To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.
ST. DAVID'S, July 27, 1868.
FRIEND BRYANT,--I am a Quaker. I have just joined the sect. Thee won't
believe it, because thee will think I lack the calmness and staidness
that fit me for it. But I am a Quaker of the Isaac T. Hopper sort;
though, alas! here the resemblance fails also, for I do no good. Dear
me! I wish sometimes that I could have been one of the one-sided men;
it is so easy to run in one groove! and it 's all the fashion in these
days. But, avaunt expediency! Let me stick to my principles, and be a
rounded mediocrity, pelted on every hand, and pleasing [302] nobody.
By the bye, Mrs. Gibbons [Mrs. James Gibbons of New York, daughter of
Isaac T. Hopper] I has just sent me a fine medallion of her, father,
beautifully mounted. It is a remarkable face, for its massive strength
and the fun that is lurking in it. Hopper might have been a great man
in any other walk,--the statesman's, the lawyer's; he was, in his own.
. . . I want to say something, through the "Post," of the abominable
nuisance of the railroad whistle. I wrote once while you were gone, and
Nordhoff (how do you spell him?) did n't publish my letter, but only
introduced some of it in a paragraph of his own. If I write again, I
shall want your imprimatur. This horrible shriek, which tears all our
nerves to pieces, and the nerves of all the land, except Cummington and
such lovely retirements, is altogether unnecessary; a lower tone would
answer just as well. It does on the Hudson River Road.
To his Daughters.
ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 15, 1868.
. . . YOUR letter came yesterday, and was very satisfactory in the
upshot; that is, you got there. But, pest on railroad cars I they are
mere torture-chambers, with the additional chance, as Johnson said of
the ship, of being land-wrecked. Some people like 'em, though. And
there are dangers everywhere. The other day-a high windy day--a party
went to the mountain, and had like to have been blown off from the top.
But they said it was beautiful. I don't doubt, if the whole bunch had
been tumbled over and rolled down to the bottom, they would all have
jumped up, exclaiming, "Beautiful! [303] beautiful!" People so like to
have it thought they have had a good time. One day they went up and
all got as wet as mountain--no, as marsh--rats; and that was the most
"lovely time" they have had this summer.
Girls, I have a toothache to-day! It 's easier now, or I should not
be writing. But pain, what a thing it is! The king of all misery, I
think, is pain. It is a part of you, and does n't lie outside; a thing
to be met and mastered with healthy faculties. You can't fight with
it, as you can with poverty, bankruptcy, mosquitoes, a smoky chimney,
and the like. I can't be thankful enough that I have had, through my
life, so little pain. What I shall do with it, if it comes, I don't
know. Perhaps I need it for what Heine speaks of; that is, to make
me "a man." I am afraid I am a chicken-hearted fellow. But I cannot
help thinking that different constitutions take that visitation very
differently.
To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.
ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 18, 1869.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--. . . It is the audible, the uttered prayer, to which
I feel myself unequal. The awfulness of prayer to me inclines me more
and more to make it silent, speechless. It is so overwhelming, that
I am losing all fluency, all free utterance. What it is fit for a
creature to say to the Infinite One--to that uncomprehended Infinitude
of Being--makes me hesitate. My mind addressing a fellow mind is
easy; and yet addressing the highest mind in the world would cause me
anxiety. I should feel that my thoughts were too poor to express to
him. But my mind addressing itself, its [304] thought and feeling, to
the Infinite, Infinite Mind,--I faint beneath it. It is higher than
heaven; what can I do? I am often moved to say with Abraham, "Lo! now
I, who am but dust, have taken upon me to speak unto God. Oh! let not
the Lord be angry, and I will speak." And indeed, so much praying,-this
imploring the love and care of the Infinite Providence and Love, of
which the universe is the boundless and perpetual evolution,--can that
be right and fit? I often recall what Mrs. Dwight, of Stockbridge,
said of the public devotions of old Dr. West,--one of the most saintly
beings I ever knew,--that she had observed that they consisted less and
less of prayers, and more and more of thanksgivings.
Last evening my wife read to us your article on the Mission of America.
It is a grand, full stream of thought, and original, too, and ought to
have a wider flow than through the pages of the "Examiner." It ought
to be read not by two thousand, but by two million persons. I wish
there were a popular organ, like the "Ledger" (in circulation), for the
diffusion of the best thoughts, where the best minds among us could
speak of the country to the country, for never was there a people that
more needed to be wisely spoken to. And you are especially fitted to
speak to it. Your conservative position in our Unitarian body, however
it may fare among us, would help you with the people.
As to your position, I don't know but I am as conservative as you are.
That is, I don't know but I believe in the miracles as much as you do.
The difference between us is, that I do not feel the miraculous to be
so essential a part of Christianity. Yet I see and feel the force of
what you say about it. And the argument is [305] put in that article of
yours with great weight and power. For myself, I cannot help feeling
that at length the authority of Jesus will be established on clearer,
higher, more indisputable and impregnable grounds than any historic,
miraculous facts.
To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.
ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 26, 1869.
. . . I AM thankful, every day of my life, that I have my own roof over
me, and can keep it from crumbling to the ground. Do not be proud, Sir,
when you read this, nor look down from your lordliness,--of owning a
dozen houses, and three of them your own to live in,--down, I say, upon
my humble gratitude. Can it be, by the bye, that Cicero had fourteen
villas? I am sure Middleton says so. I should think they must have been
fourteen of what Buckminster, in a sermon, called "bundles of cares and
heaps of vexations."
. . . I read a letter of Cicero's to his friend Valerius, this morning,
in which he urges him to come and see him, saying that he wants to have
a pleasant time with him,--tecum jocari,-and says, "When you come this
way, don't go down to your Apulia,"--to wit, Cummington. Nam si illo
veneris, tanquam Ulysses, cognosces tuorum neminem. Now don't quote
Homer to me when you answer, for I am nearly overwhelmed with my own
learning.
I wish you could have seen the world here for the last three weeks.
Never was such a splendid winter season. I think it 's something great
and inspiring to see the whole broad, bright, white, crystal world, and
the whole [306] horizon round, instead of looking upon brick houses.
But you will say, the human horizon widens in cities. Yes; but if there
are six bright points in it you are fortunate, while here, the whole
horizon round is sapphire and purple and gold.
Well, peace be with you wherever you are, and with your house. My wife
and Mary send love to you all, as I do, [who] am, as ever.
Yours faithfully,