Helen Hunt Jackson Papers, Part 5, Box 1, Letterbook II
Transcribed by Magali Blasdell, 2020

[Mailes?]town, Monday Evening
I wonder what you are doing, just at this [exact?] moment, my dear friend, and whether your thoughts are worth the […] of one “almighty dollar”! if it is half as warm, with you, as here, I fancy you stretched at full length, in the most airy [flaw?] […] [affords? afterwards?]. And perhaps, lying by help of a live coal in you [would?] to cool yourself, on homeopathic principles. But wherever you are, and wahtever you are doing, you do not at all sympathize with me tonight, if you are not uncomfortable, in the […]; give me a paradox, in anything, but weather; new it is, a long September evening; the beautiful, but short twilight and the early darkness be –[tokening?] that the season of long evening [calls?] and [woods?] is here- suggesting closed blinds and a clear light, and a busy [group?], and even [surrounding?] our […], of winter gatherings. But the air is, as it has been for two days, suffocatingly warm; indeed, there can hardly be […] to be any air, at all: the locust is heard in the yard for it has been hot all day, for even his [salamander?] note, and now it sounds like one prolonged, [drawn?] out, “Oh Dear”! Half […] are out, […], walk my way and down the sidewalks, and every body and everything look to me, as if they did not know exactly how to take this weather. Annie is with Helen J somewhere, and I have retreated in despair, to a room […] it would make you laugh to see, for it is an [unoccupied?] one, and has nothing but a few chairs, and one stand in it, and I have [resolved] a [reason], that I will wait, […]. The moon is the only thing, which looks natural tonight; it really looks very much like the one which [lighted?] Amherst vallies,on those glorious nights of Commencement week. Do you know I have a strange half whim, [nay?] notion, in my head, about the moon, which I have never been able since my childish days, to get rid of? It is something like this, though the idea is almost too vague, and [floating? fleeting?], to be [recorded?];-that each months moon, has an existence of its own, complete in itself,-birth-youth-wane-and death; and then, then, that moon, an individual-an and- a thing, vanishes from creation,- is gone-, annihilated; and the half-crescent which we see is another, and a […] moon, which we have never seen before, and which after the [evening?] of its brightness is over, we have never see again. This is a fancy, (like many of my ideas, though more sensible than some.) One of the theories, which my early philosophy laid down for itself, and which my older reason half accepts: do you not think there is something pleasant in the idea? Then, we might bid farewell to day- and […], and to the moon by which […], with the same feelings, and not feel, that the moon was coming hereafter, without the [scene?], just to center [life as? like us?], with its memories; we could associate such and such moons, with such and such friends, with a memory like this, for instance, “on such a day we parted, and such a moon died”, or “the [picture?] of that hill, valley and streams hold lives in my heart alone, for that moon, which gave the whole, life, life, has gone, with its ever perpetuating gallery of reflection, forever.”; do not [snide?] at this luna- [tis] rhapsody! Perhaps it is one of those dreamy, undefineable, hazy sentimental vagaries, which had better be [unaltered?]; certainly had better not be commited to paper; but foolish or not, I have often thought it all, and I shall not throw away my sheet because I have written it! I believe I bespoke beforehand [friends?] for all the strange notions which might creep into my letters; and speaking of that, why did you not do as inclination prompted Henry, there or for times in the course of your letter, and either laugh at, or [reform?] me for that […] I confessed to you? Why did you not do one, or the other? I am sure I described both! But a time to all those […] which though so illfated at our time, stumbled at last, into an adjustment; I am happier in the […] clues attained, than I should have been in any other way.

I have read a book this afternoon which reminded me occasionally of you, St. Leger or The cases of Life: have you […] read it? If so, do you not admire mark of it and if not, do read it, as soon as you can; and you, I do not know that I would [urge? cage?] you to read it, you’d think, you would hardly feel happier, or better, for its perusal, though the whole of your intellect, and the half of your heart, will be carried away with the strange never-time- the thrilling- life-like manners, in which the threads of one [character?] are woven- I should say, teased out, though; the [work?] itself, is of no more singular weaving than this of many lives about us. But one is far more likely, in reading Saint Leger, to be carried away by a sort of intellectual fascination to an unreflecting […] with wrong views and […] reasonings, than to distinguish clearly between the earnest seeker for truth, and the misanthropic complainer of realities. […] I wish you would read it, for I should like to know what you think of it. And as long as I have begun to suggest word-reading as a desireable way, of spending ones time, let me mention one more; “Olive- by the author of the [Ogilaries?].” Oh, I know you will admire that, or rather, love Olive: the [developer?] the pause, most perfect ideal of love, of which I can concieve. But I must ramble on no longer. I have been in the [dentists?] hands, half of today, so you may imagine that I need rest. Thank you, for making the long [walk? way?] home, which I so made [decades?], pass so quick by! I shall not chat with you again, until Thursday night, because I want my letter to reach Amherst the same day with yourself and I found [out? one?], that it was not advisable to keep journal letters. Goodnight, with all good wishes—Helen M. F.

