To Miss Catherine M. Sea'gwitk.
SHEFFIELD, Aug. 27, 1866.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--It is some time since I have written to you, and I
am almost afraid you are glad of it, not having to answer. You must
acknowledge, however, that I have always offered you the easiest terms
of exchange; two for one, three, four, anything you liked. . . . I
have been lately with Mr. Bryant, in his great affliction, staying
with my sisters, who occupy one of his cottages, but spending all the
time I could with him. It was very sad,--talking upon many things as
we did, and much upon those things that were pressing upon his mind,
for he felt that he was losing his chief earthly [291] treasure. His
wife was that to him, by her simplicity, her simple truthfulness, her
perfect sincerity and heart-earnestness, latterly of a very religious
character, and by her good judgment also; he told me that he always
consulted her upon everything he published, and found that her opinion
was always confirmed by that of the public, that is, as to the relative
merit of his writings. He was bound to her the more, because his ties
of close affection with others are so very few. Sometimes he could not
repress his tears in our talking; and they told me that in the morning,
when he went to her bedside, he often sat weeping, saying, "You have
been suffering all night, and I have been sleeping." In the last days
she longed to depart, and often said to him, "You must let me go; I
want to go" And so she went, peacefully to her rest.
We have had a very pleasant visit from Mr. R. . . . His visits are
always a great pleasure to us, both for the talk we have, and the
music. It is really a great thing to know anything as he knows music.
As I listened to him last evening, I could not help feeling that I knew
nothing as he knows that, and thinking that if there are infant schools
in the next world, I should certainly be put into one of them.
I hope the weather will allow you to sit often on the piazza in the
coming month. It is what we have not been able to do in the present
month at all,--by a fire, rather, in the parlor, half the time.
. . . With our affectionate remembrances to those around you, hold me
to be, as ever,
Yours, ORVILLE DEWEY.
[292] To his Daughter Mary.
ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 28, 1866.
DEAREST MOLLY,--I have the pleasure to be seated at my desk to write
to you, in my new gown and slippers, and with my new sermon, finished,
before me. A "combination and a form," indeed, but I say no more. "But
how is the sermon?" you 'll say. Why, as inimitable as the writer.
But really, I think it is worth something. I did think, indeed, when
I took my pen, that I could write a stronger argument for immortality
than I ever saw, that is, in any one sermon or thesis. And if I have
failed entirely, and shall come to think so, as is very likely, it will
be no worse, doubtless, than my presumption deserved. You and K., who
are satisfied with your spiritual instincts, would think it no better,
probably, than a belt of sand to bolster up a mountain. Well, every one
must help himself as he can. This meditation certainly has strengthened
my own faith in the immortal life.
I should like to go to church with you this morning, where you are
probably going; but the places are very few where I should want to
go. More and more do all public services dissatisfy me,--all devout
utterances, my own included. Communion with the Highest, with the
Unseen and Unspeakable, seems to me to consist of breathings, not
words, and requires a freedom of all thoughts and feelings,--of awe and
wonder, of adoration and thanksgiving, of meditations and of stirrings
of the deeps within us, such as can with difficulty be brought into a
regular prayer.
[293] To the Same.
Nov. 21, 1866.
THE last "Register" has a sermon in it of Abbot's upon the Syracuse
Conference, which I thought so excellent, that I told the editor it
was itself worth a quarter's payment. Your mother admires it, too.
Though she has no sympathy, as you well know, with Abbot's Left-Wing
views, her righteous nature warmly takes part with his argument. The
fact is, the Conference is wrong. If it expects the young men to act
with it, it should adopt a platform on which they can conscientiously
and comfortably stand. The conduct of the majority, in my opinion,
is inconsistent and ungenerous. Either take ground upon which all
can stand,--and I think there is such ground,--or else say to the
ultra-liberals, "We cannot consent that any part of our common means
shall be used for the spread of your views, influence, and preaching,
and we must part."
To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.
ST. DAVID'S, March 20, 1867.
COME up here, my anxious friend, and I'll read my Concio to you; for
it is written, as I preferred to do, before the warm and cold, wet
and dry meslin of April weather comes, which always breaks me up in
my studies. I will read it to you, and I rather think you will like
it. . . . But do not make yourself uneasy. There will be nothing in
the address of what you call "a defection to the radical side," simply
because, in opinion, I cannot take that ground. I do not and cannot
give up the miraculous element in Christianity. But I [294] embrace our
whole denomination in my sympathies and do not think our differences so
important as you do. That religion has its roots in our nature, if that
is radicalism, I strongly hold and always have. And in its development
and culture I have never given that exclusive place to Christianity
that many do. I confess that I always disliked and resisted the
utterances of the extreme conservatives on this point, more than those
of their opponents. So you see that M. was mainly right. And certainly
I think the minority in the Conference has had hard measure from the
majority; and I liked Abbot's sermon as much as you heard I did.
Yours ever,