To Miss E. A. Warner, New York, April 20, 1869
I opened your letter in the street, and was at once confronted with a worldly-looking bit of silk! How can you! Why don't you follow my example and dress in sackcloth and ashes? I think however, if you will be worldly you have done it very prettily, and on the whole don't know that it is any wickeder than I have been in translating a "dramatic poem" in five acts from the German, only you've got your dress done and I'm only half through my play; and there's no knowing how bad I shall get before I am through. I wonder if you are sitting by an open window, as I am, and roasting at that? I had a drive with A. and M. through the Park yesterday, and saw stacks of hyacinths in bloom, and tulips and violets and dandelions; a willow-tree not far from my window has put on its tender green, and summer seems close at hand. I have been to an auction and got cheated, as I might have known I should; and the other day I had my pocket picked. As to "Gates Ajar," most people are enchanted with it; but Miss Lyman regards it as I do, and so do some other elect ladies. I have just written to see if she will come down and get a little rest, now the weather is so fine. Mr. P. has gone to Dorset to be gone all the week, and I am buying up what is to be bought, begrudging every cent! mean wretch that I am.
I have looked through and read parts of "Patience Strong's Outings"—an ugly title, and a transcendental style, but beautiful in conception, and taken off the stilts, in execution. I do not like the cant of Unitarians any better than they like ours, but I like what is elevating in any sect. I have had a present of a lot of table-linen, towels, etc., for Dorset, and feel a good deal like a young housekeeper. I wonder how soon you go back to Northampton? How queer it must be to be able to float round! It is a pity you could not float to New York, and get a good hugging from this old woman. We expect 250 ministers here in May at general assembly (I ought to have spelt it with a big G and a big A). My dear child, what makes you get blue? I don't much believe in any blue devils save those that live in the body and send sallies into the mind. Perhaps I should, though, if I had not a husband and children to look after; how little one can judge for another!
* * * * *
II.
How she earned her Sleep. Writing for young Converts about speaking the
Truth. Meeting of the General Assembly in the Church of the Covenant.
Reunion. D.D.s and Strawberry Short-cake. "Enacting the Tiger." Getting
ready for Dorset. Letters.
This year was one of the busiest of her life; and it were hard to say which was busiest, her body or mind; her hand, heart, or brain. This relentless activity was caused in part by the increasing difficulty of obtaining sleep. Incessant work seemed to be, in her case, a sort of substitute for natural rest and a solace for the loss of it. She alludes to this constant struggle with insomnia in a letter to Miss Warner, dated May 9th:
If you knew the whole story you would not envy my power of driving about so much. You can lie down and sleep when you please; I must earn my sleep by hard work, which uses up so much time that I wonder I ever accomplish anything. I believe that God arranges our various burdens and fits them to our backs, and that He sets off a loss against a gain, so that while some seem more favored than others, the mere aspect deceives. I have to make it my steady object throughout each day, so to spend time and strength as to obtain sleep enough to carry me through the next; it is thus I have acquired the habit of taking a large amount of exercise, which keeps me out of doors when I am longing to be at work within. You say I seem to be always in a flood of joy; well, that too is seems. I think I know what joy in God means, though perhaps I only begin to know; but I am a weak creature; I fall into snares and get entangled—not nearly so often as I used to do, but still do get into them. I have a perfect horror of them; the thought of having anything come between God and my soul makes me so restless and uneasy that I hardly know which way to turn. I have been very much absorbed of late in various interests, and am sure they have contrived to occupy me too much; pressing cares do sometimes, and oh, how ashamed I am!
Do write for young inquirers, if your heart prompts you to do it. I don't know what to think of your suggestion that in writing for young converts I should impress it upon them to speak the truth. It seems to me just like telling them not to commit murder; and that would be absurd. Do Christians cheat and tell lies? I have a great aversion to writing about such things; if children are not trained at home to be upright and full of integrity, it can't be that books can rectify that loss. You may reply that home-training is defective in thousands of cases; yes, that is true, but I have a feeling that truth and honesty must spring from a soil early prepared for them, and that a young person who is in the habit of falsehood is not a Christian and needs to go back to first principles. I can't endure subterfuges, misrepresentation, and the like; the whole foundation looks wrong when people indulge themselves in them, and to say to a Christian, "I hope you are truthful," is to my mind as if I should say to him, "I hope you wash your face and hands every day." Now if your observation says I am wrong, let's know; I am open to conviction.
To Mrs. H. B. Smith, New York, May 24, 1869.