Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D Part 27

Have you Professor Brown's "Life of Choate" by you? If you have, do read what he says of Walter Scott, in vol. i., from p. 204 on. I often turn to Scott's pages now, in preference to almost anything else, as I should to the old masters in painting.

Good-by. Cold morning,--cold fingers,--cold everything, but my love for you and yours.

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[347] To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, April 14, 1880.

MY DEAREST YOUNG FRIEND,

--For three or four years I have thought your mind was having a new birth, and now it is more evident than ever. Everybody will tell you that your Newport word is not only finer than mine, but finer, I think, than anything else that has been said of Channing. The first part was grand and admirable; the last, more than admirable,--unequalled, I think. . . .

Take care of yourself. Don't write too much. Your long, pleasant letter to me shows how ready you are to do it. May you live to enjoy the budding life around you. . . .

My writing tells you that I shan't last much longer. Then keep fresh the memory of

Your loving friend,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To the Same.

June 15, 1880.

DEAR FRIEND,--To think of answering such a letter as yours of June 5th is too much for me, let alone the effort to do it. It seems absurd for me to have such a correspondent, and would be, if he were not of the dearest of friends. For its pith and keenness, I have read over this last letter two or three times. . . . I see that you won't come here in June. Don't try. That is, don't let my condition influence you. I shall probably, too probably, continue to live along for some time, as I have done. No pain, sound sleep, good [348] digestion,--what must follow from all this, I dread to think of. Only the weakness in my limbs--in the branches, so to say--admonishes me that the tree may fall sooner than I expect.

Love to all,

O. D.

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey.

ST. DAVID'S, Oct. 13, 1880.

DEAREST SISTER,--Why do you tell me such "tells," when I don't believe a bit in them? However, I do make a reservation for my preaching ten years in New Bedford and ten in New York. They could furnish about the only "tells" in my life worth telling, if there were anybody to tell 'em.

n.o.body seems to understand what preaching is. George Curtis does his best two or three times a year. The preacher has to do it every Sunday.

I agree with you about Bryant's "Forest Hymn." I enjoy it more than anything he ever wrote, except the "Waterfowl."

Yours always,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, Dec. 24, 1880.

DEAR FRIEND,--My wife must write you about the parcel of books which came to hand yesterday and was opened in the midst of us with due admiration, and with pleasure at the prospect it held out for the winter. My wife, I say; for she is the great reader, while I am, in comparison, like the owl, which the showman said kept up-you remember what sort of a thinking. But, comparisons [349] apart, it is really interesting to see how much she reads; how she keeps acquainted with what is going on in the world, especially in its philanthropic and religious work.

Then, in the old Bible books she is the greatest reader that I know. I wish you could hear her expatiate on David and Isaiah; and she is in the right, too. They leave behind them, in a rude barbarism of religious ideas, Egypt and Greece. By the bye, is it not strange that the two great literatures of antiquity, the Hebrew and Grecian, should have appeared in territories not larger than Rhode Island? This is contrary to Buckle's view, who says, if I remember rightly, that the literature of genius naturally springs from a rich soil, from great wealth and leisure demanding intellectual entertainment.

To his Sister, Miss J. Dewey.

ST. DAVID'S, April 4, 1881.

DEAREST RUSHE,--. . . I am glad at what you are doing about the "Helps,"

and especially at your taking in the "Bugle Notes." Of course it gives you trouble, but don't be anxious about it; 't will all come out right.

The book has met with great favor, whereat I am much pleased, as you must be.

Yes, Carlyle's "Reminiscences" must be admired; but it will take all the sweets about his wife to neutralize his

"Helps to Devout Living" is the name of a collection of beautiful and valuable pa.s.sages, in prose and verse, compiled by Miss J. Dewey, in the second edition of which she included, at her brother's request, Mr. Wa.s.son's "Bugle Notes," a poem which had been for years one of his peculiar favorites. [350] supreme care for himself, and careless disparagement of almost everybody else. Genius is said to be, in its very nature, loving and generous; it seems but the fit recognition of its own blessedness; was his so? I have been reading again "Adam Bede,"

and I think that the author is decidedly and unquestionably superior to all her contemporary novel-writers. One can forgive such a mind almost anything. But alas! for this one--. . . It is an almost unpardonable violation of one of the great laws on which social virtue rests. . . .

Ever yours,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, June 30, 1881.

. . . SINCE reading Freeman Clarke's book, I have been thinking of the steps of the world's religious progress. The Aryan idea, so far as we know anything of it, was probably to wors.h.i.+p nature. The Greek idolatry was a step beyond that, subst.i.tuting intelligent beings for it. Far higher was the Hebrew spiritualism, and wors.h.i.+p of One Supreme, and far higher is Isaiah than Homer, David than Sophocles; and no Hebrew prophet ever said, "Offer a c.o.c.k to Esculapius." So is Christianity far beyond Buddhism; and far beyond Sakya Muni, dim and obscure as he is, are the concrete realities of the life of Jesus. Whether anything further is to come, I tremble to ask; and yet I do ask it.[351] To the Same.

July 23, 1881.

DEAR, NAY, DEAREST FRIEND,--What shall I say, in what language express the sense of comfort and satisfaction which, first your sermon years ago,' and now your letter of yesterday, have given me? Ah! there is a spot in every human soul, I guess, where approbation is the sweetest drop that can fall. I will not imbitter it with a word of doubt or debate. . . .

Come here when you can. With love to all, Ever yours,

O. D.

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, Sept. 23, 1881.

DEAR FRIEND,--I am waiting with what patience I can, to hear whether you have been to Meadville or not. . . . In that lovely but just picture which you draw of my wife, and praise her patience at the expense of mine, I doubt whether you fairly take into account the difference between the s.e.xes, not only in their nature, but in their functions.

We men take a forward, leading, decisive part in affairs, the women an acquiescent part. The consequence is that they are more yielding, gentler under defeat, than we. When I said, yesterday, "It costs men more to be patient, to be virtuous, than it costs you,"--"Oh! oh!" they exclaimed. But it is true. . . .

Sept. 26. 1881

WHAT a day is this! A weeping nation [See p. 358], in all its thousand churches and million homes, partic.i.p.ates in the [352] mournful solemnities at Cleveland. A great kindred nation takes part in our sorrow. Its queen, the Queen of England, sends her sympathy, deeper than words, to the mourning, queenly relict of our n.o.ble President. Never shall I, or my children to the fourth generation, probably, see such a day. Never was the whole world girdled in by one sentiment like this of to-day.

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, Jan. 1, 1882.

. . . FOR a month or two I have been feeling as if the year would never end. But it has come, and here is the beginning of a new. And of what year of the world? Who knows anything about it? Do you? does anybody?