ll, and often feeble in health; and then in the later days, the
declining years, so tranquil, so gentle, so loving,--a perfect sunshine
of love and gentleness was her presence.

But come we to this St. Charles Hotel, where we have been now for a
week, as removed as possible from the holy and quiet dreamland of past
days. Incessant hubbub and hurly-burly are the only words that can
describe it, seven hundred guests, one thousand people under one roof.
What a larder! what a cellar! what water-tanks, pah! filled from the
Mississippi, clarified for the table with alum. People that we have
known cast up at all corners, and many that we have not call upon
us,--good, kind, sensible people. I don't see but New Orleans is to be
let into my human world.

You see how I blot,--I'm nervous,--I can't write at a marble table. Very
well, however, and wife mainly so. Three weeks more here, and then back
to Savannah, where I am to give four lectures. Then to Charleston, to
stay till about the 25th May.

The lectures go here very fairly,--six hundred to hear. They call it a
very large audience for lectures in New Orleans. . . . With our love to
all your household,

Yours ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[239]The Same

SHEFFIELD, Aug. 10, 1856.

DEAR FRIEND,--My time and thoughts have been a good deal occupied of
late by the illness and death of Mr. Charles Sedgwick. The funeral was
on last Tuesday, and Mr. Bellows was present, making the prayer, while I
read passages, and said some words proper for the time. They were hearty
words, you may be sure; for in some admirable respects Charles Sedgwick
has scarcely left his equal in the world. His sunny nature shone into
every crack and crevice around him, and the poor man and the stranger
and whosoever was in trouble or need felt that he had in him an adviser
and friend. The Irish were especially drawn to him, and they made
request to bear his body to the grave, that is, to Stockbridge, six
miles. And partly they did so. . . . It was a tremendous rain-storm, but
the procession was very long.

But I must turn away from this sad affliction to us all,--it will be
long before I shall turn my thought from it,--for the world is passing
on; it will soon pass by my grave and the graves of us all. I do not
wonder that this sweeping tide bears our thoughts much into the coming
world,--mine, I sometimes think, too much.

But we have to fight our battle, perform our duties, while one and
another drops