its thousand
+churches and million homes, participates in the [352] mournful
+solemnities at Cleveland. A great kindred nation takes part in our
+sorrow. Its queen, the Queen of England, sends her sympathy, deeper than
+words, to the mourning, queenly relict of our noble President. Never
+shall I, or my children to the fourth generation, probably, see such a
+day. Never was the whole world girdled in by one sentiment like this of
+to-day.
+
+To the Same.
+
+ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 1, 1882.
+
+. . . FOR a month or two I have been feeling as if the year would never
+end. But it has come, and here is the beginning of a new. And of what
+year 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 4,000
+years ago--or 4,000,000? Oh! this dreadful ignorance! Fain would I go to
+another 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, let
+the vision of Thy glory never be hidden from my eyes in this world or
+any other, but forever grow brighter and brighter!"
+
+We have had some bad and some sad times here. M. must tell you about
+them.
+
+Happy New Year to you all.
+
+ORVILLE DEWEY.
+
+It was now nearly five years that my father had trod the weary path of
+invalidism, slowly weaning him from the familiar life and ties he loved
+so [353] well. The master's interest was as large, as keen as ever;
+friendship, patriotism, religion, were even dearer to him than when he
+was strong to work in their service; but the ready servants that had so
+long stood by him,--the ear, always open to each new word of hope and
+promise for humanity; the eye, that looked with eager pleasure on
+every noble work of man and on every natural object, seeing in all,
+manifestations of the Divine Goodness and Wisdom; the feet, that had
+carried him so often on errands of kindness; the hands, whose clasp had
+cheered many a sad heart, and whose hold upon the pen had sent strong
+and stirring words through the land,-these gradually resigned their
+functions, and the active but tired brain, which had held on so bravely,
+notwithstanding the injury it had received in early life, began to share
+in the general decline of the vital powers. There was no disease, no
+deflection of aim nor confusion of thought, but a gentle failure of
+faculties used up by near a century's wear and tear.
+
+He was somewhat grieved and harassed by the spiritual problems
+which were always the chief occupation of his mind, and which he now
+perceived, without being able to grapple with them; and life, with
+such mental and physical limitations, became very weary to him. But his
+constitution was so sound, and his health so perfect, that he might have
+lingered yet a long time, but for his grief and disappointment in the
+unexpected death [354] of Dr. Bellows, Jan. 30, 1882. When that beloved
+friend, upon whose inspiring ministrations he had counted to soothe his
+own last hours, was called first, the shock perceptibly loosened his
+feeble hold on life; and truly it seemed as if the departing spirit did
+his last service of love by helping to set free the elder friend whom
+he could no longer comfort on earth. He "Allured to brighter worlds, and
+led the way;" nor was my father long in following him. For a few weeks
+there was little outward change in his habits; he ate as usual the
+few morsels we could induce him to taste; he slept several hours every
+night, and, supported by faithful arms, he came to the table for each
+meal till within four days of his death. But he grew visibly weaker, and
+would sit long silent, his head bent on his breast. We gathered together
+in those sad days, and read aloud the precious series of Dr. Bellows's
+letters to us all, but principally to him,-letters radiant with beauty,
+vigor, wit, and affection; we read them with thankfulness and with
+sorrow, with laughter and with tears, and he joined in it all, but grew
+too weary to listen, and never heard the whole. He was confined to his
+bed but three days. A slight indigestion, which yielded to remedies,
+left him too weak to rally. He was delirious most of the time when
+awake, and was soothed by anodynes; but though he knew us all, he was
+too sick and restless for talk, trying [355] sometimes to smile in
+answer to his wife's caresses, but hardly noticing anything. At one
+o'clock in the morning of March 21st, his sad moans suddenly ceased, and
+he opened his sunken eyes wide,--so wide that even in the dim light we
+saw 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 two
+quiet breaths left pain and suffering behind, and entered into life.
+
+For a few days his body lay at rest in his pleasant study, surrounded by
+the flowers he loved, and the place was a sweet domestic shrine. A grand
+serenity had returned to the brow, and all the features wore a look of
+peace and happiness unspeakably beautiful and comforting. Then, with a
+quiet attendance of friends and neighbors, it was borne to the grave in
+the shadow of his native hills.
