I HAVE been trying four hours to sleep. No dervish ever turned round more times at a bout, than I have turned over in these four hours. I dined out to-day, at Judge King's, and afterwards we went to the celebrated Club 3 and, whether it is that I was seven consecutive hours in company, or that I drank a cup of coffee,
The reason why, I cannot tell, But this I know full well, [235] that here I am, at three o'clock in the morning, venting my rage on you.
It would do your heart good to see the generous and delighted interest which the G.'s and D.'s, and indeed many more, take in the phenomenon of the lectures. The truth is, that their attention to the matter, and the intelligence of the people, and the merits of the lecturer, must be combined to account for such an unprecedented and beautiful audience,-larger, and much more select, they say, than even Thackeray's. I'll send you a newspaper slip or two, if I can lay my hand upon them, upon the last lecture, which, assembled (the audience, I mean), under a clouded sky, and in face of a threatening thunder-gust, was a greater wonder, some one said, than any I undertook to explain.
Bah! what stuff to write I But all this is such an agreeable surprise to me, and will, I think, give me so much better a reward for this weary journey and absence than I expected, that you must sympathize what you can with my dotage.
As to the "Corruptions of Christianity," dear, if you don't find enough of them about you,—and you may not, as you live with your mother mostly,—you will find them in the library somewhere. There were, I think, two editions, one in one volume, and another in two. There are a hundred in the world.
The Club mentioned in this letter was that of which my father wrote in his Reminiscences: "This Charleston Club, then, I think, forty years old, was one of the most remarkable, and in some respects [236] the most improving, that I have ever known. An essay was read at every meeting, and made the subject of discussion. One evening at Dr. Gilman's was read for the essay a eulogy upon Napoleon III. It was written con amore, and was really quite sentimental in its admiration,—going back to his very boyhood, his love of his mother, and what not. I could not help touching the elbow of the gentleman sitting next me and saying, Are n't we a pretty set of fellows to be listening to such stuff as this? He showed that he thought as I did. When the reading was finished, Judge King, who presided, turned to me and asked for my opinion of the essay. I was considerably struck up,' to be the first person asked, and confessed to some embarrassment. I was a stranger among them, I said, and did not know but my views might differ entirely from theirs. I was not accustomed to think myself illiberal, or behind the progress of opinion, and I knew that this man, Louis Napoleon, had his admirers, and perhaps an increasing number of them; but if I must speak,—and then I blurted it out,—I must say that it was with inward wrath and indignation that I had listened to the essay, from beginning to end. There was a marked sensation all round the circle; but I defended my opinion, and, to my astonishment, all but two agreed with me."
The following winter he was invited to repeat his lectures in
Charleston, and passed some time there, accompanied by his family. In
March, 1856, he went with Mrs. Dewey to New Orleans, and, returning to
Charleston at the end of April, went home in June.
[237] To his Daughters.
ON BOARD THE "HENRY KING," ON THE
ALABAMA RIVER, March 18, 1856.