To the Same.
NEW BEDFORD, Sep. 14, 1830,
DEAR WARE,—I write down the good old compellation here, not because I have anything in particular to say [142] to you, but just to assure myself in the agreeable conviction that you are again within sixty miles of me. When you get a little quiet, when matters have taken some form with you, when you have seen some hundreds of people, and answered some thousands of questions, then take your pen for the space of ten minutes, and tell me of your "whereabouts," and how your strength and spirits hold out, and what is the prospect.
I hope you will not disappoint me of the visit this autumn, for I want to talk the sun down and the stars up with you. I suppose you have tales enough for "a thousand and one nights." You have made friends here, moreover, even in Rome,—some by hearsay, and others who will be here probably in a fortnight or three weeks. Kind Mrs. Ware has admirers here. Think of that, sir! That while Mr. W. is spoken of only with a kind of reverence, the lady carries off all the charms and fascinations of epithet. But alas! Such is the hard fate of us of the wiser sex. There are other senses than Saint Paul's in which we may say, "Where I am weak, there am I strong."
Pray excuse the levity (specific) of this letter, on two rounds,—first, that I am very heavy, and should sink in any other vessel; and, secondly, that I cannot take in any of the weighty matters, because I have no room for them.
Mrs. Dewey joins me in the regards to you and Mrs. Ware, with which I am,
Most truly yours,
O. DEWEY.
In less than three years from this time the nervous suffering from overwork became so intense that Mr. Dewey was advised to go abroad [143] to obtain the absolute rest from labor that was impossible here.
To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick.