To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.
ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 21, 1873.
DEAR FRIEND,--I need not say we shall be rejoiced to see you. Don't
be proud, but it is "real good" of you. If "a saint in crape is twice
a saint in lawn," a friend in winter is twice a friend of any other
season. "If I shall be away?" Only by being beside myself could I be
away in winter. "Or have other guests." No, indeed, they don't fly like
doves to our winter [320]windows. But the white snowflakes do, and it
will do your eyes good to see the driven and drifted snow. We have had
a very quiet winter, and few drifts, but to-night, I see, is blowing
them up. I should not wonder if they blocked the road and kept my
letter back a day or two.
To the Same.
March 5, 1873.
. . . WE thought you might be stopped somewhere, and not to go at all
would be the worst "go" that could be. All Sunday we kept speaking
about it, with a sort of feeling as if we were guilty of something;
so that I felt it necessary to calm the family distress by setting up
a new and original view of the whole matter, to this effect: "Well,
if he has been stopped over Sunday at the State Line, or Chatham Four
Corners, it may be the most profitable Sunday he ever passed. What a
time for calm meditation and patience!--better things than preaching.
You know he lives in a throng; this will be a blessed 'retreat,' as
the Catholics call it. He is stomach-full of prosperity; perhaps he
needed an alterative. Introspection is a rare thing in our modern
outward-bound life. He is accustomed to preach to great admiring
audiences; to-day he will preach to his humble, non-admiring self."
Well, I am glad,--so ready, alas! are we to escape from
discipline,--but I am glad that you got through, though by running a
gauntlet that we shivered to read of. But you did get through, and
got home, having accomplished what you went for. Any way, you did us
so much good that it paid, on the great scale of disinterested [321]
benevolence, for a great deal of trouble on your part.
"Shall we be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease?"
With our love to the entire quaternity of you, Yours ever,