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,