SHEFFIELD, July 23, 1852.
DEAR MOLLY,—Dr. K. and H. called upon us the very evening after we arrived! Mrs. K. as usual. Mrs. B. is on a visit to her friends; the children with their grandmother. . . . Mr. D. does n't raise any tobacco this summer. I saw Mr. P. lying fiat on his back yesterday,—not floored, however, but high and dry on Mr. McIntyre's counter. Mr. M. has succeeded Doten, Root, and Mansfield. These three gentlemen have all flung themselves upon the paper-mill, hardly able to supply the Sheffield authors. Mr. Austin continues to announce the solemn procession of the hours. Mr. Swift is building an observatory to see 'em as they pass. There are thoughts of engaging me to note 'em down, as I have nothing else to do.
I am particularly at leisure, having demitted all care of the farm to Mr. Charles, and committed all the income thereof to him, down to the smallest hen's-egg.
Your mother is always doing something, and always growing handsomer and lovelier, so that I told her yesterday I should certainly call her a sa-int, if she was n't always a do-int
I have nothing to tell of myself; no stitches or aches to commemorate, being quite free and whole in soul and body, and, freely and wholly
Your loving father,
ORVILLE DEWEY.
[229] To Rev. Henry W. Bellows.
SHEFFIELD, July 24, 1852.
MY DEAR BELLOWS,—Amidst all this lovely quiet, and the beautiful outlooks on every side to the horizon, my thoughts seem ever to mingle with the universe; they bear me beyond the horizon of life, and your reflections, therefore, fall as a touching strain upon the tenor of mine. Experience, life, man, seem to me ever higher and more awful; and though there is constantly intervening the crushing thought of what a poor thing I am, and my life is, and I am sometimes disheartened and tempted to be reckless, and to say, "It's no matter what this ephemeral being, this passing dust and wind, shall come to,"—yet ever, like the little eddying whirlwinds that I see in the street before me, this dusty breath of life struggles upward. I am very sad and glorious by turns; and sometimes, when mortality is heavy and hope is weak, I take refuge in simple resignation, and say: "Thou Infinite Goodness! I can desire nothing better than that thy will be done. But oh! give me to live forever!—eternal rises that prayer. Give me to look upon thy glory and thy glorious creatures forever!" What an awful anomaly in our being were it, if that prayer were to be denied! And what would the memory of friends be, so sweet and solemn now,—what would it be, but as the taper which the angel of death extinguishes in this earthly quagmire?