Thursday Evening

I have had one or two temptations, to sit down and add to my letter since Monday but have (as you see) successfully resisted them all: and now I must in some what of a hurry, to [secure?] tomorrows mail. I have quite a determination to be the first to welcome you to Amherst again; and I suppose if this letter arrives on Saturday evening, it will find you about as recent a comer as itself. So I feel as if I [love?] writing to you, at Amherst, all the while knowing that while I write, you are not there! What inconsistent lying medleys letters are! Is it not Charles Lamb, who gives such an amazing description of the difference between a persons [patience?], in a letter, of his own condition, and his actual condition, when that statement is read-; between what he takes for granted is [lied?], of the person he […], and all that really is true, […] ad lib, for you can fancy an endless number of good illustrations of these absurdities. Seriously though, I do think, that […] expressions are unsatisfactory, the best you can make of them. What a […] is between a thought, or a feeling, as it [benigs?]. warm, living, from the heart- beams in the eye, or is [pried] out from the tongue, and that same thought or feeling, caught, tied down at both ends, by a period; with a [hallow?] of confused phrases misplaced and (as an Irishman would say) [leftbed?] [commander?] and semicolons, about its neck; and this, laid out, at dead length, on the cold inanimate surface of a sheet of white paper! Oh it is enough to mark one [for swear?] pen and ink forever, to investigate calmly the results of any attempt at their use and [instruments?] for the utterance of warm deep thought! And you- I- of all people in the world to propagate such a sentiment as that, when I do delight in letter writing, and for all my friends, with long epistles which I should be sorry to have them consider, as [compounded?] as lies and absurdities! But the above is my sober theory; my head doctrine, and the other is my practice in which the head always has most to do. Tuesday evening, we had a call unexpected, and delightful, from Mr. [Fraise?]; it [fairly?] carried me back to old; And [here?] again, and almost brought Amherst friends around me. He seemed very pleasant and I trust I heeded him attentively; I really tried, to do away with some of his (what shall I call them? You can select an adjective better than I can) [pressions?] of me. He told Susie [Magoun?]. who asked his opinion of me, that he did not know whether he liked […] H. [Fiche?] or not; he was a very strange sort of a person he did not understand her; on the whole, he did not like her at all!! But I think when he gets back to Amherst, you may find that he likes me quite well! Now, […] is a little too bad, to be put [in?] a letter, […] to be […] by one sensible person to another; just forget it, please, and understand that I should not be guilty of such nonsense, except in connetion with, and reference to, some talks […] you and I had, in regard to Mr.[Frain?]. He mentioned his letter from you-[…] your “respects”- to me, for which (if you sent them?) please accept thanks and mine in return! He also spoke of your […] trip which you were obliged to relinquish. Are you very sorry you did not go? If you are not very much dissapointed, I am glad very very glad that the plan was [frustrated?]. I wish fate would always interpose as effective a [fancies?], between you and those, with whom you cannot associate, familiarily, except by lowering the […] standard of your own life. I think we are, all of us, in making too [grand?] a distinction between our character, as we have accustomed ourselves, perhaps justly, to consider it, as made up of certain [capacities?], certain traits, certain principles and general [moder? modes?] of action, certain ends and aims, and our character as we manifest it, and make it all without thinking of it, in little things, in the [ten-minute?] acts of life. How little agreement and harmony there sometimes is between our proud consciousness and real possesion of the first [&?] our daily, or frequent, manifestation of the second, [and?] do not realize, not how fast we modify the former by the latter.

