[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;"{21} 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.
{FN 21: From the "Westminster Review," vol. lvii. p. 182, or,
in the American edition, p. 98.}
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,