t anybody else if he can help it; who does not care for
processions nor entertainments, but wants help. Kossuth has doubtless
made a great mistake in taking his position here; it is the mistake of a
word-maker and of a relier on words, and he has not mended the matter
by defining. But I declare he is infinitely more respectable in my eyes
than if he had come in the character in which we expected him,--as the
protege and beneficiary of our people, who was to settle down among us
and be comfortable.

To Rev. William Ware.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3, 1852.

. . . I MUST fool a little, else I shan't know I am writing to you.
And really I must break out somewhere, [224] life is such a solemn
abstraction in Washington to a clergyman. What has he to do, but what's
solemn? The gayety passes him by; the politics pass him by. Nobody wants
him; nobody holds him by the button but some desperate, dilapidated
philanthropist. People say, while turning a corner, "How do you
do, Doctor?" which is very much as if they said, "How do you do,
Abstraction?" I live in a "lone conspicuity," preach in a vacuum, and
call, with much ado, to find nobody. "What doest thou here, Elijah?" one
might say to a prophet in this wilderness.

What a curious fellow you are! calm as a philosopher, usually, wise as a
judge, possessed in full measure of the very Ware moderation and wisdom,
and yet every now and then taking some tremendous lurch--against England
or for Kossuth! I go far enough, go a good way, please to observe,--but
to go to war, that would I not, if I could help it. Fighting won't
prepare men for voting. Peaceful progress, I believe, is the only thing
that can carry on the world to a fitness for self-government. I have no
idea that the Hungarians are fit for it. See what France has done with
her free constitution! Oh! was there ever such a solemn farce, before
Heaven, as that voting,--those congratulations to the Usurper-President,
and his replies?

To Rev. Henry W Bellows.

WASHINGTON, March 7, 1852.

. . . I HAVE seen a good deal of Ole Bull here within a week or two. I
admire his grand and simple, reverent and affectionate Norwegian nature
very much. He has come out here now with views connected with the
welfare [225] of his countrymen; I do not yet precisely understand
them. Is it not remarkable that he and Jenny Lind should have this noble
nationality so beating at their very hearts?

To the Same.

I DON'T see but you must insert thes