iginal view of the whole matter, to this effect: "Well, if he has been
stopped over Sunday at the State Line, or Chatham Four Corners, it
may be the most profitable Sunday he ever passed. What a time for calm
meditation and patience!--better things than preaching. You know he
lives in a throng; this will be a blessed 'retreat,' as the Catholics
call it. He is stomach-full of prosperity; perhaps he needed an
alterative. Introspection is a rare thing in our modern outward-bound
life. He is accustomed to preach to great admiring audiences; to-day he
will preach to his humble, non-admiring self."

Well, I am glad,--so ready, alas! are we to escape from discipline,--but
I am glad that you got through, though by running a gauntlet that we
shivered to read of. But you did get through, and got home, having
accomplished what you went for. Any way, you did us so much good that it
paid, on the great scale of disinterested [321] benevolence, for a great
deal of trouble on your part.

"Shall we be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease?"

With our love to the entire quaternity of you, Yours ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

On his eightieth birthday my father was surprised and touched by the
gift acknowledged in the next letter to the old friend through whose
hands it was conveyed to him. It will be seen, that in the private
letter accompanying this response, he was under the mistaken impression
that Mr. Bryant was writing a history of the United States, while, in
fact, he was merely editing one written by Mr. Gay.

To William Cullen Bryant, Esq.

SHEFFIELD, March 30, 1874.

MY DEAR SIR AND FRIEND,--Your letter, which came to me to-day, crowns
the birthday tokens and expressions of regard which I have received
from many. It takes me entirely by surprise, only exceeded by the
gratification I feel at having s: a generous gift from my friends in New
York and elsewhere. I thank them, and more than thank them, and you, for
being the medium of it. I am alike honored by both. Thanks is a little
word, and dollars is called a vulgar one; but two thousand two hundred
and sixty-two of the latter, and [322]the sense I have of the former,
make up, I feel, no vulgar amount.

I don't know how you will convey to my old parishioners and friends my
sense of their good will and good esteem, but I pray you will-do so
as largely as you can; and to Dr. Osgood particularly for the care and
trouble I cannot but suppose he has taken in this matter. I