I laughed a little over the page of your letter on which Emily [Towler?] begins so consipicuosly. I do not know that you are not right, in your estimate of her character; I certainly think she has a great love of admiration, [that?], Mr. Root, that is a natural and [constitutional?] [fear?] of every female head: I think a woman who does not love to be admired, is no woman at all. I love it, and I am not ashamed to say it, when I do not fear having misunderstood, and if I had each been admired as much as Emily has, I know I should care just as much about it. I think it is unfortunate for any woman, […], in any circumstances, to be exclusively admired, to be […]; for I do not see how if she [only? can?] has few, she can be contended not to be; hence, the manifestation in any [situation?] when she is in danger of being [eclipsed?], of that […] desire for notice, which unfortunately is so quickly seen and understood. Emily suffers from this: you think it “[worked?]”; I don’t! But I fancy you considered her as making jealous insinuations in regard to my age, when in fact, she was only [learning? speaking?] veritable truth: did you not know my years? I had all along supposed that you did; I thought I told you, one day, in connections with some mention of {Armin’s?]. In a few more weeks, I shall see my twenty-first birthday- be, “not only in maiden meditation fancy [few?]”, but legally- guardians, uncles, and aunts, included, “free to come & free to go, If you list, or if you no!”

I need to think that it would be the happiest moment of my life when I was twenty one, but now my aspirations for entire freedom have another […]; […] about become most ingloriously transformed into a decided [performance?] for the feeling that the [Palmer? Calmer?] is my guardian, and will decide all matters of moment! I have written you a most egotistical letter Hnery! I believe I always do with just such […]; but it [could? would?] be difficult for anyone to write much […], writing from this letter, tame, every day, do-nothing know-nothing, hear-nothing, see-nothing of a plan, [Charlestown?]! My next letter will be from Albany: a fortnight from next Monday I expect to go; you need not be […] if I [have? rave?] of the [Knickerbakers?], the [mayhems?], and passions, and […] the ghost of old [Ripton?] himself, […] along in my letter! That will be better […] for him, than haunting the [bled] depths and [heighty?] of glorious [Catskilt?], with his sleepy presence. If you can [pass?] time from your college vocations, I hope you will be [just] and with me before I go. For I do not know yet how to tell you to [write? drive?] to me in Albany, and I [confess?] I cannot write love letters to one! Don’t apologize again for the length of your letters, unless you wish to [mystify? modify?] me most [sensibly?] look at mine! [Mine? Write?] as long as yours, at least, but I cannot write a short one! Perhaps I shall toy more desperately than [each? care?] to find out, however, if you lead me to feel that it is such an enormity that one friend need apologize to another for it, to write long ness!

I hear through Jennie H. that [Fae? Pat?] Gilbert has gone to Baltimore [&?] be gone each summer. I am sorry, sorry; I had thought [as? so?] often of her as one of your good friends this winter; why did she go? Jennie seemed to be all in the dark about it. By the way, you did not make any allusion to my writing to her; did you not understand that I wanted you to take me [whether?], […] your knowledge of her character, you thought she would be pleased or not, if I [should? could?]? When I mention a thing in the way in which I did that, you may know that I always do it interrogatively! And now, Henry, I must say goodbye. I have a [crowd?] of thoughts, as I imagine you just commencing your last year- if I [came?] with you, I should speak some (not all) of them “right out” but they are not for pen and ink. And they do not need to be either written or spoken- you have them all I know, and many many more, in your own heart- and if they are, as I think they are, God help them warm and strong. –Goodbye- with the sincere [neglect?], and all good wishes.Of your [light?] friend

Helen M. Fiske

P.S.

I have nearly forgotten to reply to your […]. Though I have thought of it every day since I read it: I allude to it “in postscripts” too, for such a matter ought to come no nearer than that, to a friendly letter. Henry, will you allow me to be a little obstinate here? It is a hobby of mine that it ought always to be [at? as?] our correspondence commenced! I shall feel happier- shall continue as at first. But if you feel as keenly in the point as many do, to your own feelings in such a manner, and I had rather endure it, than [infect?] it. Considerate, and not!

Helen.

for H. [G?]. Root.

on the back of the letter:
[I?] send you another [leaf?] from my […] box- you remember the story of the […] “delivered before a Boston audience”- […] right to have had [covered by wax seal] the center of that wit!!

H.M.F.

Lewis Arundel is going as [Jator? Sator?] into the fanily of a Gen. Grant. Miss Livingston, the generals housekeeper is thus described.

