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To his Sister, Miss F. Dewey.
SHEFFIELD, Oct. 5, 1859.
I HAVE got past worrying about things, myself. I see all these movements, this way and that way, as a part of that great oscillation in which the world has been swinging, to and fro, from the beginning, and always advancing. These are the natural developments of the freed mind of the world; and whoever lives now, and yet more, whoever shall live through this century, must take this large and calm philosophy to his heart, or he will find himself cast upon the troubled waters without rudder [253] or compass. Daniel Webster, one day at Marshfield, when his cattle came around him to take an ear of corn each from his hand, said to Peter Harvey, who was by, as he stood looking at them, "Peter, this is better company than Senators." So I am tempted to turn from all the religious wranglings and extravagances of the time, to nature and to the solid and unquestioned truths of religion. I sometimes doubt whether I will ever read another word of the ultraists and the one-sided men. They will do their work, and it will all come to good in the long run; but it is not necessary that I should watch it or care for it. I did, indeed, print a political sermon four months ago, and I said a few words in the "Register" last week (which I will send you), but I am not the man to be heard in these days. I can't take a side. . . .
Yours as always,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.
SHEFFIELD, May 7, 1860.
WELL, did I address you as a poet, Magnus; for none but a poet or a Welshman could write such a reply. Do you know I am Welsh? So was Elizabeth, Tudor; so is Fanny Kemble, and other good fellows.
Well, I take your poetry as if it were just as good as prose. But you don't consider, my dear fellow, that if we make our visit when I go down to preach for Bellows, that I can't preach for your Orthodox friend. . . .
Oh, ay, I quite agree with you about leaving the world-melee to others. For my part, I feel as if I were dead and buried long ago. You said, awhile ago, that you did n't so well like to work as you once did. Sensible, [254] that. I feel the same, in my bones—or brains. There it is, you always say, what I think; except sometimes, when you scathe the opponents,—for I am tenderhearted. I don't like to have people made to feel so "bad." Seriously, I wonder that some of you editors are not beaten to death every month. Ours is a much-enduring society. I could enlarge, but I have n't time; for I must go and set out some trees—for posterity.
With our love to your wife and all,
Yours ever,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To Mrs. David Lane.
BOSTON, Dec. 1860.
DEAREST FRIEND (for I think friends draw closer to one another in troublous times),—Indeed I am sad and troubled, under the most favorable view that can be taken of our affairs; for though all this should blow over, as I prevailingly believe and hope it will, yet the crisis has brought out such a feeling at the South as we shall not easily forget or forgive. To be sure, as the irritation of an arraigned conscience, we may partly overlook it, as we do the irritation of a blamed child,—as an arraigned, and, I add, not quite easy conscience; for surely conscious virtue is calmer than the South is, today. I know that other things are mixed up with this feeling of the South; but if it felt that its moral position was high and honorable and unimpeachable before the world, it would not fly out into this outrageous passion. If the ground it stood upon in former days were held now, it might be calm, as it was then; but ever since the day when it changed its mind,—ever since it has assumed that the slave system is right and good and admirable [255] and ought to be perpetual,—it has been growing more and more passionate. Well, we must be patient with them. For my part, I am frightened at the condition to which their folly is bringing them. It is terrible to think that the distrust and fear of their slaves is spreading itself all over the South country. To be sure, they, in their unreasonableness, blame us for it. They might as well accuse England; they might as well accuse all the civilized world. For the conviction that slavery is wrong, that it ought not to be advocated, but to be condemned, and ultimately removed from the world,-this conviction is one of the inevitable developments of modern Christian thought and sentiment. It is not we that are responsible for the rise and spread of this sentiment; it is the civilized world; it is humanity itself.
And now what is it that the South asks of us as the condition of union with it? Why, that we shall say and vote that we so much approve of the slave-system, that we are willing, not merely that it should exist untouched by us,—that is not the question,—but that it should be taken to our bosom as a cherished national institution.
I hope we shall firmly but mildly refuse to say it. It is the only honorable or dignified or conscientious position for us of the North. But, do you see the result of these municipal elections in Massachusetts? That does not look like firmness. There may be flinching. But so it is, under the great Providence, that the world wears around questions which it cannot sharply meet.
These matters take precedence of all others now-adays, or else my first word would have been to say how glad we were to hear that C. is well again.
Yours as ever,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
[256] To his Daughter Mary.
BOSTON, Feb. 10, 1861.
HAPPILY for my peace of mind, I have been over to the post-office this evening and got your letter. For my one want has been to know how that tremendous Thursday afternoon and night took you; that is, whether it took you off the ground, or the roof off the house. Here, it did not unroof any houses, but it blew over a carryall in Beacon Street; and when Dr. J. went out, like a good Samaritan, to help the people, it did not respect his virtue at all, but blew him over. Blew him over the fence, it was said; at any rate; landed him on his face, which was much bruised, and dislocated his shoulder. So you see I could not tell what pranks the same wind might play around the corners of certain houses or barns afar off.
Was there ever anything like the swing of the weather? Now it is warm here again, and ready to rain. Agassiz told me that the change in Cambridge, on Thursday, was 71? in ten hours. In Boston it was Go?, being 100 or 1? colder in Cambridge.
I see Agassiz often of late at Peirce's Lowell Lectures on "the Mathematics in the Cosmos." The object is to show that the same ideas, principles, relations, which the mathematician has wrought out from his own mind, are found in the system of nature, indicating an identity of thought. You see of what immense interest the discussion is. But Peirce's delivery of his thoughts is very lame and imperfect (extemporaneous). Two lectures ago, as I sat by Agassiz, I said at the close, "Well, I feel obliged to apologize to myself for being here."
A. Why?
[257] D. Because I don't understand half of it.
A. No? I am surprised. I do.
D. Well, that is because you are learned. (Thinking with myself, however, why does he? For he knows no more of the mathematics than I do. But I went on.)
D. Well, my apology is this; Peirce is like nature,-vast, obscure, mysterious,—great bowlders of thought, of which I can hardly get hold; dark abysses, into which I cannot see; but, nevertheless, flashes of light here and there, and for these I come.
A. Why, yes, I understand him. Just now, when he drew that curious diagram to illustrate a certain principle, I saw it clearly, for I know the same thing in organic nature.
D. Aha! the Mathematics in the Cosmos!
Was it not striking? Here are the Mathematics (Peirce), and Natural Science (Agassiz), and they easily understand each other, because the lecturer's principle is true.
The three or four years which Mr. Dewey spent in Boston with his family were full of enjoyment to him; but in December, 1861, he withdrew finally to Sheffield, which he never left again for more than a few weeks or months at a time.
To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.
SHEFFIELD, July 26, 1861.
MY DEAR BELLOWS,—God bless you for what you and your Sanitary Commission are doing for our people in the camps It goes to my heart to be sitting here in quiet and comfort, these lovely summer days, while they [258] are braving and enduring so much. And so, though of silver and gold I have not much, I send my mite, to help, the little that I can, the voluntary contribution for your purposes.
Last Monday night [Alluding to the battle and rout of Bull Run, July 1861] was the bitterest time we have had yet some, even in this quiet village, did not sleep a wink. Confound sensation newspapers and newspaper correspondents that fellow who writes is enough to drive one mad. The "Evening Post" is the wisest paper. But it is too bad that that rabble of civilians and teamsters should have brought this apparent disgrace upon us.
We have an immense amount of inexperience, and of rash, opinionated thinking to deal with; but we shall get over it all.
If you are staying in New York, I wish you could run up and take a little breathing-time with us. Come any time; we have always a bed for you.
We are all well, and all unite in love to you and E.
Yours ever,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To Miss Catherine M. Seagwick.
SHEFFIELD, Feb. 5, 1862.
My FRIEND,—I must report myself to you. I must have you sympathize with my life, or—I will not say I shall drown myself in the Housatonic, but I shall feel as if the old river had dried up, and forsaken its bed.
I do not know how to set about telling you how happy I am in the old home. I feel as if I had arrived after a long voyage, or were reposing after a day's [259] work that had been forty years long. Indeed, it is forty-two years last autumn since I left Andover and began to preach. And I have never before had any cessation of work but what I regarded as temporary. Indeed, I have never before had the means to retire upon. And although it is but a modest competence, $1,500 a year [FN: He had just received a legacy of $5,000 from Miss Eliza Townsend, of Boston]-yet I am most devoutly thankful to Heaven that I have it, and that I am not turned out, like an old horse upon the common. To be sure, I should be glad to be able to live nearer to the centres of society; but you can hardly imagine what comfort and satisfaction I feel in having enough to live upon, instead of the utter poverty which I might well have feared would be, and which so often is, the end of a clergyman's life.'
This house of ours is very pleasant, you would think so if you were in it,—all doors open, as in summer, a summer temperature from the furnace, day and night, moderate wood-fires in the parlor and library, cheering to the eye, and making of the chimneys excellent ventilators, and the air pure; and this summer house seated down amidst surrounding cold, and boundless fields of snow,—it seems a miracle of comfort.
