To Miss Catherine M. Seagwick.
SHEFFIELD, Feb. 5, 1862.
My FRIEND,--I must report myself to you. I must have you sympathize
with my life, or--I will not say I shall drown myself in the
Housatonic, but I shall feel as if the old river had dried up, and
forsaken its bed.
I do not know how to set about telling you how happy I am in the old
home. I feel as if I had arrived after a long voyage, or were reposing
after a day's [259] work that had been forty years long. Indeed, it is
forty-two years last autumn since I left Andover and began to preach.
And I have never before had any cessation of work but what I regarded
as temporary. Indeed, I have never before had the means to retire upon.
And although it is but a modest competence,—$1,500 a year,—yet I am
most devoutly thankful to Heaven that I have it, and that I am not
turned out, like an old horse upon the common. To be sure, I should be
glad to be able to live nearer to the centres of society; but you can
hardly imagine what comfort and satisfaction I feel in having enough to
live upon, instead of the utter poverty which I might well have feared
would be, and which so often is, the end of a clergyman's life.{23}
{FN 23: He had just received a legacy of $5,000 from Miss Eliza
Townsend, of Boston}
This house of ours is very pleasant, you would think so if you were
in it,--all doors open, as in summer, a summer temperature from the
furnace, day and night, moderate wood-fires in the parlor and library,
cheering to the eye, and making of the chimneys excellent ventilators,
and the air pure; and this summer house seated down amidst surrounding
cold, and boundless fields of snow,--it seems a miracle of comfort.
And then, this surrounding splendor and beauty,-the valley, and the
hills and mountains around,--the soft-falling snow, the starry crystals
descending through the still air,--the lights and shadows of morning
and evening,--this wondrous meteorology of winter--but you know all
about it. Really, I think some days that winter is more beautiful than
summer. Certainly I would not have it left out of my year. . . . "Aha!
all is rose-colored to him!" Well, nay, but it is literally [260] so.
The white hill opposite, looking like a huge snow-bank, only that it
is checkered with strips and patches of wood, dark as Indian-ink, is
stained of that color every clear afternoon, and rises up at sundown
into a bank of roseate or purple bloom all along above the horizon.
6th. I did n't get through last evening. No wonder, with so much heavy
stuff to carry. Did I ever write such a stupid letter before? Well, do
not say anything about it, but quickly cover it over with the mantle of
one of your charming epistles. It is not often that one has a chance
to show so much Christian generosity. Besides, consider that I do not
altogether despair of myself. I am reviving; and you don't know what a
letter I may write you one of these days, if you toll me along.
In the autumn his only son enlisted for nine months in the 49th
Massachusetts Regiment.
To his Daughters.
SHEFFIELD, Oct. 13, 1862.
MY DEAR GIRLS, Charles has enlisted. It was at a war-meeting at the
town-hall last evening. You have known his feelings, and perhaps will
not be surprised. I did not expect it, and must confess I was very much
shaken in spirit by it. But, arriving through some sleepless hours at a
calmer mood, I do not know that it is any greater sacrifice than we as
a family ought to make.
Although it will throw a great deal of care upon me, and there is all
this extra work to do, yet, that excepted, perhaps he could not go at
any better time than now. [261] It is for the winter, and nine months
is a fitter term for a family man, circumstanced as he is, than three
years; and this enlistment precludes all liability to future draft.
This is in the key of prudence; but I do think that men with young
families dependent upon them should be the last to go. And yet I had
rather have in C. the patriotic spirit that impels him, than all the
prudence in the world.
To the Same.
Oct. 16, 1862.
C. is steadily and calmly putting all things into order that he
can. . . . He came in the morning after he had enlisted, and said to
me with a bright, vigorous, and satisfied expression of countenance,
"Well, you see what I have done." I believe some people have been very
much stirred and moved by his decision. It is said to have given an
impulse to the recruiting, and the quota, I am told, is now about full
and there will be no drafting here.
Thinking of these things,--thinking of all possible good or ill to
come, your mother and I go about, from hour to hour, sometimes very
much weighed down, and sometimes more hopeful and cheerful; and poor
J., with the tears ready to come at every turn, is yet going on very
bravely and well. . . . Cassidy is to look after barn-yard, etc., for
the winter.