“Miss Livingston, who scrutinized Lewis as if she suspected him of belonging to that ingenious [fraternity?] [adept?] the swell mob, was in appearance a very awful old lady indeed. The nearest [approach?] we can make to a description of her features, is to say that they bore a marked (with the small pox) resemblance to those of [Minerva?] and her owl: The [stunners?] of that utilitarian goddess, the […] of Olympus, and the sapient stupidity of the so-called [bride?] of wisdom, finding their exact counterpart in Miss Livingstones time-honored physiognomy. This lady was [appareled?] after a strange and [imposing?] mode, as behooved the a spinster of such orthodox station, and ferociously virtuous propriety as the general’s female commander in chief. Minerva’s helmet was modernized into a stupendous fabric, whrein [staunch?], muslin and ribbon of an unnatural harshness, struggled […] in a pyramid, whence painting with [stiffened?] and innumerable, suggestion of any amount of […], they appeared ready and anxious to repel or impale society at large. A triangle of spotless lawn [supplied?] the place of the breastplate beneath which the daughter of love was accustomed to [concede?] her want of heart; and a silk gown of an uncomfortable [thread?] of gray, made so [scanty?] as to render at first sight; the hypothesis of a mermaid concievable, [completed?] the costume of this immaculate old lady. Having apparently satisfied herself that Lewis had no immediate [designs?] upon the spoons and forks, the [condenscendence?] to afford him the meteorological information, that though the sunshine might delude the unwary into believing it to be a fair day, she had [received?] private information that the weather was not to be relied upon: after promulgating which opinion, she placed herself at the head, and assumed the [direction? directing?] of the luncheon table.”

“Half a minute before the clock struck nine, Miss Livingstone, that human hedgehog, [rustled?] into the breakfast room, more stiff and stunched in mind and body [than?] any other living creature. As for her cap, a railway train might have passed over it without injuring that rigid mystery while her gown was at the least safer not to say bullet-proof. If ever there was a wife fitted for our […] Duke, that […] spinster was the woman, only that to have married her would have required more courage than twenty […]!”

Mrs. Peters was a very stout old lady, on whom the [clues?] of life, and a rare specimen of the female costume of some bygone age, appeared to sit easily: her [outline?] might have suggested to an imaginative beholder, the idea of a huge pillow which had “come alive”, and made itself a gown out of one of the [chunky?] bed-curtains, forgetting the waist. Her conversation was embellished with a redundancy of mild ejaculations, among which a benediction on her own “heart alive”, and an apostrophe to a solitary possessive pronoun, which had lost its noun, and agreed with nothing in particular, stood pre-[…].”

New letter, undated:

“Olive,” in like manner to “The Ogilvies” is devoted for the most part to the embodiment of our leading thought- the happines of an unselfish life and the possiblity of inspiring love without advantages, nay, with positive drawbacks in personal appearance: we have always alluded to the apparent perfection for pale women, and unnaproachable men. With regard to the moral character of the book, it is very good with the exception of occasional flights of philosophy, vague and not very intelligible, sometimes each rather morbid. Most readers will complain we suspect that there is too much [preachment?] in Olive; [more] we mean than is appropriate or [seasonable? reasonable?] in works of a light texture. It would almost lend one to imagine that the unquestionable succcess of the Ogilvies, had “[imped?] the wings” of Olive with too confident reliance on a like [exception?], and a consequent divergence for the popular judgement. May we suggest that a more frequent use of a condensing process would be an improvement in the future novels which we hope to have an opportunity of welkcomign from the same pen?”

“The Ogilvies” and “Olive”, are by the same authoress; both considerably above the average of novels; far superior to the insipid artificial platitiudes of works like Emilia […]: not unlike Lady Georgiana […] in their framework, which in morals they are more akin (with a difference, be it observed.) to “Jane Eyre”. Like the [founder?] they have in their [favor?] no crowd of persons of events; in “Olive” indeed, there is a positive want of something going on, a sort of blank void in the action; a few pronounced characters fill the stage, and a good deal of space is devoted not unprofitably to the sensations of the inner life. Of the latter we are reminded by the heroes; they are so decidedly of the Mr. […] stamp without his vices; their beauty is strength an [impervious?] majesty of intellect, that relayes itself only at the magic touch of love.”

North British Reviews for Aug. 1851.

Do you know the line about “faint [praries?],” Henry! Oh, it actually makes me indignant to have my poor Olive this slighted-calumniated-[…] strange almost fearful childhood- the pea of her gentle [lovelies?]- the strength of her filial devotion- the ceaseless self-sacrifice- the glorious development of Art in the soul; and then after all, and greatest of all- her peace, [world?], whole hearted woman’s love-it’s better bitter trial and grief- it’s final crown of unspeakable bliss- her lifes reward Oh-all this-to be coldly […] at, by a British essayist, for want of incident lack of color in the cheeks of the characters! The critic ought to be impaled himself, for want of soul to feel, an heart to thaw the emotions and sentiments of a true [good point?]! But you don’t love Olive: I know, though you did not say it. So, Goodbye, “Poor Olive”!