And then, this surrounding splendor and beauty,-the valley, and the hills and mountains around,—the soft-falling snow, the starry crystals descending through the still air,—the lights and shadows of morning and evening,—this wondrous meteorology of winter—but you know all about it. Really, I think some days that winter is more beautiful than summer. Certainly I would not have it left out of my year. . . . "Aha! all is rose-colored to him!" Well, nay, but it is literally [260] so. The white hill opposite, looking like a huge snow-bank, only that it is checkered with strips and patches of wood, dark as Indian-ink, is stained of that color every clear afternoon, and rises up at sundown into a bank of roseate or purple bloom all along above the horizon.
6th. I did n't get through last evening. No wonder, with so much heavy stuff to carry. Did I ever write such a stupid letter before? Well, do not say anything about it, but quickly cover it over with the mantle of one of your charming epistles. It is not often that one has a chance to show so much Christian generosity. Besides, consider that I do not altogether despair of myself. I am reviving; and you don't know what a letter I may write you one of these days, if you toll me along.
In the autumn his only son enlisted for nine months in the 49th Massachusetts Regiment.
To his Daughters.
SHEFFIELD, Oct. 13, 1862.
MY DEAR GIRLS, Charles has enlisted. It was at a war-meeting at the town-hall last evening. You have known his feelings, and perhaps will not be surprised. I did not expect it, and must confess I was very much shaken in spirit by it. But, arriving through some sleepless hours at a calmer mood, I do not know that it is any greater sacrifice than we as a family ought to make.
Although it will throw a great deal of care upon me, and there is all this extra work to do, yet, that excepted, perhaps he could not go at any better time than now. [261] It is for the winter, and nine months is a fitter term for a family man, circumstanced as he is, than three years; and this enlistment precludes all liability to future draft. This is in the key of prudence; but I do think that men with young families dependent upon them should be the last to go. And yet I had rather have in C. the patriotic spirit that impels him, than all the prudence in the world.
To the Same.
Oct. 16, 1862.
C. is steadily and calmly putting all things into order that he can. . . . He came in the morning after he had enlisted, and said to me with a bright, vigorous, and satisfied expression of countenance, "Well, you see what I have done." I believe some people have been very much stirred and moved by his decision. It is said to have given an impulse to the recruiting, and the quota, I am told, is now about full and there will be no drafting here.
Thinking of these things,—thinking of all possible good or ill to come, your mother and I go about, from hour to hour, sometimes very much weighed down, and sometimes more hopeful and cheerful; and poor J., with the tears ready to come at every turn, is yet going on very bravely and well. . . . Cassidy is to look after barn-yard, etc., for the winter.
But all this is nothing. Good heaven! do people know, does the world know, what we are doing, when we freely send our sons from peaceful and happy homes to meet what camp-life, and reconnoissances, and battles may bring to them and us? God help and pity us!
[262] To Mrs. David Lane.
SHEFFIELD, Dec. 19, 1862.
DEAR FRIEND,—I wrote to Mrs. Curtis [FN]last Saturday, before I knew what had befallen her, and in that letter sent a message to you, to know of your whereabouts, provided you were still in town. I don't expect an answer from her now, of course, though I have written her since; but thinking that you are probably in New York, I write.
I had hoped to hear from you before now. Through this heavy winter cloud I think friendly rays should shine, if possible, to warm and cheer it. It is, indeed, an awful winter. I will not say dismal; my heart is too high for that. But public affairs, and my private share in them, together, make a dread picture in my mind, as if I were gazing upon the passing of mighty floods, that may sweep away thousands of dwellings, and mine with them. And though I lift my thoughts to Heaven, there are times when I dare not trust myself to pray aloud; the burden is too great for words. It is singular, but you will understand it,—I think there was never a time when there was less visible devotion in my life than now, when my whole being is resolved into meditations, and strugglings of faith, and communings with the supreme and holy will of God.
I am writing, my friend, very solemnly for a letter; but never mind that, for we are obliged to take into our terrible questioning now what is always most trying in the problem of life,—the results of human imperfection—
[FN: Mrs. George Curtis, of New York, whose son, Joseph Bridgham Curtis, lieutenant-colonel, commanding a Rhode Island regiment, had just fallen at Fredericksburg, Va.]
[263] human incompetence, brought into the most immediate connection with our own interests and affections. See what it is for our friend Mrs. Curtis to reflect that her son was slain in that seemingly reckless assault upon the intrenchments at Fredericksburg, or for me that my son may be sent off in rotten transports that may founder amidst the Southern seas.
But do I therefore spend my time in complainings and reproaches, and almost the arraigning of Providence? No. I know that the governing powers are trying to do the best they can. The fact is, a charge is devolved upon them almost beyond human ability to sustain. Neither Russia nor Austria nor France, I believe, ever had a million of soldiers in the field, to clothe, to equip, to feed, to pay, and to direct. We have them,—we, a peaceful people, suddenly, with no military experience, and there must be mistakes, delays, failures. What then? Shall we give up the cause of justice, of lawful government, of civilization, and of the unborn ages, and do nothing? If we will not,—if we will not yield up lawful sovereignty to mad revolt, then must we put what power, faculty, skill, we have, to the work, and amidst all our sacrifices and sorrows bow to the awful will of God.
Have you seen Mrs. Curtis? In her son there was a singular union of loveliness and manliness, of gentleness and courage, and, high over all, perfect self-abnegation. A mother could not well lose in a son more than she has lost. I hope she does not dwell on the seeming untowardness of the event, or that she can take it into a larger philosophy than that of the New York press. . . .
[264] To the Same.
SHEFFIELD, July 26, 1863.
YOUR sympathy, my friend, for us and Charles, is very comforting to me. Yes, we have heard from him since the surrender of Port Hudson. He wrote to us on the 9th, full of joy, and glorying over the event; but, poor fellow, he had only time to wash in the conquered Mississippi, before his regiment was ordered down to Fort Donaldsonville, and took part in a fight there on the 13th; and we have private advices from Baton Rouge that the brigade (Augur's) is sent down towards Brash-ear City. . . . Now, when we shall hear of C. I do not venture to anticipate, but whenever we do get any news, that is, any good news, you shall have it.
If these horrid New York riots had not lifted up a black and frightful cloud between us and the glorious events in Pennsylvania and the Southwest, we should have burst out into illuminations and cannon-firings all over the North. But the good time is coming FN We shall be ready when Sumter is taken. I hardly know of anything that would stir the Northern heart like that.
I have not seen Mrs. Kemble's book yet. Have you read Calvert's "Gentleman"? It is charming. And "The Tropics," too. And here is Draper's book upon the "Intellectual Development of Europe" on my table. I augur much from the first dozen pages.
With kind remembrances to Mr. Lane, and love to the girls,
Yours as ever,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
[265] To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.
SHEFFIELD, Aug. 15, 1863.
MY DEAR BELLOWS,—Such a frolic breeze has not fallen upon these inland waters this good while. Complain of heat! Why, it is as good as champagne to you. Well, I shan't hesitate to write to you, for fear of adding to your overwhelming burdens. A pretty picture your letter is, of a man overwhelmed by burdens! And weigh a hundred and eighty! I can't believe it. Why, I never have weighed more than a hundred and seventy-six. Maybe you are an inch or two taller; and brains, I have often observed, weigh heavy; but yours at the top must be like a glass of soda-water! Nature did a great thing for you, when it placed that buoyant fountain within you. I have often thought so.
But let me tell you, my dear fellow, that with all the stupendous share you have had in the burdens of this awful time, you have not known, and without knowing can never conceive, of what has weighed upon me for the last nine months. . . . I thank you most heartily for your sympathy with C. After all, my satisfaction in what he has done is not so great as in what his letters, all along, show him to be. . . .
Always and affectionately your friend,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey.
SHEFFIELD, Nov. 28, 1863.
MY DEAR FRIENDS,—I received your letter, dated 20 September, two days ago. I am very sorry to see that you are laboring under the mistaken impression that I [266] have lost my son in the war. Something you misapprehended in-'s letter. You seem to suppose that it was Charles who used that striking language, "Is old Massachusetts dead? It is sweet to die for our country!" No; it was Lieutenant-Colonel O'Brien, who fell immediately afterwards. Charles was one of the storming party under O'Brien. He stepped forward at that call, for they had all hesitated a moment, as the call was unexpected; it came upon them suddenly. He behaved as well as if he had fallen; but, thank God, he is preserved to us, and, is among us in health, in these Thanksgiving days. All were around my table day before yesterday,—three children, with their mother, and three grandchildren.
To Mrs. David Lane.
SHEFFIELD, Dec. 29, 1863.
