an we help
it? Fearfully and wonderfully are we made, but in nothing, perhaps, more
than this,--that we are put upon considering questions concerning God,
immortality, the mystery of life, which are so entirely beyond our reach
to comprehend.

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, July 19, 1879.

DEAR FRIEND,--After our long silence, if it was the duty of the ghost to
speak first, I think it should have been me, who am twenty years nearer
to being one than you are; but it would be hardly becoming in a ghost
to be as funny as you are about Henry and the hot weather. A change has
come now, and the dear little fellow may put as many questions as he
will. It is certainly a very extraordinary season. I remember nothing
quite so remarkable.

Have you Professor Brown's "Life of Choate" by you? If you have, do read
what he says of Walter Scott, in vol. i., from p. 204 on. I often turn
to Scott's pages now, in preference to almost anything else, as I should
to the old masters in painting.

Good-by. Cold morning,--cold fingers,--cold everything, but my love for
you and yours.

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[347] To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, April 14, 1880.

MY DEAREST YOUNG FRIEND,

--For three or four years I have thought your mind was having a new
birth, and now it is more evident than ever. Everybody will tell you
that your Newport word is not only finer than mine, but finer, I think,
than anything else that has been said of Channing. The first part was
grand and admirable; the last, more than admirable,--unequalled, I
think. . . .

Take care of yourself. Don't write too much. Your long, pleasant letter
to me shows how ready you are to do it. May you live to enjoy the
budding life around you. . . .

My writing tells you that I shan't last much longer. Then keep fresh the
memory of

Your loving friend,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To the Same.

June 15, 1880.

DEAR FRIEND,--To think of answering such a letter as yours of June 5th
is too much for me, let alone the effort to do it. It seems absurd for
me to have such a correspondent, and would be, if he were not of the
dearest of friends. For its pith and keenness, I have read over this
last letter two or three times. . . . I see that you won't come here in
June. Don't try. That is, don't let my condition influence you. I shall
probably, too probably, continue to live along for some time, as I have
done. No pain, sound sleep, good [348] digestion,--what must follow from
all this, I dread to