But all this is nothing. Good heaven! do people know, does the world
know, what we are doing, when we freely send our sons from peaceful and
happy homes to meet what camp-life, and reconnoissances, and battles
may bring to them and us? God help and pity us!
[262] To Mrs. David Lane.
SHEFFIELD, Dec. 19, 1862.
DEAR FRIEND,--I wrote to Mrs. Curtis{24} last Saturday, before I knew
what had befallen her, and in that letter sent a message to you, to
know of your whereabouts, provided you were still in town. I don't
expect an answer from her now, of course, though I have written her
since; but thinking that you are probably in New York, I write.
{FN 24: Mrs. George Curtis, of New York, whose son, Joseph
Bridgham Curtis, lieutenant-colonel, commanding a Rhode Island
regiment, had just fallen at Fredericksburg, Va.}
I had hoped to hear from you before now. Through this heavy winter
cloud I think friendly rays should shine, if possible, to warm and
cheer it. It is, indeed, an awful winter. I will not say dismal; my
heart is too high for that. But public affairs, and my private share in
them, together, make a dread picture in my mind, as if I were gazing
upon the passing of mighty floods, that may sweep away thousands of
dwellings, and mine with them. And though I lift my thoughts to Heaven,
there are times when I dare not trust myself to pray aloud; the burden
is too great for words. It is singular, but you will understand it,--I
think there was never a time when there was less visible devotion in my
life than now, when my whole being is resolved into meditations, and
strugglings of faith, and communings with the supreme and holy will of
God.
I am writing, my friend, very solemnly for a letter; but never mind
that, for we are obliged to take into our terrible questioning now what
is always most trying in the problem of life,--the results of human
imperfection--
[263] human incompetence, brought into the most immediate connection
with our own interests and affections. See what it is for our friend
Mrs. Curtis to reflect that her son was slain in that seemingly
reckless assault upon the intrenchments at Fredericksburg, or for me
that my son may be sent off in rotten transports that may founder
amidst the Southern seas.
But do I therefore spend my time in complainings and reproaches, and
almost the arraigning of Providence? No. I know that the governing
powers are trying to do the best they can. The fact is, a charge is
devolved upon them almost beyond human ability to sustain. Neither
Russia nor Austria nor France, I believe, ever had a million of
soldiers in the field, to clothe, to equip, to feed, to pay, and
to direct. We have them,--we, a peaceful people, suddenly, with no
military experience, and there must be mistakes, delays, failures. What
then? Shall we give up the cause of justice, of lawful government,
of civilization, and of the unborn ages, and do nothing? If we will
not,--if we will not yield up lawful sovereignty to mad revolt, then
must we put what power, faculty, skill, we have, to the work, and
amidst all our sacrifices and sorrows bow to the awful will of God.
Have you seen Mrs. Curtis? In her son there was a singular union of
loveliness and manliness, of gentleness and courage, and, high over
all, perfect self-abnegation. A mother could not well lose in a son
more than she has lost. I hope she does not dwell on the seeming
untowardness of the event, or that she can take it into a larger
philosophy than that of the New York press. . . .
[264] To the Same.
SHEFFIELD, July 26, 1863.
YOUR sympathy, my friend, for us and Charles, is very comforting to
me. Yes, we have heard from him since the surrender of Port Hudson. He
wrote to us on the 9th, full of joy, and glorying over the event; but,
poor fellow, he had only time to wash in the conquered Mississippi,
before his regiment was ordered down to Fort Donaldsonville, and
took part in a fight there on the 13th; and we have private advices
from Baton Rouge that the brigade (Augur's) is sent down towards
Brash-ear City. . . . Now, when we shall hear of C. I do not venture to
anticipate, but whenever we do get any news, that is, any good news,
you shall have it.
If these horrid New York riots had not lifted up a black and
frightful cloud between us and the glorious events in Pennsylvania
and the Southwest, we should have burst out into illuminations and
cannon-firings all over the North. But the good time is coming FN We
shall be ready when Sumter is taken. I hardly know of anything that
would stir the Northern heart like that.
I have not seen Mrs. Kemble's book yet. Have you read Calvert's
"Gentleman"? It is charming. And "The Tropics," too. And here is
Draper's book upon the "Intellectual Development of Europe" on my
table. I augur much from the first dozen pages.
With kind remembrances to Mr. Lane, and love to the girls,
Yours as ever,