+
+In those last weeks he wrote still a few letters, almost illegible, and
+written 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 suffice
+to express the feeling of what I owe you for your kind letter, and the
+sympathy it expresses for the loss of my friend. [356] You will better
+understand what that is, when I tell you that for the last two or three
+years he has written me every week.
+
+I have also to thank you for the many sermons you have directed to be
+sent to me. Through others, I know their extraordinary merit, though my
+brain is too weak for them.
+
+Do you remember a brief interview I had with you and Mrs. Chadwick at
+the "Messiah" on the evening of the [Semi-] Centennial? It gave me so
+much pleasure that it sticks in my memory, and emboldens me to send my
+love 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 that
+came upon us which we so sorrow for, except a letter to his stricken
+partner, from whom we have a reply last evening, in which she says
+his resignation was marvellous; that he soon fell into a drowse from
+morphine, and said but little, but, being told there were letters from
+me, desired them to keep them carefully for him,--which, alas! he was
+never to see.
+
+Dear, I can write no more. I am all the time about the same. Give my
+love 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 us
+all concerning the Memorial Sermon,' I thought it unnecessary to write
+myself, 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 than
+I have elsewhere seen or expect to see. I feel, for myself, that I most
+mourn the loss of the holy fidelity of his friendship. All speak rightly
+of his incessant activity in every good work, and I knew much of what he
+did to build up a grand School of Theology at Cleveland.
+
+You ask what is my outlook from the summit of my years. This reminds
+me of that wonderful burst of his eloquence, at the formation of our
+National Conference, against the admission to it, by Constitution, of
+the extremest Radicalism. I wanted to get up and shortly reply,--"You
+may say what you will, but I tell you that the movement of this body for
+twenty years to come will be in the Radical direction." In fact, I find
+it to be so in myself. I rely more upon my own thought and reason, my
+own mind and being, for my convictions than upon anything else. Again
+warmly 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 the
+beautiful tribute paid to my father by Dr. Bellows, in his address
+at the fifty-fourth anniversary of the founding of the Church of the
+Messiah, 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 of
+person; strong features, a magnificent height of head, a carriage almost
+royal; 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 and
+temperament. An intellect of the first class had fallen upon a spiritual
+nature tenderly alive to the sense of divine realities. His awe and
+reverence were native, and they have proved indestructible. He did
+not so much seek religion as religion sought him. His nature was
+characterized from early youth by a union of massive intellectual power
+with an almost feminine sensibility; a poetic imagination with a rare
+dramatic faculty of representation. Diligent as a scholar, a careful
+thinker, accustomed to test his own impressions by patient meditation,
+a reasoner of the most cautious kind; capable of holding doubtful
+conclusions, however inviting, in suspense; devout and reverent by
+nature,--he had every qualification for a great preacher, in a time
+when the old foundations were broken up and men's minds were demanding
+guidance and support in the critical transition from the [359] days of
+pure authority to the days of personal conviction by rational evidence.
+
+"Dewey has from the beginning been the most truly human of our
+preachers. Nobody has felt so fully the providential variety of mortal
+passions, exposures, the beauty and happiness of our earthly life,
+the lawfulness of our ordinary pursuits, the significance of home, of
+business, of pleasure, of society, of politics. He has made himself the
+attorney of human nature, defending and justifying it in all the hostile
+suits brought against it by imperfect sympathy, by theological acrimony,
+by false dogmas. Yet he never was for a moment the apologist of
+selfishness, vice, or folly; no stricter moralist than he is to be
+found; no worshipper of veracity more faithful; no wiser or more tender
+pleader of the claims of reverence and self-consecration! In fact, it
+was the richness of his reverence and the breadth of his religion that
+enabled him to throw the mantle of his sympathy over the whole of human
+life. He has accordingly, of all preachers in this country, been the
+one most approved by the few who may be called whole men,--men who rise
+above the prejudice of sect and the halfness of pietism,--lawyers
+and judges, statesmen and great merchants, and strong men of all
+professions. He could stir and awe and instruct the students of
+Cambridge, as no man I ever heard in that pulpit, not even Dr.
