[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.{18} 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.
{FN 18: Fifty miles}
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,