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,