anything, but
just get through the day somehow, wondering what all this strange,
unfamiliar state of things will end in. Poor M---- has gone crazy on
"Holiness through Faith," and will probably have to go to an asylum....
Our little home looks and is very pleasant. I take some comfort in it,
and try to realise the goodness that gives me such a luxury. But a soul
that has known what it is to live to Christ can be _happy_ only in Him.
May He be all in all to you, and consciously so to me in His own good
time.

_To Miss Woolsey, Dorset, June 23, 1872._

I wish you could come and take a look at us this quiet afternoon. Not
a soul is to be seen or heard; the mountains are covered with the soft
haze that says the day is warm but not oppressive, and here and there a
brilliantly colored bird flies by, setting "Tweedle Dum," our taciturn
canary, into tune. M. and I have driven at our out-door work like a pair
of steam-engines, and you can imagine how dignified I am from the fact
that an old fuddy-duddy who does occasional jobs for me, summons me to
my window by a "Hullo!" beneath it, while G. says to us, "Where are you
girls going to sit this afternoon?"

Your sister's allusion to Watts and Select Hymns reminds me of ages long
past, when I used to sing the whole book through as I marched night
after night through my room, carrying a colicky baby up and down for
fifteen months, till I became a living skeleton. We do contrive to live
through queer experiences.

_To a young Friend, Dorset, Aug. 3, 1872._

The lines you kindly copied for me have the ring of the true metal and I
like them exceedingly. People make too much parade of their troubles and
too much fuss about them; the fact is we are all born to tribulation, as
we also are to innumerable joys, and there is no sense in being too
much depressed or elated by either. "The saddest birds a season find to
sing." Few if any lives flow in unmingled currents. As to myself, my
rural tastes are so strong, and I have so much to absorb and gratify
me, that I _need_ a mixture of experience. Two roses that bloomed in my
garden this morning, made my heart leap with delight, and when I get
off in the woods with M., and we collect mosses and ferns and scarlet
berries, I am conscious of great enjoyment in them. At the same time,
if I thought it best to tell the other side of the story, I should want
some very black ink with which to do it. We must take life as God gives
it to us, withou