“Please present my love to thy mother, Calvin, and both the dear girls. Willet says, ‘I want to see Leah and Margaretta.’
“Thy affectionate friend,
“Amy Post.”
The following two are from a true and lifelong friend (also in the twofold sense), John E. Robinson, of whom I could not, with either justice or truth, speak in terms any less strong than those above applied to my beloved Amy and Isaac Post.
LETTER FROM JOHN E. ROBINSON.
“Rochester, Friday, June 21, 1850.
“Dear Friend Leah: Your anxiously looked for letter came to me Thursday morning last, and gave me a great deal of pleasure in the reading. It was worth more than all the newspapers I have seen in a twelvemonth, because it gave me an interior view of your temporary home, and a sketch of several things which I wanted to know something of. It was all of interest to me, from the top of the first page to the last line of the tenth; and I promise not to scold you any more, for I observe much of it was written during late hours of the night, when you could not help but be worn with fatigue. The only wonder is that at such time you could find room in your memory for me.
“By the way, Leah, what think you Mr. Jones told me? a bit of gossip about you and a millionaire, somewhere about Troy, or Albany. He told it as a special secret, and left me to make the most of it. It is capital. When do you go off? I shall be expecting a delicate note on satin paper, addressed to me, tied with a love-knot of matrimonial ribbon, stating when you will be ‘at home.’ Very well, do as you think best. It’s no use for me to cross your path when you get fairly ‘on a train,’ and, so far as my advice is concerned, I think you are smart enough in such matters, and can only say to you, as the lawyer said to the young man who taught him a lesson in roguery, ‘You need no lesson from me.’
“I was pleased with the account of your ramble in Hoboken, but wish you had taken some other day for the excursion, as the one in question always brings there such a crowd of the ‘lower ten.’ I hate crowds! though even in them there is a difference. Commend me to a mass of Sunday-clad peasantry rather than a crowd of the lower strata of New York—or the equally unpleasant sham aristocracy of Rochester.
“I remember those shaded walks of Hoboken. They are among the beautiful things and pleasant places, the memory of which is stored away in my attic story. I suppose you will see all the points of attraction before you turn your steps homeward. You will not go further eastward, I suppose. If you should go to Boston, go by way of Newport, and visit its beach. That famous beach, at the hour of early morning or just at evening twilight, is one of the grandest sights I ever looked upon. I won’t attempt to describe it to you; but, if you can see it, the memory thereof will not die out from your mind. The eye and the ear have kindred offices. They are, both of them, organs through which the soul within us takes cognizance of beauty. The magnificent stave of music which has once trembled on the tympanum, is forever prisoned in the spirit—‘a thing of beauty;’ and so each glorious form of nature on which the eye has rested, while the spirit drank in its inspiration, remains ‘a joy forever.’ And this we call Memory. Why do we call it so? Because it is one of those mysterious powers of the human soul for which we have no other name.