CASTLETON, STATEN ISLAND, May 22, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I believe a good many conversations with you were
left in an unfinished state, and now indeed I don't know where to take
them up. But I will resume some of the unfinished silence. I shall not
hesitate to know you. I think of you as some elder sister of mine,
whom I could not have avoided,--a sort of lunar influence,--only of
such age as the moon, whose time is measured by her light. You must
know that you represent to me woman, for I have not traveled very far
or wide,--and what if I had? I like to deal with you, for I believe
you do not lie or steal, and these are very rare virtues. I thank you
for your influence for two years. I was fortunate to be subjected to
it, and am now to remember it. It is the noblest gift we can make;
what signify all others that can be bestowed? You have helped to keep
my life "on loft," as Chaucer says of Griselda, and in a better sense.
You always seemed to look down at me as from some elevation,--some of
your high humilities,--and I was the better for having to look up. I
felt taxed not to disappoint your expectation; for could there be any
accident so sad as to be respected for something better than we are?
It was a pleasure even to go away from you, as it is not to meet some,
as it apprised me of my high relations; and such a departure is a sort
of further introduction and meeting. Nothing makes the earth seem so
spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and
longitudes.
You must not think that fate is so dark there, for even here I can see
a faint reflected light over Concord, and I think that at this
distance I can better weigh the value of a doubt there. Your
moonlight, as I have told you, though it is a reflection of the sun,
allows of bats and owls and other twilight birds to flit therein. But
I am very glad that you can elevate your life with a doubt, for I am
sure that it is nothing but an insatiable faith after all that deepens
and darkens its current. And your doubt and my confidence are only a
difference of expression.
I have hardly begun to live on Staten Island yet; but, like the man
who, when forbidden to tread on English ground, carried Scottish
ground in his boots, I carry Concord ground in my boots and in my
hat,--and am I not made of Concord dust? I cannot realize that it is
the roar of the sea I hear now, and not the wind in Walden woods. I
find more of Concord, after all, in the prospect of the sea, beyond
Sandy Hook, than in the fields and woods.
If you were to have this Hugh the gardener for your man, you would
think a new dispensation had commenced. He might put a fairer aspect
on the natural world for you, or at any rate a screen between you and
the almshouse. There is a beautiful red honeysuckle now in blossom in
the woods here, which should be transplanted to Concord; and if what
they tell me about the tulip tree be true, you should have that also.
I have not seen Mrs. Black yet, but I intend to call on her soon. Have
you established those simpler modes of living yet?--"In the full tide
of successful operation?"
Tell Mrs. Brown that I hope she is anchored in a secure haven and
derives much pleasure still from reading the poets, and that her
constellation is not quite set from my sight, though it is sunk so low
in that northern horizon. Tell Elizabeth Hoar that her bright present
did "carry ink safely to Staten Island," and was a conspicuous object
in Master Haven's inventory of my effects. Give my respects to Madam
Emerson, whose Concord face I should be glad to see here this summer;
and remember me to the rest of the household who have had vision of
me. Shake a day-day to Edith, and say good-night to Ellen for me.
Farewell.