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,