this
blessed minute? . . . I would have you to know that it is a merit to
write to somebody who is nowhere. Why in thunder don't you write to me?
If I were nobody, I am somewhere. I hope you are enjoying yourself, but
I can't think you can, conscientiously, without telling me of it.

My love to the Bryants. I hope it may greet the Grand Panjandrum
himself. Tell Mrs. C. I should write to her, but I have too much regard
for her to think of [232] such a thing with the thermometer at 93
degrees, and that it is as much as I can do to keep cool at any time,
when I think of her.

To Mrs. David Lane.

SHEFFIELD, Sept. 2, 1853.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--Do you remember when we were walking once in Weston,
that we saw the carpenter putting sheets of tarred paper under the
clapboarding of a house? I want you to ask your father if he thinks
that a good plan; if he knows of any ill effect, as, for instance, there
being a smell of tar about the house, or the tar's running down between
the clapboards. If he thinks well of it (that is question first);
question second is, What kind of paper is used? and question third,
Is it simply boiled tar into which the paper is dipped? I state
precisement, and number the queries, because nobody ever yet answered
all the questions of a letter. I hope in your reply you will achieve a
distinction that will send down your name to future times. . . .

To the Same.

Sept. 9, 1853.

You have achieved immortal honor; the answers, Numbers 1, 2, and 3, are
most satisfactory. I have thoughts of sending your letter to the Crystal
Palace. I am much obliged to your father, and I will avail my-self of
his kindness, if I should find it necessary, next rear, when I may be
building an addition here.

I am sorry things don't go smoothly with-; but I guess nothing ever did
go on without some hitches, that s, on this earth. It is curious, by the
bye, how we go in blindly, imagining that things go smoothly with many
[233] people around us,--with some at least,--with some Wellington, or
Webster, or Astor, when the truth is, they never do with anybody. To
take our inevitable part with imperfection, in ourselves, in others, in
things,--to take our part, I say, in this discipline of imperfection,
without surprise or impatience or discouragement, as a part of the fixed
order of things, and no more to be wondered at or quarrelled with than
drought or frost or flood,--this is a wisdom beyond the most of us,
farther off from