250] little piece of Fanny Kemble's,[FN: Mrs.
Kemble's Poems] on the 179th page,--the "Answer to a Question." I send
you the volume 1 by this mail. Ah! what a clear sense and touching
sensibility and bracing moral tone there is, running through the whole
volume! But I was going to say that that little piece tells you what I
would write better than I can write it. We all send "Merry Christmas"
and "Happy New Year" to you all, in a heap; that is, a heap of us to a
heap of you, and a heap of good wishes.

My poor head is rather improving, but it is n't worth much yet, as you
plainly see. Nevertheless, in the other and sound part of me I am,

As ever, your friend,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To his Sister, Miss F. Dewey.

[Date missing. About 1859.]

So you remember the old New Bedford times pleasantly,--and I do. And I
remember my whole lifetime in the same way. And even if it had been
less pleasant, if there had been many more and greater calamities in it,
still I hold on to that bottom-ground of all thanksgiving, even this,
that God has placed in us an immortal spark, which through storm and
cloud and darkness may grow brighter, and in the world beyond may shine
as the stars forever. I heard Father Taylor last Sunday afternoon.
Towards the close he spoke of his health as uncertain and liable to
fail; "But," said he, "I have felt a little more of immortality come
down into me today, and as if I should live awhile longer here."

[251]To Mrs. David Lane.

BOSTON, Saturday evening [probably Oct., 1859]

DEAR MY FRIEND,--I imagine you are all so cast down, forlorn, and
desolate at my leaving you, and especially "At the close of the day,
when the hamlet is still, And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill, And naught but the
nightingale's song in the grove," that I ought to write a word to fill
the void. I should have said, on coming away, like that interesting
child who had plagued everybody's life out of them, "come again!"

Bah! you never asked me; or only in such a sort that I was obliged to
decline. Am I such a stupid visitor? Did I not play at bagatelle with
L.? Did I not read eloquently out of Carlyle to you and C.? Did I not
talk wisdom to you by the yard? Did I not let drop crumbs of philosophy
by the wayside of our talk, continually? Above all, am I not the veriest
woman, at heart, that you ever saw? Why, I had like to have choked upon
"Sartor Resartus." I wonder