+Walker,--who satisfied conscience and intellect, but was not wholly fair
+either to passion or to sentiment, much less to the human body and the
+world. Of all religious men I have known, the broadest and most catholic
+is Dewey,--I say religious men, for it is easy to be broad and catholic,
+with indifference and apathy at the heart. Dewey has cared unspeakably
+for divine [360] things,-thirsted for God, and dwelt in daily reverence
+and aspiration before him; and out of his awe and his devotion he has
+looked with the tenderest eyes of sympathy, forbearance, and patience
+upon the world and the ways of men; slow to rebuke utterly, always
+finding the soul of goodness in things evil, and never assuming any
+sanctimonious ways, or thinking himself better than his brethren.
+
+"Dewey is undoubtedly the founder and most conspicuous example of what
+is best in the modern school of preaching. The characteristic feature is
+the effort to carry the inspiration, the correction, and the riches of
+Christian faith into the whole sphere of human life; to make religion
+practical, without lowering its ideal; to proclaim our present world and
+our mortal life as the field of its influence and realization, trusting
+that what best fits men to live and employ and enjoy their spiritual
+nature here, is what best prepares them for the future life. Dewey, like
+Franklin, who trained the lightning of the sky to respect the safety,
+and finally to run the errands of men on earth, brought religion from
+its remote home and domesticated it in the immediate present. He first
+successfully taught its application to the business of the market and
+the street, to the offices of home and the pleasures of society. We are
+so familiar with this method, now prevalent in the best pulpits of all
+Christian bodies, that we forget the originality and boldness of the
+hand that first turned the current of religion into the ordinary channel
+of life, and upon the working wheels of daily business. The glory of
+the achievement is lost in the magnificence of its success.
+Practical preaching, when it means, as it often does, a mere prosaic
+recommendation of ordinary duties, a sort of Poor Richard's prudential
+[361] maxims, is a shallow and nearly useless thing. It is a kind of
+social and moral agriculture with the plough and the spade, but with
+little regard to the enrichment of the soil, or drainage from the depths
+or irrigation from the heights. The true, practical preaching is that
+which brings the celestial truths of our nature and our destiny,
+the powers of the world to come and the terrors and promises of our
+relationship to the Divine Being, to bear upon our present duties, to
+animate and elevate our daily life, to sanctify the secular, to redeem
+the common from its loss of wonder and praise, to make the familiar give
+up its superficial tameness, to awaken the sense of awe in those who
+have lost or never acquired the proper feeling of the spiritual mystery
+that envelops our ordinary life. This was Dewey's peculiar skill. Poets
+had already done it for poets, and in a sense neither strictly religious
+nor expected to be made practical. But for preachers to carry `the
+vision and faculty divine' of the poet into the pulpit, and with the
+authority of messengers of God, demand of men in their business and
+domestic service, their mechanical labors, their necessary tasks, to
+see God's spirit and feel God's laws everywhere touching, inspiring, and
+elevating their ordinary life and lot, was something new and glorious.
+Thus Dewey revitalized the doctrine of Retribution by bringing it from
+the realms a futurity down to the immediate bosoms of men; and nothing
+more solemn, affecting, and true is to be found in all literature
+than his famous two sermons on Retribution, in the first volume of his
+published works. Spirituality, in the same manner, he called away from
+its ghostly churchyard haunts, and made it a cheerful angel of God's
+presence in the house and the shop, where the sense and feeling of God's
+holiness [362] and love make every duty an act of worship, and every
+commonest experience an opportunity of divine service. Under the
+thoughtful, tender yet searching, rational but profoundly spiritual
+preaching of Dr. Dewey,--where men's souls found an holiest and powerful
+interpreter, and nature, business, pleasure, domestic ties, received
+a 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 first
+time, made to realize the beauty of holiness and the power of the gospel
+of salvation?
+
+"The persuasiveness of Dewey was another of his greatest
+characteristics. His yearning to convince, his longing to impart his own
+convictions, gave a candor and patient and sweet reasonableness to his
+preaching, which has, I think, never been equalled in any preacher of
+his measure of intellect, height of imagination, and reverence of soul.