Albany, Friday Morning, Oct 16 1851

I have just received your welcome letter, and cannot refrain from writing you a few lines “instantaneously”, just to tell you how glad I was to get it, and how very sorry I am, to know that you have been sick. This is very womanish, [since?] as I shall not send my letter any earlier for beginning it today, you will not be informed of these true very important parts, any [doomz?], than if I waited but “n’importe”! I feel the [vein?] for a few moments […], and I will not let common sense {…} me! This is the first morning that I have taken a walk, since I have been here: but an imperative necessity in the shopping line called me out immediately after breakfast: Mr. Palmer too was just starting on his regular morning visit to the Post Office, & I therefore had the honor of a walk through State Street with the “[Dominir?]” as he is almost universally called: and State Street is a glorious street too, if it isin Albany, stretching away up from the pin in the [rover?], to the top of our “Capitol-me Hill” and wide enough for fifty carriages one would think: it looked singularly enough this morning: almost I fancy like one of the great market places in some of the old cities of Europe, for a line of country wagons extended nearly the whole length of the street, surrounded by crowds of the honest farmers and their city customers, buying and selling, [chattering?] and higgling- holding up pumpkins and live hens, and all sorts of gross provisions, for the inspection of hungry looking citizens: [come?] to crown the whole- an old clothes auction at the end of the line, where a lean follower of Abraham was shaking out […] round the most forlorn looking garments, and vociferating at the top of his lungs! But I was going to speak of the Post-office: which Mr. Palmer went in, I examined the contents of a [daguerrotype?] case, which was fastened to one of the adjacent lamp-posts, and was just indulging in some rather ill-natured mental observations upon the physiognomical peculiarities of some members of the human family, when your letter was held before my eyes! You do not know in how unladylike a manner I […] it-very undignified and highly unbecoming, considering that I was twenty one years of age yesterday, and that the gentleman was a […] [reverend?]! But for some reason or other I have not once thought of the possibility of my having a letter from anybody today; therefore I was the [most?] glad. I walked as deliberately as was in any way consistent with my own inclinations to the […] my [business?] in such a hurry then I forgot a [compassion?] for his Palmer, and had to retrace my steps about half of the way- and reached home finally, (having counted by the way; twenty-seven pigs and two cows in the course of my walk) about an hour ago. Perhaps you would have smiled if you had seen all the preparations I made before reading your letter: I love to get fairly established in the most comfortable possible position and have everything in order about me, before commencing such a treat: then I can enjoy it to perfect satisfaction. Perhaps you would be interested to know my [beau? near?]-ideal of “the most comfortable possible position” for such a purpose: it varies of course with weather-scene-physical condition […] in this instance, it was –an attitude of perfect rest- vulgarly called “tipping back” in the most charming little black hair cloth rocking chair, which was my mother’s at Amherst, seven years ago, and is my inseperable companion still, with another chair, for a [cricket?], and my face to the window, so that I could occassionally look out upon the bright sky, and that […] “jamble” of houses to which you so forcibly allude! Having […] them for a while-first in the perusal- then in a sort of [review?] attendant thereupon, I went to the study to read to Mr. Palmer the “Heart of Unbelief”. He was speaking the other day of Richter’s Dream- of “No Christ”- and this is so much in the tone and spirit of that, that I knew he would be interested in hearing it. He is a man of very great poetic taste and has read I really believe all the poetry in the language: he wrote that exquisite hymn, which you have often admired, I know, if you have ever seen it- “My faith looks up to thee/thou Lamb of Calvary” […]. And now, having in some measure, as you may guess dissipated a good part of a long afternoon, in which I have planned to do many things, I ought to say goodbye for the present. I can only add, that I am so very very sorry for that unfortunate fever: I know well what a fortnights sickness, is, in the midst of a […] of study, for I have the bitter experience myself, during one of my boarding school lives: I hope you will be as careful and prudent as a Miss Livingstone herself could desire- or rather I ought to say, I wish you would; I do not hope it, for I know the characteristics of your sex- and of yourself too, far too well, to hope any such thing. But goodbye -my dear friend- for a time- the length of which ten thousand things will conspire to determine!

Monday Morning, Oct. 27. 1851.

