STATEN ISLAND, October 16, 1843.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I promised you some thoughts long ago, but it would
be hard to tell whether these are the ones. I suppose that the great
questions of "Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge absolute," which used to
be discussed at Concord, are still unsettled. And here comes [W. H.]
Channing, with his _Present_ to vex the world again,--a rather
galvanic movement, I think. However, I like the man all the better,
though his schemes the less. I am sorry for his confessions. Faith
never makes a confession.
Have you had the annual berrying party, or sat on the Cliffs a whole
day this summer? I suppose the flowers have fared quite as well since
I was not there to scoff at them; and the hens, without doubt, keep up
their reputation.
I have been reading lately what of Quarles's poetry I could get. He
was a contemporary of Herbert, and a kindred spirit. I think you would
like him. It is rare to find one who was so much of a poet and so
little of an artist. He wrote long poems, almost epics for length,
about Jonah, Esther, Job, Samson, and Solomon, interspersed with
meditations after a quite original plan,--Shepherd's Oracles,
Comedies, Romances, Fancies, and Meditations,--the quintessence of
meditation,--and Enchiridions of Meditation all divine,--and what he
calls his Morning Muse; besides prose works as curious as the rest. He
was an unwearied Christian, and a reformer of some old school withal.
Hopelessly quaint, as if he lived all alone and knew nobody but his
wife, who appears to have reverenced him. He never doubts his genius;
it is only he and his God in all the world. He uses language sometimes
as greatly as Shakespeare; and though there is not much straight grain
in him, there is plenty of tough, crooked timber. In an age when
Herbert is revived, Quarles surely ought not to be forgotten.
I will copy a few such sentences as I should read to you if there.
Mrs. Brown, too, may find some nutriment in them.
How does the Saxon Edith do? Can you tell yet to which school of
philosophy she belongs,--whether she will be a fair saint of some
Christian order, or a follower of Plato and the heathen? Bid Ellen a
good-night or good-morning from me, and see if she will remember where
it comes from; and remember me to Mrs. Brown, and your mother, and
Elizabeth Hoar.