ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 21, 1873.
DEAR FRIEND,—I need not say we shall be rejoiced to see you. Don't be proud, but it is "real good" of you. If "a saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn," a friend in winter is twice a friend of any other season. "If I shall be away?" Only by being beside myself could I be away in winter. "Or have other guests." No, indeed, they don't fly like doves to our winter [320]windows. But the white snowflakes do, and it will do your eyes good to see the driven and drifted snow. We have had a very quiet winter, and few drifts, but to-night, I see, is blowing them up. I should not wonder if they blocked the road and kept my letter back a day or two.
To the Same.
March 5, 1873.
. . . WE thought you might be stopped somewhere, and not to go at all would be the worst "go" that could be. All Sunday we kept speaking about it, with a sort of feeling as if we were guilty of something; so that I felt it necessary to calm the family distress by setting up a new and original view of the whole matter, to this effect: "Well, if he has been stopped over Sunday at the State Line, or Chatham Four Corners, it may be the most profitable Sunday he ever passed. What a time for calm meditation and patience!—better things than preaching. You know he lives in a throng; this will be a blessed 'retreat,' as the Catholics call it. He is stomach-full of prosperity; perhaps he needed an alterative. Introspection is a rare thing in our modern outward-bound life. He is accustomed to preach to great admiring audiences; to-day he will preach to his humble, non-admiring self."
Well, I am glad,—so ready, alas! are we to escape from discipline,—but I am glad that you got through, though by running a gauntlet that we shivered to read of. But you did get through, and got home, having accomplished what you went for. Any way, you did us so much good that it paid, on the great scale of disinterested [321] benevolence, for a great deal of trouble on your part.
"Shall we be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease?"
With our love to the entire quaternity of you, Yours ever,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
On his eightieth birthday my father was surprised and touched by the gift acknowledged in the next letter to the old friend through whose hands it was conveyed to him. It will be seen, that in the private letter accompanying this response, he was under the mistaken impression that Mr. Bryant was writing a history of the United States, while, in fact, he was merely editing one written by Mr. Gay.