DEAR FRIEND,—Our life goes on as usual, though those drop from it that made a part of it. We strangely accustom ourselves to everything,—to war and bloodshed, to sickness and pain, to the death of friends; and that which was a bitter sorrow at first, sinks into a quiet sadness. And this not constant, but arising as occasions or trains of thought call it forth. Life is like a procession, in which heavy footsteps and gay equipages, and heat and dust, and struggle and laughter, and music and discord, mingle together. We move on with it all, and our moods partake of it all, and only the breaking asunder of the natural bonds and habitudes of living together (except it be of some especial heart-tie) makes affliction very deep and abiding, or sends us away from the great throng to sit and weep alone. Of friends, I [267] think I have suffered more from the loss of the living than of the dead.
I do not know but you will think that all this is very little like me. It certainly less belongs to the sad occasion that has suggested it than to any similar one that has ever occurred to me. I shall miss E. S. from my path more than any friend that has ever gone away from it into the unknown realm.
Oh! the unknown realm! Will the time ever come, when men will look into it, or have it, at least, as plainly spread before them as to the telescopic view is the landscape of the moon? I believe that I have as much faith in the future life as others,—perhaps more than most men,—but I am one of those who long for actual vision, who would
"See the Canaan that they love, With unbeclouded eyes."
But now what I have been saying reasserts its claim. The great procession moves on,—past the solemn bier, past holy graves. You are in it, and in these days your life is crowded with cares and engagements. . . . I wish I could do something for the Great Fair; [FN] but I am exhausted of all my means.
With my love to all around you, I am, as ever, Yours affectionately,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
[FN: The Great Fair, held in New York for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission, and of which Mrs. Lane was the chief manager and inspiring power.]
[268] To Rev. Henry Bellows, D.D. SHEFFIELD, Dec. 31, 1863.
. . . Ah! heaven,—what is rash or wise, shortsighted or far-seeing, too fast or too slow, upon the profound and terrible question, "What is to be done with slavery?" You have been saying something about it, and I rather think, if I could see it, that I should very much agree with you. Bryant and I had some correspondence about it a year ago, and I said to him; "If you expect this matter to be all settled up in any brief way, if you think that the social status of four millions of people is to be successfully placed on entirely new ground in five years, all historical experience is against you."
However, the real and practical question now is, How ought the Government to proceed? Upon what terms should it consent to receive back and recognize the Rebel States? I confess that I am sometimes tempted to go with a rush on this subject,—since so fair an opportunity is given to destroy the monster,—and to make it the very business and object of the war to sweep it out of existence. But that will be the end; and for the way, things will work out their own issues. And in the mean time I do not see that anything could be better than the cautious and tentative manner in which the President is proceeding.
One thing certainly has shaken my old convictions about the feasibility of immediate emancipation, and that is the experiment of emancipated labor on the Mississippi and about Port Royal. But the severest trial of emancipation, as of democracy,—that is, of freeing black men as of freeing white men,—may not be found at the start, but long after.
[269] To the Same.
SHEFFIELD, Feb. 12, 1864.
REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED, THOU AND THY PEOPLE,—We are so much indebted to you all for our four pleasant days in the great city, that I think we ought to write a letter to you. We feel as if we had come out of the great waters; the currents of city life run so strong, that it seems to us as if we had been at sea; so many tall galleys are there, and such mighty freights are upon the waves, and the captains and the very sailors are so thoroughly alive, that—that—how shall I end the sentence? Why, thus, if you please,—that it seems to me as if I ought to be there six months of the year, and that somebody ought to want me to do something that would bring me there. But somebody,—who is that? Why, nobody. You can't see him; you can't find him; Micawber never caught him, though he was hunting for him all his life,—always hoped the creature would turn up, though he never did.
Well, I 'm content. I am more, I am thankful. I have had, all my life, the greatest blessing of life,—leave to work on the highest themes and tasks, and I am not turned out, at the end, on to the bare common of the world, to starve. I have a family, priceless to me. I have many dear and good friends, and above all I have learned to draw nigh to a Friendship which embraces the universe in its love and care, if one may speak so of That which is almost too awful for mortal word. . . .
But leaving myself, and turning to you,—what a monstrous person you are! a prodigy of labor, and a prodigy in some other ways that I could point out. I always thought that the elastic spring in your nature was [270] one of the finest I ever knew, but I did not know that it was quite so strong. You, too, know of a faith that can remove mountains.
The Great Fair is one mountain. I hope you will get the "raffles" question amicably settled. There is the same tempest in the Sheffield teapot; for we have a fair on the 22d, and they have determined here that they won't have raffles.
What made you think that I "dread public prayers "? Did I say anything to you about it? If I did, I should not have used exactly the word "dread." The truth is, that state of the mind which is commonly called prayer becomes more and more easy, or at least inevitable to me; but the action has become so stupendous and awful to me, that I more and more desire the privacy in it of my own thoughts. "Prayers,"-"saying one's prayers," grows distasteful to me, and a Liturgy is less and less satisfying. Communion is the word I like better.
But I have touched too large a theme. With our love to E. and your lovely children, let me be,
Always your friend,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick.
SHEFFIELD, Feb. 22, 1864.
DEAR FRIEND,—You are not well; I know you are not, or you would have written to me; and indeed they told me so when I was in New York the other day. I wrote you a good (?) long letter about New Year's, which "the human race running upon our errands" (as Carlyle says) has delivered to you, unless in the confusion of these war times it has let said letter drop out of [271]its pocket. That many-membered body, according to this account of it, has a good deal to do with us; and, do you know, I find great help by merging myself in the human race. It has taken a vast deal of worry to wash and brush it into neatness, and to train it to order, virtue, and sanctity; why should I not have my share in the worry and weariness and trouble? Many have been sick and suffering,—all mankind more or less; why should not I be? All the human generations have passed away from the world; Walter Scott died; Prescott died; Charles Dewey, of Indiana, died; E. S. has died; who am I, that I should ask to remain?
E.'s passing away was very grand and noble,—so cheerful, so natural,—so full of intelligence and fuller of trust,—this earthly land to her but a part of the Great Country that lies beyond. She left such an impression upon her family and friends, that they hardly yet mourn her loss as they will; they feel as if she were still of them and with them. . . .
All my people love you, as does
Your friend,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.
SHEFFIELD, May 1, 1864.
THANK your magnificence! Perhaps I ought to say your misericordia, for Charles says you wrote to him that you knew I should n't have those grapes unless you sent them to me. And I am afraid it's true; for I have had such poor success in my poor grape-culture, that I had about given up in despair.
[272] Nonetheless, I have had these set out, according to the best of my judgment, in the best place I could find in the open garden, and I will have a trellis or something for them to run upon; and then they may do as they have a mind to.
I have delayed to acknowledge the receipt of the grape-roots,—Charles is n't to blame, I told him I would write,—because I waited for the cider to come, that wife and I might overwhelm you with a joint letter of thanks, laudation, and praise. But I can wait no longer. That is, the cider does n't come, and I begin to think it is a myth. Poets, you know, deal in such. They imagine, they idealize, nay, it is said they create; and if we were poets, I suppose we should before now have as good as drank some of that Long Island champagne. Speaking of poets reminds me that I did n't tell you how charmed I was with those translations from the Odyssey; the blank verse is so simple, clear, and exquisite, so I think.
To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick.
SHEFFIELD, May 5, 1864.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—Dear B. did you no wrong, and me much right, in giving me to read a letter of yours to her, written more than a month ago, which impressed me more and did me more good than any letter I have read this long time. It was that in which you spoke of Mr. Choate. It was evidently written with effort and with interruptions,—it was not like your finished, though unstudied letters, of which I have in my garner a goodly sheaf; but oh! my friend, take me into your [273] realm, your frame of mind, your company, wherever it shall be. The silent tide is bearing us on. May it never part, but temporarily, my humble craft from your lovely sail, which seems to gather all things sweet and balmy-affections, friendships, kindnesses, touches and traits of humanity, hues and fragrances of nature, blessings of providence and beatitudes of life—into its perfumed bosom.
You will think I have taken something from Choate. What a strange, Oriental, enchanted style he has! What gleams of far-off ideas, flashes from the sky, essences from Arabia, seem unconsciously to drop into it! I have been reading him, in consequence of what you wrote. It is strange that with all his seeking for perfection in this kind he did not succeed better. But it would seem that his affluent and mysterious genius could not be brought to walk in the regular paces. He was certainly a very extraordinary person. I understand better his generosity, candor, amiableness, playfulness. I understand what you mean by the resemblance between him and your brother Charles. With constant love of us all,
Yours ever,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To Mrs. David Lane.
SHEFFIELD, Sept. 3, 1864.
