Ever yours, faithfully,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
To the Same,
ST. DAVID'S, Aug. 6, 1874.
WE have had a good deal of conference together, you and I, old friend, but I do not know that we ever discussed the subject of bores. You have raised questions about it, both for the next world and this, which, though I said nothing about them in my book, as you facetiously remark, it may surprise you to know are quite serious with me. Thus, if there is to be society in the next world, what can save it from the weariness of society in this,—save it, in other words, from bores? The spiritists say that Theodore Parker gives lectures there to delighted audiences. And, truth to say, I do not know of any other social occupation that would be so satisfactory as that of teaching or learning. What is all the highest conversation here, but that by which we help one another—teaching or being taught—to higher and juster thoughts? That would shake off the yoke of boredom under which so many groan now. If, instead of eternal surface-talk, we could strike down to reality, to something that interested our minds and hearts, fresh streams would flow over the arid waste of commonplace. Real thoughts would be a divining-rod. If, when a man calls upon me, he could, teach me something upon which he knows more than I do, or I could do the same for him, neither of us would be bored. [324] Do I not talk like a book? But, to be serious, so much am I bored with general society, that I am inclined to say I had rather live as I do here in Sheffield. Is n't Cummington a blessed place for that?
But alas! it don't save you from being bored with letters,—vide, for example, this, perhaps, which I am now writing.
But, O excellent man! though you never bored me in talk, you have lately bored into me; I will tell you how.
A month or two ago a book agent came to me, asking me to subscribe for "Bryant's Pictorial America." I was astonished, and said, "Do you mean to say that Mr. Bryant's name will appear on the title page of this work, and that it was written by him?"—"Certainly," was the reply; "not that he has written the whole, but much of it." I could n't believe that, and was declining to subscribe, when my wife—that woman has a great respect for you—called me aside and said, "I wish you would take this book." So I turned back and said, "My wife wants this book, and I will subscribe for it." Well, yesterday the first volume came to hand; and, turning to the title page, I found edited by W. C. B., which means not that you wrote the book, but seem to father it. Next year a man will come along with "Bryant's Popular History of the United States of America," and the year after, for aught I know, with "Specimens of American Literature," by W. C. B. I do seriously beseech you, my friend, to look into this. These people take advantage of your good-nature; and ill-nature will spring up about it, if this kind of thing goes on. With love to J., and hoping to see you,
Yours ever,