"Mr. DEAR,——We are still in Newport, conjugating the verb s'ennuyer, which I, for one, have put through all the moods and tenses. Pour passer le temps, however, I have la belle Française and my sweet little Puritan. I visited there this morning. She lives with her mother, a little walk out toward the seaside, in a cottage quite prettily sequestered among blossoming apple-trees, and the great hierarch of modern theology, Dr. H., keeps guard over them. No chance here for any indiscretions, you see.
"By-the-by, the good Doctor astonished our monde here on Sunday last, by treating us to a solemn onslaught on slavery and the slave-trade. He had all the chief captains and counsellors to hear him, and smote them hip and thigh, and pursued them even unto Shur.
"He is one of those great, honest fellows, without the smallest notion of the world we live in, who think, in dealing with men, that you must go to work and prove the right or the wrong of a matter; just as if anybody cared for that! Supposing he is right,—which appears very probable to me,—what is he going to do about it? No moral argument, since the world began, ever prevailed over twenty-five per cent. profit.
"However, he is the spiritual director of la belle Puritaine, and was a resident in my grandfather's family, so I did the agreeable with him as well as such an uncircumcised Ishmaelite could. I discoursed theology,—sat with the most docile air possible while he explained to me all the ins and outs in his system of the universe, past, present, and future,—heard him dilate calmly on the Millennium, and expound prophetic symbols, marching out before me his whole apocalyptic menagerie of beasts and dragons with heads and horns innumerable, to all which I gave edifying attention, taking occasion now and then to turn a compliment in favor of the ladies,—never lost, you know.
"Really, he is a worthy old soul, and actually believes all these things with his whole heart, attaching unheard-of importance to the most abstract ideas, and embarking his whole being in his ideal view of a grand Millennial finale to the human race. I look at him and at myself, and ask, Can human beings be made so unlike?
"My little Mary to-day was in a mood of 'sweet austere composure' quite becoming to her style of beauty; her naive nonchalance at times is rather stimulating. What a contrast between her and la belle Française!—all the difference that there is between a diamond and a flower. I find the little thing has a cultivated mind, enriched by reading, and more by a still, quaint habit of thinking, which is new and charming. But a truce to this.
"I have seen our friends at last. We have had three or four meetings, and are waiting to hear from Philadelphia,—matters are getting in train. If Messrs. T. and S. dare to repeat what they said again, let me know; they will find in me a man not to be trifled with. I shall be with you in a week or ten days, at farthest. Meanwhile stand to your guns.
"Ever yours,