CONCORD, September 26, 1855.
MR. BLAKE,--The other day I thought that my health must be
better,--that I gave at last a sign of vitality,--because I
experienced a slight chagrin. But I do not see how strength is to be
got into my legs again. These months of feebleness have yielded few,
if any, thoughts, though they have not passed without serenity, such
as our sluggish Musketaquid suggests. I hope that the harvest is to
come. I trust that you have at least warped up the stream a little
daily, holding fast by your anchors at night, since I saw you, and
have kept my place for me while I have been absent.
Mr. Ricketson of New Bedford has just made me a visit of a day and a
half, and I have had a quite good time with him. He and Channing have
got on particularly well together. He is a man of very simple tastes,
notwithstanding his wealth; a lover of nature; but, above all,
singularly frank and plain-spoken. I think that you might enjoy
meeting him.
Sincerity is a great but rare virtue, and we pardon to it much
complaining, and the betrayal of many weaknesses. R. says of himself,
that he sometimes thinks that he has all the infirmities of genius
without the genius; is wretched without a hair pillow, etc.; expresses
a great and awful uncertainty with regard to "God," "Death," his
"immortality;" says, "If I only knew," etc. He loves Cowper's "Task"
better than anything else; and thereafter perhaps, Thomson, Gray, and
even Howitt. He has evidently suffered for want of sympathizing
companions. He says that he sympathizes with much in my books, but
much in them is naught to him,--"namby-pamby,"--"stuff,"--"mystical."
Why will not I, having common sense, write in plain English always;
_teach_ men in detail how to live a simpler life, etc.; not go off
into ----? But I say that I have no scheme about it,--no designs on
men at all; and, if I had, my mode would be to tempt them with the
fruit, and not with the manure. To what end do I lead a simple life at
all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives?--and so
all our lives be _simplified_ merely, like an algebraic formula? Or
not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared, to live
more worthily and profitably? I would fain lay the most stress forever
on that which is the most important,--imports the most to me,--though
it were only (what it is likely to be) a vibration in the air. As a
preacher, I should be prompted to tell men, not so much how to get
their wheat bread cheaper, as of the bread of life compared with which
_that_ is bran. Let a man only taste these loaves, and he becomes a
skillful economist at once. He'll not waste much time in earning
those. Don't spend your time in drilling soldiers, who may turn out
hirelings after all, but give to undrilled peasantry a _country_ to
fight for. The schools begin with what they call the elements, and
where do they end?
I was glad to hear the other day that Higginson and ---- were gone to
Ktaadn; it must be so much better to go to than a Woman's Rights or
Abolition Convention; better still, to the delectable primitive mounts
within you, which you have dreamed of from your youth up, and seen,
perhaps, in the horizon, but never climbed.
But how do _you_ do? Is the air sweet to you? Do you find anything at
which you can work, accomplishing something solid from day to day?
Have you put sloth and doubt behind, considerably?--had one redeeming
dream this summer? I dreamed, last night, that I could vault over any
height it pleased me. That was _something_; and I contemplated myself
with a slight satisfaction in the morning for it.
Methinks I will write to you. Methinks you will be glad to hear. We
will stand on solid foundations to one another,--I a column planted on
this shore, you on that. We meet the same sun in his rising. We were
built slowly, and have come to our bearing. We will not mutually fall
over that we may meet, but will grandly and eternally guard the
straits. Methinks I see an inscription on you, which the architect
made, the stucco being worn off to it. The name of that ambitious
worldly king is crumbling away. I see it toward sunset in favorable
lights. Each must read for the other, as might a sailer-by. Be sure
you are star-y-pointing still. How is it on your side? I will not
require an answer until you think I have paid my debts to you.
I have just got a letter from Ricketson, urging me to come to New
Bedford, which possibly I may do. He says I can wear my old clothes
there.
Let me be remembered in your quiet house.