It has just come to me that the true way to enjoy writing and to have you enjoy hearing, is to keep a sort of journal, where little things will have a chance to speak for themselves.
We are now in the midst of General Assembly. Mr. Stearns is here, and we have sprinklings of ministers to dine and to tea at all sorts of odd hours…. I can't help loving what is Christlike in people, whether I like their natural characters or not; after all, what else is there in the world worth much love? My Katy seems to be ploughing her way with more or less success, and making friends and foes. You, who helped me fashion her, would be interested in the letters I get from wives, showing that the want of demonstration in men is a wide-spread evil, under which women do groan being burdened. Entre nous, Mrs. Dr. —— is one, and I got a letter to-day from Michigan to the same effect. We are having delightful weather for the meetings. Yesterday morning Dr. John Hall preached in our church, and it was crammed full to Overflowing…. Lew. S. [3] has decided to study theology. We are all glad. He and I have got quite acquainted of late and talk most learnedly together. Did I tell you I have translated a German dramatic poem in five acts? Miss Anna Nevins says I have done it extremely well. I don't know about that, but my whole soul got into it somehow, and I did not know whether I was in the body or out of it for two or three weeks. I wish I could do things decently and in order. There is to be a great party at Apollo Hall this evening for both Assemblies. I am going and expect to get tired to death.
26th—It was a brilliant scene at Apollo Hall. Everybody was there, and the hall was finely adapted to the purpose of accommodating the 2,000 people present. The speeches were very poor. I went to the prayer-meeting this morning. The church was full, galleries and all, and the spirit was excellent. Many men shed tears in speaking for reunion, and, from what Mr. Stearns reports of the meeting of the Committee last night, union may be considered as good as restored. You will hear nothing else from me; it is all I hear talked about. Monday, 3l.—Hot as need be. Dr. B., of Brooklyn, dined with us; said he never ate strawberry short-cake before, and was reading Katy. It is awful to think how many D.D.s are doing it (eating short-cake, I mean, of course!) Hope the Assembly will wind up to-night. June 5.—We are so glad you have got to La Tour and find it so pleasant there, and that you have met Dr. and Mrs. Guthrie, and that they have met you instead of the blowsy-towsy American women, who make one so ashamed of them. If I wasn't going to Dorset, I should wish I were going where you are; but then, you see, I am going to Dorset!… I have been to the Central Park with Mrs. —-, who talked in one steady stream all the way. I was sleepy and the carriage very noisy; and take it altogether, what a farce life is sometimes! the intercourse of human beings outsides touching outsides, the heart and soul lying to all intents and purposes as dead as a door-nail. Do you ever feel mentally and spiritually alone in the world? Perhaps everybody does.
To Miss E. A. Warner, New York, June 4, 1869.
I concluded you had gone and died and got buried without letting me know, when your letter reached me via Dorset. What possessed you to send it there when you knew, you naughty thing! that I was having General Assembly, I can't imagine; but I suppose, being a Congregationalist, you thought General Assembly wasn't nothing, and that I could entertain squads of D.D.s for a fortnight more or less, just as well at Dorset as I could here. My dear, read the papers and go in the way you should go, and behave yourself! As if 250 ministers haven't worn streaks in the grass round the church, haven't (some of 'em) been here to dinner and eaten my strawberry short-cake and cottage puddings and praised my coffee and drank two cups apiece all round, and as if I hadn't been set up on end for those of 'em to look at who are reading Katy, and as if going furiously to work, after they'd all gone, didn't use me up and send me "lopping" down on sofas, sighing like a what's-its-name. Well, well; the ignorance of you country folks and the wisdom of us city folks! We hope to get to Dorset by the 17th of this month; it depends upon how many interruptions I have and how many days I have to lie by. I can't imagine why I break down so, for I don't know when I've been so well as during this spring; but Mr. P. and A. say I work like a tiger, and I s'pose I do without knowing it. I am so glad you had a pleasant Sunday. No doubt you had more bodily strength with which to enjoy spiritual things. A weak body hinders prayer and praise when the heart would sing, if it were not in fetters that cramp and exhaust it.
Monday—To-day I have been enacting the tiger again, and worked furiously. A. half scolds and half entreats, but I can't help it; if I work I work, and so there it is. I have bought a dinner-set, and had a long visit from my old Mary, who wept over and kissed me, and am going out to call on Mrs. Woolsey this evening. To-morrow A.'s scholars are to come and make an address to her and give her a picture. She is not to know it till they arrive. It is really cold after the very hot weather, and some are freezing and some have internal pains. I wish you could have seen me this forenoon at work in the attic—a mass of dust, feathers, and perplexity. I got hold of one of my John's innumerable trunks of papers, and found among them the MSS. of several of my books laid up in lavender, which I pitched into the ash-barrel. I suppose he thinks I may distinguish myself some time, and that the discerning world will be after a scratch of my gifted pen! Have you read "Gates Off the Hinges"? The next thing will be, "There Aint no Gates."
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III.
The new Home in Dorset. What it became to her. Letters from there.
A notable incident of this year was the entering upon housekeeping at Dorset under her own roof. As is usual in such cases, the process was somewhat wearisome and trying, but the result was most happy. All the bright anticipations, with which the event had been so long looked forward to, were more than realised. For the next ten summers the Dorset home was to her a sweet haven of rest from the agitations, cares, and turmoil of New York life. It seemed at the time a venturesome, almost a rash thing, to build it; but when she left it for her home above, the building of the house seemed to have been an inspiration of Providence. While contributing greatly to her happiness, it probably added several years to her life. The four months which she passed each season at Dorset were spent largely in the open air, and in such varied and pleasant exercise as exerted the most healthful, soothing influence upon both body and soul. It was just this fruit her husband hoped might, by the blessing of Heaven, blossom out of the new home, and in later years he used often to say to her, that if the place should be of a sudden annihilated, he should still feel that it had paid for itself many times over.