DEAR FRIEND,—. . . Mrs. _ reported you very much occupied with documents, papers, letters, and what not, on matters connected with the Sanitary. I should like to have you recognize that there are other people who need to be healed and helped besides soldiers; and that there are other interests beside public ones to be looked after. Are not all interests individual interests in [274] the "last analysis," as the philosophers say? But I am afraid you don't believe in analysis at all. Generality, combination, is everything with you. One part of the human race is rolled up into a great bundle of sickness, wounds, and misery; and the other is nothing but a benevolent blanket to be wrapped round it. And if any one thread—videlicet I—should claim to have any separate existence or any little tender feeling by itself, immediately the manager of the Great Sanitary Fair says, "Hush! lie down! you are nothing but a part of the blanket." But a truce to nonsense. Since writing the foregoing, the news has come from Atlanta. Oh! if Grant could do the same thing to Lee's army, not only would the Rebellion be broken, but the Copperhead party would be scattered to the winds! Do you read anything this summer but reports from Borrioboola Gha? The best book I have read—Ticknor's "Prescott," Alger's "Future Life," Furness's "Veil Partly Lifted," etc., notwithstanding—is De Tocqueville's "Ancient Regime and the Revolution."
Your old friend,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To the Same.
Nov. 9, 1864.
CHARMING! I will be as bad as I can. Talk about being "useful to the world"! If the people that do the most good, or get it to be clone,—same thing,—are to be sought for, are n't they the wicked ones? Where had been the philanthropists, heroes, martyrs, but for them? [275] Where had been Clark, and Wilberforce, but for the slave-catchers? Where Howard, but for cruel sailors? Where Brace, but for naughty boys? Where our noble President of the Sanitary, but for the wicked Rebels? And how should I ever have known that Mrs. Lane was capable of such a fine and eloquent indignation, if, instead of being a bad boy, "neglecting the opportunities" thrown in my way, I had been just a good sort of middle-aged man, "in the prime of life," doing as I ought? Really, there ought to be a society got up to make bad people,—they are so useful! I heard a man say of Bellows, the other day in the cars, "He is a noble man!" And it was an Orthodox, formerly a member and elder of Dr. Spring's church. And what do you think he said to me? "Don't you remember me?"—"No."—"Don't you remember when you were a young man, in Dodge Sayre's bookstore, that Jasper Corning and I set up a Sunday-school for colored people in Henry Street, and that you taught in it for several months? And a good teacher you were, too." Not a bit of it. Oh, dear me! I hope there are some other good things which I have done in the world that I don't remember. "A grand sermon," you heard last Sunday, hey? And then went to the "Century" Rooms, to see the decorations of the Bryant Festival! It seems to me that was rather a queer thing to do, after sermon! You will have to write a letter to me immediately, to relieve my anxieties about your religious education. Was the text, "And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt sacrifices and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play "? See the same, Exodus xxxii. 6. [276] There! I am not in deep waters, you see, but skimming on the surface, except when I subscribe myself your abused, scolded, but
Faithful friend,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
My wife and people send their love and dire indignation to you.
To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick.
SHEFFIELD, Dec. 12, 1864.
. . . It is not pleasant to think upon death. It would not be pleasant to any company of friends to think that the hour for parting was near. Death is a solemn and painful dispensation. I will have no hallucination about it. I "wait the great teacher, Death." I do not welcome it. It is a solemn change. It is a dread change to natures like ours. I do not believe that the Great Disposer meant that we should approach it with a smile, with an air of triumph,—with any other than feelings of lowly submission and trust. I do not want to die. I never knew anybody that did, except when bitter pain or great and irremediable unhappiness made the release welcome. And yet, I would not remain forever in this world. And thus, like the Apostle, "I am in a strait betwixt two." And I believe that it is better to depart; but it is a kind of reluctant conclusion. It may be even cheerful; but it does not make it easy for me to tear myself from all the blessed ties of life. I submit to God's awful will; but it is with a struggle of emotions, that is itself painful and trying,—that tasks all the fortitude and faith of which I am capable. [277] Will you tell me that our Christian masters and martyrs spoke of a "victory" over death? Yes, but is victory all joy? Ah, what a painful thing is every victory of our arms in these bloody battles, though we desire it! Do you feel that I am not writing to you in the high Christian strain? Perhaps not. But I confess I am accustomed to bring all that is taught me—all that is said in exceptional circumstances like those of the apostles-into some adjustment with a natural, necessary, and universal experience. Besides, Jesus himself did not approach death with a song of triumph upon his lips. What a union, in him, of sorrow and trust! No defying of pain, no boasting of calmness or strength, no braving of martyrdom,—not half so fine and grand, to a worldly and superficial view, as many a martyr's death! But oh, what a blending in him of everything that makes perfection,—of pain and patience, of trial and trust! But I am writing too long a letter for you to read. . . . K. just came into my study, and says, "Do give my love." I answer, "I give all our love always." So I do now; and with the kindest regards to all around you, I am, as ever,
Most affectionately your friend,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.
SHEFFIELD, Jan. 7, 1865.
THANKS for a beautiful record of a beautiful festival [At the "Century," New York, Nov. 5, 1864, in honor of Mr. Bryant's seventieth birthday.] to a beautiful—but enough of this. You must have [278] had a surfeit. 'T was all right and due, but it must have been a hard thing to bear,—to be so praised to your very face. . . . Your reply was admirable,—simple, modest, quiet, graceful,—in short, I don't see how it could be better. For the rest, I think our cousin Waldo chiselled out the nicest bit of praise that was done on the occasion.
To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.
SHEFFIELD, Feb. 24, 1865.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—I was intending to write to you ten days ago, and should have done so before now, but my mind has been engrossed with a great anxiety and sorrow; my grandson and namesake was taken with a fever, which went to the brain, and he died last Monday evening. I cannot tell you—you could hardly believe what an affliction it has been to me. He was five years old, a lovely boy, and, I think, of singular promise,—of a fine organization, more than beautiful, and with a mind inquiring into the causes and reasons of things, such as I have rarely seen. . . . We meant to educate this boy; I hoped that he would bear up my name. God's will be done!
It was of the coming Convention that I was going to write to you; but now, just now, I have no heart for it. But I feel great interest in the movement. Would that it were possible to organize the Unitarian Church of America,—to take this great cause out of the hands of speculative dispute, and to put it on the basis of a working institution. To find a ground of union out of which may spring boundless freedom of thought,—is it impossible? I should like to see a church which could embrace and embody all sects.
[279]To his Daughter Mary.
SHEFFIELD, April 11, 1865.
. . . BUT I feel as if it were profane to speak of common things in these blessed days. Did you observe what the papers say about the manner in which they received the Great News yesterday in New York [The surrender of the Rebel army],—not with any loud ebullition of joy, but rather with a kind of religious silence and a gratitude too deep for utterance? And I see that they propose to celebrate, not with fireworks and firing of cannon, but with an illumination,—the silent shining out of joy from every house. Last evening the locomotive of the freight train expressed itself in a singular way. Not shutting its whistle when it left the station, it went singing all down through the valley. For my part, I feel a solemn joy, as if I had escaped some great peril, only that it is multiplied by being that of millions.
To Rev. Henry W Bellows, D.D.
SHEFFIELD, April 15, 1865.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—We used to think that life in our country, under our simple republican regime and peaceful order, was tame and uneventful; given over to quiet comfort and prosaic prosperity; never startled by anything more notable than a railroad disaster or a steamer burnt at sea. Events that were typified by the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood, and stars falling from heaven,—distress of nations with perplexity of men's hearts, failing them for fear,—all this seemed to belong to some far-off country and time.
[280] But it has come to us. God wills that we should know all that any nation has known, of whatever disciplines men to awe and virtue. The bloody mark upon the lintel, for ten thousands of first-born slain,—the anxiety and agony of the struggle for national existence,—the tax-gatherer taking one fourth part of our livelihood, and a deranged currency nearly one half of the remainder,—four years of the most frightful war known in history,—and then, at the very moment when our hearts were tremulous with the joy of victory, and every beating pulse was growing stiller and calmer in the blessed hope of peace, then the shock of the intelligence that Lincoln and Seward, our great names borne up on the swelling tide of the nation's gratulation and hope, have fallen, in the same hour, under the stroke of the assassin,—these are the awful visitations of God!. . . As I slowly awake to the dreadful truth, the question that presses upon me—that presses upon the national heart—is, what is to become of us? If the reins of power were to fall into competent hands, we could take courage. But when, in any view, we were about to be cast upon a troubled sea, requiring the most skilful and trusted pilots, what are we to do without them? Monday morning, 17th. Why should I send you this,—partly founded on mistake, for later telegrams lead us to hope that Mr. Seward will survive,—and reading, too, more like a sermon than a letter? But my thoughts could run upon nothing else but these terrible things; and, sitting at my desk, I let my pen run, not merely dash down things on the paper, as would have been more natural. But for these all-absorbing horrors, I should have [281] written you somewhat about the Convention. It was certainly a grand success. I regretted only one thing, and that was that the young men went away grieved and sad. . . . I think, too, that what they asked was reasonable. That is, if both wings were to fly together, and bear on the body, no language should have been retained in the Preamble which both parties could not agree to. But no more now. Love to your wife and A. Yours ever,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To Mrs. David Lane.
SHEFFIELD, Ally 19, 1865.
