STATEN ISLAND, July 21, 1843.
DEAR HELEN,--I am not in such haste to write home when I remember that
I make my readers pay the postage. But I believe I have not taxed you
before.
I have pretty much explored this island, inland and along the shore,
finding my health inclined me to the peripatetic philosophy. I have
visited telegraph stations, Sailors' Snug Harbors, Seaman's Retreats,
Old Elm Trees, where the Huguenots landed, Britton's Mills, and all
the villages on the island. Last Sunday I walked over to Lake Island
Farm, eight or nine miles from here, where Moses Prichard lived, and
found the present occupant, one Mr. Davenport, formerly from
Massachusetts, with three or four men to help him, raising sweet
potatoes and tomatoes by the acre. It seemed a cool and pleasant
retreat, but a hungry soil. As I was coming away, I took my toll out
of the soil in the shape of arrowheads, which may after all be the
surest crop, certainly not affected by drought.
I am well enough situated here to observe one aspect of the modern
world at least. I mean the migratory,--the western movement. Sixteen
hundred immigrants arrived at quarantine ground on the 4th of July,
and more or less every day since I have been here. I see them
occasionally washing their persons and clothes: or men, women, and
children gathered on an isolated quay near the shore, stretching their
limbs and taking the air; the children running races and swinging on
this artificial piece of the land of liberty, while their vessels are
undergoing purification. They are detained but a day or two, and then
go up to the city, for the most part without having _landed_ here.
In the city, I have seen, since I wrote last, W. H. Channing, at whose
home, in Fifteenth Street, I spent a few pleasant hours, discussing
the all-absorbing question "what to do for the race." (He is sadly in
earnest about going up the river to rusticate for six weeks, and
issues a new periodical called _The Present_ in September.) Also
Horace Greeley, editor of the _Tribune_, who is cheerfully in earnest,
at his office of all work, a hearty New Hampshire boy as one would
wish to meet, and says, "Now be neighborly," and believes only, or
mainly, first, in the Sylvania Association, somewhere in Pennsylvania;
and, secondly, and most of all, in a new association to go into
operation soon in New Jersey, with which he is connected. Edward
Palmer came down to see me Sunday before last. As for Waldo and
Tappan, we have strangely dodged one another, and have not met for
some weeks.
I believe I have not told you anything about Lucretia Mott. It was a
good while ago that I heard her at the Quaker Church in Hester Street.
She is a preacher, and it was advertised that she would be present on
that day. I liked all the proceedings very well, their plainly greater
harmony and sincerity than elsewhere. They do nothing in a hurry.
Every one that walks up the aisle in his square coat and expansive hat
has a history, and comes from a house to a house. The women come in
one after another in their Quaker bonnets and handkerchiefs, looking
all like sisters or so many chickadees. At length, after a long
silence,--waiting for the Spirit,--Mrs. Mott rose, took off her
bonnet, and began to utter very deliberately what the Spirit
suggested. Her self-possession was something to see, if all else
failed; but it did not. Her subject was, "The Abuse of the Bible," and
thence she straightway digressed to slavery and the degradation of
woman. It was a good speech,--Transcendentalism in its mildest form.
She sat down at length, and, after a long and decorous silence, in
which some seemed to be really digesting her words, the elders shook
hands, and the meeting dispersed. On the whole, I liked their ways and
the plainness of their meeting-house. It looked as if it was indeed
made for service.
I think that Stearns Wheeler has left a gap in the community not easy
to be filled. Though he did not exhibit the highest qualities of the
scholar, he promised, in a remarkable degree, many of the essential
and rarer ones; and his patient industry and energy, his reverent love
of letters, and his proverbial accuracy, will cause him to be
associated in my memory even with many venerable names of former days.
It was not wholly unfit that so pure a lover of books should have
ended his pilgrimage at the great book-mart of the world. I think of
him as healthy and brave, and am confident that if he had lived he
would have proved useful in more ways than I can describe. He would
have been authority on all matters of fact, and a sort of connecting
link between men and scholars of different walks and tastes. The
literary enterprises he was planning for himself and friends remind me
of an older and more studious time. So much, then, remains for us to
do who survive. Love to all. Tell all my friends in Concord that I do
not send my love, but retain it still.
Your affectionate brother.