+For he could never lower his ideals to please or propitiate. He was
+working for no immediate and transitory effects. He could use no arts
+that entangled, dazzled, or frightened; nothing but truth, and truth
+cautiously discriminated. His sermons were born of the most painful
+labors of his spirit; they were careful and finished works, written
+and rewritten, revised, corrected, improved, almost as if they had been
+poems addressed to the deliberate judgment of posterity. They possess
+that claim upon coming generations, and will, one day, rediscovered by
+a deeper and better spiritual taste, take their place among the noblest
+and most exquisite of the intellectual and spiritual products of this
+century. There are thousands of the best minds in this country that
+owe whatever interest they have in religion [363] to Orville Dewey.
+The majesty of his manner, the dramatic power of his action, the poetic
+beauty of his illustrations, the logical clearness and fairness of his
+reasoning, the depth and grasp of his hold on all the facts, human and
+divine, material and spiritual, that belonged to the theme he treated,
+gave him a surpassing power and splendor, and an equal persuasiveness as
+a preacher. But what is most rare, his sermons, though they gained much
+by delivery, lose little in reading, for those who never heard them.
+They are admirably adapted to the pulpit, none more so; but just as
+wonderfully suited to the library and to solitary perusal. I am not
+extravagant or alone in this opinion. I know that so competent a critic
+as James Martineau holds them in equal admiration.
+
+"I shall make no excuse for dwelling so long upon Orville Dewey's genius
+as a preacher. No plainer duty exists than to commend his example to
+the study and imitation of our own preachers; and no exaltation that the
+Church of the Messiah will ever attain can in any probability equal that
+which will always be given to it as the seat of Dr. Dewey's thirteen
+years' 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 to
+say. But, when expression shall finally be allowed to the testimony
+which cannot very long be denied free utterance, it will fully appear
+that only a man whose soul was haunted by God's spirit from early youth
+to 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 service
+was held in his memory at the old Congregational Church in his native
+village. It was the church of his childhood, from whose galleries he had
+looked down with childish pity upon the sad-browed communicants; [see
+p. 16] it was the church to which he had joined himself in the religious
+fervor of his youth; from it he had been thrust out as a heretic, and
+for years was not permitted to speak within its walls, the first time
+being in 1876, when the town celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the
+Resolution 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 to
+his memory, and his mourning townspeople met to honor the man they had
+learned to love, if not to follow.
+
+It was a lovely summer day, full of calm and sunny sweetness. The
+earlier harvests had been gathered in, and the beautiful valley lay in
+perfect rest,-"Like a full heart, having prayed."
+
+Taghkonic brooded above it in gentle majesty, and the scarce seen river
+wound its quiet course among the meadows. No touch of drought or decay
+had yet passed upon the luxuriant foliage; but the autumnal flowers were
+already glowing [365] in the fields and on the waysides, and, mingled
+with ferns and ripened grain, were heaped in rich profusion by the
+loving hands of young girls to adorn the church. It was Sunday, and
+people and friends came from far and near, till the building was filled;
+and in the pervading atmosphere of tender respect and sympathy, the
+warm-hearted words spoken from the pulpit seemed like the utterance
+of the common feeling. The choir sang, with much expression, one of my
+father's favorite hymns,-"When, as returns this solemn day;" and the
+prayer, from Dr. Eddy, the pastor of the church, was a true uplifting
+of hearts to the Father of all. The fervent and touching discourse which
+followed, 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 had
+borne upon his character, and described the man and his work in terms
+of warm and not indiscriminate eulogy. The speaker's brow lightened,
+and his cheek glowed with the strength of his own feeling, and among his
+listeners there was an answering thrill of gratitude and of aspiration.
+
+Dr. Powers, an Episcopal clergyman, then read a short and graceful
+original poem, and some cordial and earnest words were said by the
+two Orthodox ministers present. Another hymn was sung by the whole
+congregation; and thus fitly closed the simple and reverent
+service, typical throughout of the kindly human brotherhood which,
+notwithstanding inevitable differences of opinion, binds together hearts
+that throb with one common need, that rest upon one Eternal Love and
+Wisdom.
+
+So would my father have wished it. So may it be more and more!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Autobiography and Letters of Orville
+Dewey, D.D., by Orville Dewey
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF ORVILLE DEWEY ***
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