BE it known to you, my objurgatory friend, that I have finished a sermon this very evening,—a sermon of reasonings, in part, upon this very matter on which you speak; that is, the difference of opinion in the Convention. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Radicalism and Conservatism. The Convention took the ground that both, as they exist in our body, could work together; it accepted large contributions in money from both sides, and it is not necessary to decide which side is right, in order to see that a statement of faith should have been adopted in which both could agree. I was glad, for my part, to find that the conservative party was so strong. I distrust the radical more than I do the conservative tendencies in our church; still I hope we are too just, not to say liberal, to hold that mere strength can warrant us in doing any wrong to the weaker party. [282] To be sure, if I thought, as I suppose—and—do, that the radical ground was fatal to Christianity, I should oppose it in the strongest way. But the Convention did not assume that position. On the contrary, it said, "Let us co-operate; let us put our money together, and work together as brethren." Then we should not have forced a measure through to the sore hurt and pain of either party.
As to the main question between them,—how Jesus is to be regarded, whether simply as the loftiest impersonation of wisdom and goodness, or as having a commission and power to save beyond that and different from it,—one may not be sure. But of this I am sure, that he who takes upon his heart the living impression of that divinest life and love is saved in the noblest sense. And I do not see but there is as much of this salvation in those young men as in those who repel and rebuke them.
There! let that sheet go by itself. Alas! the question with me is not which of them is right, but whether I am right,—and that in something far more vital than opinion. It does seem as if one who has lived as long as I have, ought to have overcome all his spiritual foes; but I do not find it so. I feel sometimes as if I were only struggling harder and harder with all the trying questions, both speculative and spiritual, that press upon our mortal frame and fate.
To Miss Catherine ill Sedgwick.
SHEFFIELD, Dec. 31, 1865.
. . . I AM talking of myself, when I am thinking more of you, and how it is with you in these winter days, the [283] last of the year. I hope that they do not find you oppressed with weakness or suffering; and if they do not, I am sure that your spirit is alert and happy, and that the bright snow-fields and the lovely meteor of beauty that hangs in the air in such a morning as this was, are as charming to you as they ever were. It is-a delight to your friends to know that all things lovely are, if possible, more lovely to you than ever. Are there not bright rays shining through our souls,—streaming from the Infinite Light,—that make us feel that they are made to grow brighter and brighter forever? Ah! our confidence in immortality must be this feeling, and never a thing to be reasoned out by any logical processes.
Jan. 1, 1866. I have stepped, you see, from the old year to the new. I wish all the good wishes to you, and take them from you in return as surely as if you uttered them.
This year is to be momentous to us, if for no other reason, that K. is to be married. And we are to be no more together much, perhaps, in this world. It is an inconceivable wrench in my existence. This marrying is the cruellest thing; and it is a perfect wonder and mystery of Providence that parents give in to it as they do.
To Rev. Henry W Bellows, D.D.
SHEFFIELD, Feb. 20, 666.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—I wonder if you can understand how happy I am in my nook,—you who have so much of another sort of happiness, but not this, (no nook for you!) with my winter's task done, "with none to hurt nor destroy," that is, my time, "in all the holy [284] mountain," that is, the Taghkonic. Dear old Taghkonic,—quiet, happy valley,—blessed, undisturbed fireside,-what contrast could be greater than New York to all this! "Ahem! not so fast, my friend," say you; "other places are blessed and happy besides valleys and mountains." Yes, I know. And I confess my late experience inclines me to think that, for the mind's health and sharpening, cities are desirable places to be in, for a part of the year, notwithstanding all the notwithstandings. Of course, strong and collected thought works free and clear everywhere, or tends that way; but it did seem to me that the whirl of the great maelstrom left but few people in a condition to think, or to form well-considered opinions, or to meditate much upon anything. Yes, I know it,—"The mind is its own place," (nothing was ever better said), and it may be fretted and frittered away to nothing in country quiet, and it may be strong and calm and full in the city throng. . . . And more and more do I feel that this nature of mine is the deep ground-warrant for faith in God and immortality. Everywhere in the creation there is a proportion between means and ends,—between all natures and their destinies. And can it be that my soul, which, in its few days' unfolding, is already stretching ()LA its hands to God and to eternity, and which has all its being and welfare wrapped up in those sublime verities, is made to strive and sigh for them in vain, to stretch out its hands to—nothing? This day rises upon us fair and beautiful,—the precursor, [285] I believe, of endless days. If not, I would say with Job, "Let it be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it; for darkness and the shadow of death stain it." But what a different staining was upon it this morning! As I looked out upon the mountain just before sunrise, it showed like a mountain-rose blossoming up out of the earth,—covered all over with the deepest rose-color. . . .
Ever your friend,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To the Same.
SHEFFIELD, March 12, 1866.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—I should like to know whether you propose, from your own pen, to provide me with all my reading. Look which way I will,—towards the "Inquirer," the "Monthly," or the "Examiner,"—and H. W. B. is coming at me with an article, and sometimes with both hands full. You must write like a horse in full gallop. And yet you don't seem to. Those articles in the "Examiner," and the letter in the "Inquirer," seem to be thoroughly well considered; the breadth of view in them, the penetration, the candor and fairness, the sound judgment, please me exceedingly. Only one thing I questioned; and that is, putting the plea for universal suffrage on the ground that it is education for the people. One might ask if it were well to put a ship in the hands of the crew because it would be a good school for them. And looking at our popular elections, one, may doubt whether they are a good school. I should be inclined to say that if the people could consent that only property holders who could read [286] and write should vote, it would be better. But they will not consent; we are on the popular tide, and suffrage must be universal, and the freedmen eventually must and will have the franchise.
But with the general strain of your writing I agree entirely. What you say of the exceptional character of the Southern treason is true, and it has not been so distinctly nor so well said before. I had thought the same myself, and, of course, you must be right! Yet we must take care lest the concession go too far. Treason must forever be branded as the greatest of crimes. It aims not to murder a man, but a people. And as to opinion and conscience, I suppose all traitors have an opinion and a conscience.
I have read this time the whole of the "Examiner," which I seldom do. It is all very good and satisfactory. Osgood's article on Robertson is excellent; it appreciates him and his time. One laments that his mind had so hard a lot; but every real man must, in one way or another, fight a great battle. . . . Especially I feel indebted to Abbot's article. Truly he 'says, that the great question of the coming days is,—theism, or atheism? Not whether Jesus is our Master, the chief among men, but whether the God in whom Jesus believed really exists; and, by consequence, whether the immortality which lay open to his vision is but a dream of weary and burdened humanity? Herbert Spencer believes in no such God and Father, and his religion, which he vaunts so much, is but a hard and cold abstraction. On other subjects he is a great writer; and in his volume of essays there is not one which is not marked with strong and original thought. It is a prodigious intellect, certainly, and struggling hard with the greatest questions. [287] May it find its way out to light! Thus far its light is, to my thinking, the profoundest darkness. With our house's love to your house,
Yours ever,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick.
SHEFFIELD, March 28, 1866.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—To-day I am seventy-two years old. If I write to any one to-day, it must be to some one whose friendship is nearly as old as myself. Looking about me, I find no such one but you. Fifty years I have known you. Fifty years ago, and more, I saw you in your father's house; and charming as you were to my sight then, you have never—youth's loveliness set at defiance—been less so since. Forty years I think I have known you well. Thirty years we have been friends; and that word needs no epithet nor superlative to make it precious. This morning I called my wife to come and sit down by me, saying, "I will read you an old man's Idyl." And I read that in the March number of the "Atlantic." I believe Holmes wrote it; but whoever did, it is beautiful, and more than that it was to us—for it was true.
The greatest disappointment that I meet in old age is that I am not so good as I expected to be, nor so wise. I am ashamed to say that I was never so dissatisfied with myself as I am now. It seems as if it could not be a right state of things. My ideal of old age has been something very different. And yet seventy years is still within the infancy of the immortal life and progress. Why should it not say with the Apostle, "Not as though [288] I had attained, neither were already perfect." I can say with him, in some respects, "I have fought a good fight." I have fought through early false impressions of religion. I have fought through many life problems. I have fought, in these later years, through Mansel and Herbert Spencer, as hard a battle as I have ever had. But I have come, through all, to the most rooted conviction of the Infinite Rectitude and Goodness. Nothing, I think, can ever shake me from this,-that all is well, and shall be forever, whatever becomes of me. . . . Ever your friend,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To Mrs. David Lane.
SHEFFIELD, July 9, 1866.
DEAR FRIEND,—I am etonne, as the French have it; at least Moliere and Corneille—whom I have been reading by and large of late, having read all the new things I could get hold of-are continually having their personages etonned. Or, I feel like Dominie Sampson, and say, "Pro-di-gi-ous!" Not as he said it to Meg Merrilies, but rather to Miss Julia Mannering, when he was confounded with her vivacity. What! two letters to my one! I do believe you are going to be literary.
And then,—was ever seen such an ambitious woman! Reading Mill, and going to read Herbert Spencer! And I suppose Kant will come next. But bravo! I say. I am very much pleased with you. And don't say, "I wish,—but what 's the use!" You are through with the great absorbing mother's cares, and can undertake studies, and I believe there is no study so worthy of our attention as our literature. I confess that I have come [289] to a somewhat new thought of this matter of late. What is there on the earth upon which we stand,—what is there that offers to help us, to lift and build us up, that can compare with the productions of the greatest minds which are gathered up in our literature? Whether we would study human nature or the Nature Divine,-whether we would study religion, science, nature in the world around us, in the life within us,—these are the lights that shine upon our path. For those who have time to read, it seems a deplorable mistake not to turn their thoughts distinctly to what the greatest minds have said; that is, upon as many subjects as they can compass.
If I were to undertake anything in the way of education, I would set up in New York an Institute of English Literature. I do not know but—might do something of the kind,—have a house and receive classes that should come once or twice in a week and read in the mean time under her direction, and teach them by reading to them, by commenting, talking, pointing out and opening up to them the best things in the best authors, the poets, the essayists, the historians, the fiction-writers, and thus making them acquainted with the finest productions of the English mind; and, what is better, inspiring them with an enthusiasm and taste for pursuing, for reading such things, instead of sensation novels and such stuff.
Moliere and Corneille have struck me much on this reading,—the first with the tenuity of his thought, the slender thread on which he weaves his entertaining and life-like drama, making it to live through the ages simply by sticking to nature, making his personages speak so naturally; and the second, with the real dramatic [290] grandeur of his genius. I feel that I have never done justice to Corneille before, I have been so dissatisfied with the formal rhyme, the want of the natural dramatic play of language in his work, the stilted rhetoric. And when I heard Rachel in the Cid, I thought, by the rapid, undramatic way in which she hurried through his declamations, while, in a few exclamatory bursts, she swept everything before her, that she justified my criticism. But this was the misfortune of Corneille; he walked in shackles imposed by the taste of his time. Yet it was a lofty stride. I am particularly struck with his grand moral ideals. I wish I had a good life of him. He must have been a good man. Like Beethoven and Michael Angelo, he does not seem to have liked flattery, court, or ceremony. But I guess that is the case with most men of the higher genius. . . .
As ever,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To Miss Catherine M. Sea'gwitk.
SHEFFIELD, Aug. 27, 1866.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—It is some time since I have written to you, and I am almost afraid you are glad of it, not having to answer. You must acknowledge, however, that I have always offered you the easiest terms of exchange; two for one, three, four, anything you liked. . . . I have been lately with Mr. Bryant, in his great affliction, staying with my sisters, who occupy one of his cottages, but spending all the time I could with him. It was very sad,—talking upon many things as we did, and much upon those things that were pressing upon his mind, for he felt that he was losing his chief earthly [291] treasure. His wife was that to him, by her simplicity, her simple truthfulness, her perfect sincerity and heart-earnestness, latterly of a very religious character, and by her good judgment also; he told me that he always consulted her upon everything he published, and found that her opinion was always confirmed by that of the public, that is, as to the relative merit of his writings. He was bound to her the more, because his ties of close affection with others are so very few. Sometimes he could not repress his tears in our talking; and they told me that in the morning, when he went to her bedside, he often sat weeping, saying, "You have been suffering all night, and I have been sleeping." In the last days she longed to depart, and often said to him, "You must let me go; I want to go" And so she went, peacefully to her rest.
We have had a very pleasant visit from Mr. R. . . . His visits are always a great pleasure to us, both for the talk we have, and the music. It is really a great thing to know anything as he knows music. As I listened to him last evening, I could not help feeling that I knew nothing as he knows that, and thinking that if there are infant schools in the next world, I should certainly be put into one of them.
I hope the weather will allow you to sit often on the piazza in the coming month. It is what we have not been able to do in the present month at all,—by a fire, rather, in the parlor, half the time.
. . . With our affectionate remembrances to those around you, hold me to be, as ever,
Yours, ORVILLE DEWEY.
[292] To his Daughter Mary.
ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 28, 1866.
DEAREST MOLLY,—I have the pleasure to be seated at my desk to write to you, in my new gown and slippers, and with my new sermon, finished, before me. A "combination and a form," indeed, but I say no more. "But how is the sermon?" you 'll say. Why, as inimitable as the writer. But really, I think it is worth something. I did think, indeed, when I took my pen, that I could write a stronger argument for immortality than I ever saw, that is, in any one sermon or thesis. And if I have failed entirely, and shall come to think so, as is very likely, it will be no worse, doubtless, than my presumption deserved. You and K., who are satisfied with your spiritual instincts, would think it no better, probably, than a belt of sand to bolster up a mountain. Well, every one must help himself as he can. This meditation certainly has strengthened my own faith in the immortal life.
I should like to go to church with you this morning, where you are probably going; but the places are very few where I should want to go. More and more do all public services dissatisfy me,—all devout utterances, my own included. Communion with the Highest, with the Unseen and Unspeakable, seems to me to consist of breathings, not words, and requires a freedom of all thoughts and feelings,—of awe and wonder, of adoration and thanksgiving, of meditations and of stirrings of the deeps within us, such as can with difficulty be brought into a regular prayer.
[293] To the Same.
Nov. 21, 1866.
THE last "Register" has a sermon in it of Abbot's upon the Syracuse Conference, which I thought so excellent, that I told the editor it was itself worth a quarter's payment. Your mother admires it, too. Though she has no sympathy, as you well know, with Abbot's Left-Wing views, her righteous nature warmly takes part with his argument. The fact is, the Conference is wrong. If it expects the young men to act with it, it should adopt a platform on which they can conscientiously and comfortably stand. The conduct of the majority, in my opinion, is inconsistent and ungenerous. Either take ground upon which all can stand,—and I think there is such ground,—or else say to the ultra-liberals, "We cannot consent that any part of our common means shall be used for the spread of your views, influence, and preaching, and we must part."
To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.
ST. DAVID'S, March 20, 1867.
COME up here, my anxious friend, and I'll read my Concio to you; for it is written, as I preferred to do, before the warm and cold, wet and dry meslin of April weather comes, which always breaks me up in my studies. I will read it to you, and I rather think you will like it. . . . But do not make yourself uneasy. There will be nothing in the address of what you call "a defection to the radical side," simply because, in opinion, I cannot take that ground. I do not and cannot give up the miraculous element in Christianity. But I [294] embrace our whole denomination in my sympathies and do not think our differences so important as you do. That religion has its roots in our nature, if that is radicalism, I strongly hold and always have. And in its development and culture I have never given that exclusive place to Christianity that many do. I confess that I always disliked and resisted the utterances of the extreme conservatives on this point, more than those of their opponents. So you see that M. was mainly right. And certainly I think the minority in the Conference has had hard measure from the majority; and I liked Abbot's sermon as much as you heard I did.
Yours ever,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To Mrs. David Lane.
ST. DAVID'S, April 14, 1867.
DEAR FRIEND,—Why should I write to you about the things you speak of in your letter which crossed mine? How vain to attempt to discuss such matters on note-paper!
But, without discussing, I will tell you, in few words, what I think.
The vitality of the Christian religion lies deeper than the miraculous element in it. The miraculous is but an attestation to that. That is authority to me. The authority of God is more clearly and unquestionably revealed to me, than in anything else, in the inborn spiritual convictions of my nature, without which, indeed, I could not understand Christianity, nor anything else religious. These convictions accord with the deepest truths of Christianity, else I could not receive it. Jesus has strengthened, elevated, and purified these natural [295] convictions in such a way,—by such teachings, by such a life, by such an unparalleled beauty of character,-that I believe God has breathed a grace into his soul that he never-has [given] in the same measure and perfection to any other. Effects must have causes, and such an effect seems to me fairly to indicate such a cause.
But there are those who cannot take this view; who look upon the gospel as simply the best exposition of national religion ever given, without any other breath of inspiration upon the record than such as was breathed upon the pages of Plato or Epictetus. Now, if they went further, and disowned the very spirit of Jesus, rejected the very essence of the gospel, certainly they would not be Christians. But this they do not; on the contrary, they reverently and heartily accept it, and seek to frame their lives upon this model. Am I to hold such persons as outcasts from the Christian fold, to refuse them my sympathy, to accord them only my "pity "? Certainly, I can take no such ground.
The peculiarities of certain individuals—the "cold abstractions" of one, and the rash utterances of another—have nothing essentially to do with the case; nor has the hurt they may be thought to do to our Unitarian cause anything to do with the essential truth of things. Nor do I know that extreme Radicalism does us any more harm than extreme Conservatism. I belong to neither extreme; and my business is, without regard to public cause or private reputation, to keep, as far as I can, my own mind right.
The fact is, you are so conservative on every subject,—society, politics, medicine, religion,—that it is very difficult for you to do justice to the radical side. But consider that such men as Martineau, Bartol, Stebbins, [296] Ames, and Abbot are mainly on that side, and that it will not do to cast about scornful or pitying words concerning such. As to _ I give him up to you, for I don't like his writing any better than you do.
I think the great Exposition which you are soon to see may give you a liberalizing hint. There, the industry of all nations will be exhibited. All are bent, honestly and earnestly, upon one point,—the development of the human energies in that direction. And it will infer nothing against their good character, or their titles to sympathy and respect, that they differ more or less with regard to the modes and means of arriving at the end.
Well, you will go before I come to New York. God bless and keep you, and bring you safely back!
Ever your friend,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
There are some passages in an unpublished sermon, preached by my father at Church Green, in 1858, which I will quote presently, as illustrative of the same tone of thought shown in these letters. His clinging to the miraculous element in the life of Jesus, while refusing to base any positive authority upon it, is equally characteristic of him, arising from the caution, at once reverent and intellectual, which made him extremely slow to remove any belief, consecrated by time and affection, till it was proved false and dangerous, and from his thorough conviction that every man stands or falls by so much of the Infinite Light and Love as he is able to receive directly into his being. He was conservative by [297] feeling, and radical by thought, and the two wrought in him a grand charity of judgment, far above what is ordinarily called toleration.
These are the extracts referred to:
"Society as truly as nature, nay, as truly as the holy church, is a grand organism for human culture. I say emphatically,—as truly as the holy church; for we are prone to take a narrow view of man's spiritual growth, and to imagine that there is nothing to help it, out of the pale of Christianity. We make a sectarism of our Christian system, even as the Jews did of the Hebrew, though ours was designed to break down all such narrow bounds; so that I should not wonder if some one said to me,—Are you preaching the Christian religion when you thus speak of nature and society?' And I answer, 'No; I am speaking of a religion elder than the Christian.' . . .
"There was a righteousness, then, before and beside the Christian. Am I to be told that Socrates and Plato, and Marcus Antoninus and Boethius, had no right culture, no religion, no rectitude? and they were cast upon the bosom of nature and of society for their instruction, and of that light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.'"
To his Daughter Mary.
ST. DAVID'S, Sept. 20, 1867.
. . . THINK of my having read the whole of Voltaire's "Henriade" last week! But think especially of eminent French critics, and Marmontel among them (in the preface), praising it to the stars, saying that some of the [298] passages are superior to Homer and Virgil! However, it is really better than I expected, and I read on, partly from curiosity and partly for the history. The French would have been very glad to find it an epic worthy of the name, for they have n't one. Voltaire frankly confesses that the French have not a genius for great poetry,—too much in love, he says, with exactness and elegance.
I have—read—through—"Very Hard Cash;" and very hard it is to read. Reade has some pretty remarkable powers,—powers of description and of characterization; but the moment he touches the social relations, and should be dramatic, he is struck with total incapacity. Indeed, what one novelist has been perfect in dialogue, making each person say just what he should and nothing else, but glorious Sir Walter?
To the Same.
SHEFFIELD, Sept. 20, 1867.
DEAR MARY,—"Live and learn." Next time, if it ever come, I shall put up peaches in a little box by themselves. But the fact is, peaches can't travel, unless they are plucked so early as nearly to spoil them of all their "deliciarunz,"—which we are enjoying in those we eat here. And Bryant with us,—fruity fellow that he is!—I am glad we have some good fruit to give him. Yesterday we had a very good cantelope, and pears are on hand all the while. I am sorry that I could not get the pears to you just in eating condition, and the Hurlbut apples too; but they'll all come right.
Yes, fruity,—that 's what Bryant is; but rather of the quality of dried fruits,—not juicy, still less gushing, but [299] with a good deal of concentrated essence in him (rather "frosty, but kindly "), exuding often in little bits of poetical quotations, fitly brought in from everywhere, and of which there seems to be no end in his memory.
The woods are beginning to show lovely bits of color, but the great burden of leaves remains untouched. Bryant and I walked out to the Pine Grove, and on to Sugar-Maple Hill. Your mother admires him for his much walking; but I insist that he is possessed and driven about by a demon. . . . By the bye, just keep that "article" for me; I have no other copy. Bryant commended it, and said he thought the argument against the Incomprehensible's being totally unintelligible, was new.
To his Daughter, Mrs. C.
ST. DAVID'S, July 22, 1868.
DEAR KATE,—I am going to have no more to do with the weather. You need n't expostulate with me. It 's no use talking. My mind is made up. You may tell M. so. It will be hardest for her to believe it. She has partaken with me in that infirmity of noble minds,—a desire to look through the haze of this mundane atmospheric environment, and predict the future. But, alas I there is an infirmity of vision; we see through a glass darkly. We can't see through a millstone. The firmament has been very like that, for some days,—all compact with clouds. We thought something was grinding for us. "Now it is coming!" we said last evening. But no. It was no go,—or no come, rather. And this morning, at the breakfast table, sitting up [300] there, clothed, and in my right mind, I said to my sister, "I am not a-going to predict about the weather any more!"
Ask my dear M., pray her, to try to come up to the height of that great resolution. I know the difficulty,-the strain to which it will put all her faculties; but ask her, implore her, to try.
To his Daughters, then living in London Terrace, New York.
1868.
Sr. DAVID'S sends a challenge to all the Terrace birds.
Show us a bird that sings in the night. We have a nightingale,—a bird that has sung, for two evenings past, between ten and twelve, as gayly as the nightingales of Champel. It is the cat-bird, the same that comes flying and pecking at our windows. What has come over the little creature? I suppose the season of nest-building and incubation is one of great excitement,—the bird's honeymoon. And then, the full moon shining down, and the nights warm as summer, and thoughts of the nice new house and the pretty eggs, and the chicks that are coming,—it could not contain itself.
Well, as I sit in my porch and look at the birds, they seem to me a revelation, as beautiful, if not so profound, as the Apocalypse. What but Goodness could have made a creature at once so beautiful and so happy? Mansel and Spencer may talk about the incomprehensibility of the First Cause; I say, here is manifestation. The little Turdus Felivox,—oho! ye ignorant children, that is he of the cat,—it sits on the bough, ten feet from me, and sings and trills and whistles, and sends [301] out little jets of music, little voluntaries, as if it were freely and irrepressibly singing a lovely hymn.
This morning there is the slightest little drizzle, a mere tentative experimenting towards rain, no more,-I keep to facts. Well, all the township is saying, no doubt, "Now it is coming!" Catch me a-doing so! I was left to say, in an unguarded moment, "If C. had mowed his meadow two or three days ago, he would have got it all in dry." I feel a little guilty. I am afraid that incautious observation was the nuance of the shadow of an intimation of an opinion, bearing the faintest adumbration of a prediction: I am sorry for it. I am very sorry. I ought to have kept my lips shut. I ought to have put sealing-wax upon them the moment I got up. I won't,—I won't speak one word again.
Yours, wet or dry,
O. D
To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.
ST. DAVID'S, July 27, 1868.
FRIEND BRYANT,—I am a Quaker. I have just joined the sect. Thee won't believe it, because thee will think I lack the calmness and staidness that fit me for it. But I am a Quaker of the Isaac T. Hopper sort; though, alas! here the resemblance fails also, for I do no good. Dear me! I wish sometimes that I could have been one of the one-sided men; it is so easy to run in one groove! and it 's all the fashion in these days. But, avaunt expediency! Let me stick to my principles, and be a rounded mediocrity, pelted on every hand, and pleasing [302] nobody. By the bye, Mrs. Gibbons [Mrs. James Gibbons of New York, daughter of Isaac T. Hopper] I has just sent me a fine medallion of her, father, beautifully mounted. It is a remarkable face, for its massive strength and the fun that is lurking in it. Hopper might have been a great man in any other walk,—the statesman's, the lawyer's; he was, in his own.
. . . I want to say something, through the "Post," of the abominable nuisance of the railroad whistle. I wrote once while you were gone, and Nordhoff (how do you spell him?) did n't publish my letter, but only introduced some of it in a paragraph of his own. If I write again, I shall want your imprimatur. This horrible shriek, which tears all our nerves to pieces, and the nerves of all the land, except Cummington and such lovely retirements, is altogether unnecessary; a lower tone would answer just as well. It does on the Hudson River Road.
To his Daughters.
ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 15, 1868.
. . . YOUR letter came yesterday, and was very satisfactory in the upshot; that is, you got there. But, pest on railroad cars I they are mere torture-chambers, with the additional chance, as Johnson said of the ship, of being land-wrecked. Some people like 'em, though. And there are dangers everywhere. The other day-a high windy day—a party went to the mountain, and had like to have been blown off from the top. But they said it was beautiful. I don't doubt, if the whole bunch had been tumbled over and rolled down to the bottom, they would all have jumped up, exclaiming, "Beautiful! [303] beautiful!" People so like to have it thought they have had a good time. One day they went up and all got as wet as mountain—no, as marsh—rats; and that was the most "lovely time" they have had this summer.
Girls, I have a toothache to-day! It 's easier now, or I should not be writing. But pain, what a thing it is! The king of all misery, I think, is pain. It is a part of you, and does n't lie outside; a thing to be met and mastered with healthy faculties. You can't fight with it, as you can with poverty, bankruptcy, mosquitoes, a smoky chimney, and the like. I can't be thankful enough that I have had, through my life, so little pain. What I shall do with it, if it comes, I don't know. Perhaps I need it for what Heine speaks of; that is, to make me "a man." I am afraid I am a chicken-hearted fellow. But I cannot help thinking that different constitutions take that visitation very differently.
To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.
ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 18, 1869.
MY DEAR FRIEND,—. . . It is the audible, the uttered prayer, to which I feel myself unequal. The awfulness of prayer to me inclines me more and more to make it silent, speechless. It is so overwhelming, that I am losing all fluency, all free utterance. What it is fit for a creature to say to the Infinite One—to that uncomprehended Infinitude of Being—makes me hesitate. My mind addressing a fellow mind is easy; and yet addressing the highest mind in the world would cause me anxiety. I should feel that my thoughts were too poor to express to him. But my mind addressing itself, its [304] thought and feeling, to the Infinite, Infinite Mind,—I faint beneath it. It is higher than heaven; what can I do? I am often moved to say with Abraham, "Lo! now I, who am but dust, have taken upon me to speak unto God. Oh! let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak." And indeed, so much praying,-this imploring the love and care of the Infinite Providence and Love, of which the universe is the boundless and perpetual evolution,—can that be right and fit? I often recall what Mrs. Dwight, of Stockbridge, said of the public devotions of old Dr. West,—one of the most saintly beings I ever knew,—that she had observed that they consisted less and less of prayers, and more and more of thanksgivings.
Last evening my wife read to us your article on the Mission of America. It is a grand, full stream of thought, and original, too, and ought to have a wider flow than through the pages of the "Examiner." It ought to be read not by two thousand, but by two million persons. I wish there were a popular organ, like the "Ledger" (in circulation), for the diffusion of the best thoughts, where the best minds among us could speak of the country to the country, for never was there a people that more needed to be wisely spoken to. And you are especially fitted to speak to it. Your conservative position in our Unitarian body, however it may fare among us, would help you with the people.
As to your position, I don't know but I am as conservative as you are. That is, I don't know but I believe in the miracles as much as you do. The difference between us is, that I do not feel the miraculous to be so essential a part of Christianity. Yet I see and feel the force of what you say about it. And the argument is [305] put in that article of yours with great weight and power. For myself, I cannot help feeling that at length the authority of Jesus will be established on clearer, higher, more indisputable and impregnable grounds than any historic, miraculous facts.
To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.
ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 26, 1869.
. . . I AM thankful, every day of my life, that I have my own roof over me, and can keep it from crumbling to the ground. Do not be proud, Sir, when you read this, nor look down from your lordliness,—of owning a dozen houses, and three of them your own to live in,—down, I say, upon my humble gratitude. Can it be, by the bye, that Cicero had fourteen villas? I am sure Middleton says so. I should think they must have been fourteen of what Buckminster, in a sermon, called "bundles of cares and heaps of vexations."
. . . I read a letter of Cicero's to his friend Valerius, this morning, in which he urges him to come and see him, saying that he wants to have a pleasant time with him,—tecum jocari,-and says, "When you come this way, don't go down to your Apulia,"—to wit, Cummington. Nam si illo veneris, tanquam Ulysses, cognosces tuorum neminem. Now don't quote Homer to me when you answer, for I am nearly overwhelmed with my own learning.
I wish you could have seen the world here for the last three weeks. Never was such a splendid winter season. I think it 's something great and inspiring to see the whole broad, bright, white, crystal world, and the whole [306] horizon round, instead of looking upon brick houses. But you will say, the human horizon widens in cities. Yes; but if there are six bright points in it you are fortunate, while here, the whole horizon round is sapphire and purple and gold.
Well, peace be with you wherever you are, and with your house. My wife and Mary send love to you all, as I do, [who] am, as ever.
Yours faithfully,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To his Daughters.
ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 23, 1869.
. . . WE are going on very nicely, neither sick nor sad. Our winter evening readings have been very fortunate this season. First, "Lord Jeffrey's Life and Letters," and now, "Draper's Intellectual Development in Europe." I had read it before, but it is a greater book than I had thought. I must say that I had rather pass my evenings as we do,—some writing, some reading, then a quiet game, and then at my desk again,—than to take the chances of society, in town or country. If I can get you to think as I do, we shall pass a happy life here. Heaven grant that I may not fall into a life of pain! With our good spirits, as they now are, we every day fall into a quantity of dramatic capers that are enough to make a cat laugh,—no bigger animal.
Hoping you may have as much folly, for what saith Paley? "He that is not a fool sometimes, is always one,"—and wishing you all merry, I am as ever,
Your loving father,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
[307] Nothing can be imagined more peaceful than the retirement of Sheffield. Removed from the main lines of traffic and travel, even now that a railroad passes through it, the village remains, as it has been for a hundred and fifty years, the quiet centre of the quiet farms spread for four or five miles about it. The Housatonic wanders at its own sweet and lazy will among the meadows, turning and returning upon itself till it has loitered twenty miles in crossing the eight-mile township, but never turning a mill or offering encouragement to any industry but that of the muskrats who burrow in its banks, or the kingfishers who break its glassy surface in pursuit of their prey. No busy factories are there; no rattle of machinery or feverish activity of commerce disturbs the general placidity; and the still valley lies between its enclosing hills as if it were, indeed, that happy Abyssinian vale my father fancied it in his childhood.
The people share the calm of the landscape. Like many New England towns where neither water-power nor large capital offers opportunity for manufactures, and where farming brings but slow returns, the village has been gradually drained of the greater part of its active and enterprising younger population, and is chiefly occupied by retired and quiet persons who maintain a very gentle stir of social life, save for a month or two in summer, when the streets brighten with the influx of guests from abroad.
[308] It must have been very different seventy years ago. Instead of three slenderly attended churches, divided by infinitesimal differences of creed, and larger variations of government and discipline, all the people then were accustomed to meet in one well-filled church; and the minister, a life resident, swayed church and congregation with large and unquestioned rule. There were several doctors with their trains of students, and lawyers of county celebrity, each with young men studying under his direction; and all these made the nucleus of a society that was both gay and thoughtful, and that received a strong impulse to self-development from the isolated condition of a small village in those days. Railroads and telegraphs have changed all this, and scarcely a hamlet is now so lonely as not to feel the great tides of the world's life sweep daily through it, bringing polish and general information with them, but washing away much of the racy individuality and concentrated mental action which formerly made the pith of its being. Sheffield has gained in external beauty and refinement year by year, but, judging from tradition, has lost in intellectual force. There is more light reading and less hard reading, much more acquaintance with newspapers and magazines, and less knowledge of great poets, than in my father's youth; but his love for his birthplace remained unchanged, and his eyes and his heart drank repose from its peaceful and familiar beauty.
[309] To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.
ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 6, 1869.
DEAR BRYANT, THE BOUNTIFUL,—You are something like grapes yourself. By the bye, it 's no matter what you call me; "my dear Doctor" is well enough, if you can't do better; only "my dear Sir" I do hate, between good old friends such as we are, as much as Walter Scott did. But, as I was saying, you are like grapes yourself,—fair, round, self-contained, hanging gracefully upon the life-vine, still full of sap; shining under the covert of leaves, but more clearly seen, now that the frosts of age are descending, and causing them to fall away; while I am more like—but I have so poor an opinion of myself, that I won't tell you what. This is no affected self-depreciation. I can't learn to be old, but am as full of passion, impatience, foolishness, blind reachings after wisdom, as ever. Instance: I am angry with the expressman because he did not bring the grapes to-day; angry with the telegraph because it did not bring a despatch to tell how a sick boy was, under nine hours. . . .
Here I am, Thursday morning, on a second sheet, waiting for the grapes. What else, in the mean time, shall I entertain you with? The flood! It has been prodigious, the highest known for many years; water, water all around, from beside the road here to the opposite hill. It is curious to see men running like rats from the deluge, up to their knees in water, on returning from a common walk (fact, happened to the S—s), trying to drive home one way and could n't,—going round to a bridge and finding that swept away,—dams torn down and mills toppled over, and half the "sure and firm-set earth" turned into water-courses and flood-trash. . . .
[310] The afternoon train has arrived, and no grapes. Very angry.
The faithless express, you see, is a great plague to you as well as me; for not only does it not bring me the grapes, but is the cause of your having this long dawdling letter. Why don't you show up its iniquities? What is a "Post" made and set up for, if not, among other things, to bear affiches testifying to the people of their wickedness? The express is the most slovenly agent and the most irresponsible tyrant in the country. What it brings is perhaps ruined by delay,—plants, for instance. No help. "Pay," it says to the station-master, "or we don't leave it." Oh, if I had the gift and grace to send articles to the "Post," from time to time, upon abuses! |
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