This is quite a pause in conversation- almost a “chasm”, according to Miss Emily [Forlu?]’s dictionary! When I laid this sheet away, ten days ago, I did not dream that it would be quite so long a time before it saw the light: but instead of ten thousand things conspiring to determine the length of the interval, as I anticipated, I verily believe, fifteen have had a share in the business! Do tell me of the days at Amherst for the last-[walk?] have been more than half full of [hours? houses?]: it seems to me that they have averaged here about eight hours each, and I have accomplished almost nothing. Somebody said once to me, that it was vulgar to be in a hurry: was it not you- I think it was. I do not know how often I have thought of it [lately?], and wondered whether that did not run in my veins some blood very decidedly plebeian, so mortally hurried have I […] to keep myself since I reached this city. I had indulged the most delightful anticipations of the leisure I should enjoy after once getting fairly located in my new home, but the phantom flies me […]. I have received since the first day of October, seventeen letters, and some half […] or [so?] of notes and I have written during that time twenty-five, not including this. So this will account for a part of my hurry, though don’t- under who to [account] for it by the supposition that all my letters are such […] as yours, ie. mine to you. (my sentence was most unfortunately ambiguous wasn’t it!)

Last Saturday we rode out to see the Shakers, who have a very flourishing settlement about six miles from Albany. What a [terrible?] thing that system is: it does seem worse to me than anything of which I know: Even Socialism might almost be tolerable in comparison. And yet I can easily conceive of a state of mind, and of heart, which might lead one to throw themselves with the aims of such a community, as their only refuge & only solace! We saw there a husband and wife who had quite recently joined the family. They had friends from New York visiting them and it so happened that we all went […] the establishment together. [That? Had?] we had an ample opportunity to see them, and I could not keep observing things closely. They seemed between forty and fifty and were evidently persons of [cultivation?] and refinement: he was a tall man, with a powerful frame, and a large black eye- subdued- yet not wanting in the power to [flack?]: she was a delicate woman, as slender as Annie, and with a pensive expression likely stamped on every feature of her face. She was not a woman of strong mind I am sure, but had a yielding heart, and [submitted?], as it […] religiously to the faith and the life, which her Herculean husband upheld to her. But it seemed to me so evident, in their every [air?], that their very souls were undergoing constant martyrdom, that I longed to take them away, and speak better things to them. They could not walk side by side of course, but they watched each other constantly- and if one were speaking the other, however occupied they might appear, would listen as attentively as if their life hung on each word. And thus they [are?] to live- in a seperation worse than death- for the rest of their days- near each other-[daily?] seeing each other, but [never?] allowed any, save the most formal and distant [intercourse?]- the “Tea Brother,” and “[ray?] sister” of [an?] […] language. I believe that my feelings never were quite so deeply touched by the life of a stranger, as by theirs: I had to turn away and look out of the window more than once to conceal an emotion which seemed even to me inexplicable, and would probably have suggested to my companions strong doubts of my sanity, and I came very near speaking a rash [way?] to the placid “sister Clarissa” whom we saw on our return to the “office” and who is a sort of Lady Abbess for the whole community.And after all after all my sympathy and righteous indignation, as we were riding home I thought more than once, with a kind of pleasing [honor?], of the possibility that some day, I might seek rest in such a life! But I do […], that however my heart in its world weariness might long for such a seclusion and self sacrifice, I never could wear their hideous short waisted gowns. I don’t believe that any amount of melancholy and misanthropy could ever render me indifferent to such a personal abomination as they. And their cape too! They are enough to [coured?] the prettiest face into that of the witch of Endor, and they far exceed Lewis [Arunduls?] description of the one Miss Minerva Livingston used to wear. Now you will laugh, I know you will, at this truly feminine digression from sad observations on the Shaker system, and contemplation of the melancholy possibility of my [even? ever?] embracing such a life, to a tirade against the fashion of their dress! Laugh away! That is the perfect illustration of my mind- neither one thing nor another. Oh you do not know Henry how, at times almost in agony, I have wished that God had given more of one trait- or [tell?] of another: my nature seems to me a perfect compound of annulifications: if I had not my love of dress and of society to interfere with my intellectual mind and pursuits, I might have been a scholar: if my intellect and reason did not continually make me ashamed of any thoughts of fashion-dress-&c.- I might at least have been a leader of the fashionables and contemptible as is that character, it has supremacy in it, and that, in everything, I had very nearly said, even in wickedness, is better than quiescence: and if I had had [less?] absorbing interest in study, and more indifference to externals, I might at least have been a woman of heart- tow in love from every body- but now- with an ever restless head- an intellect to conceive- and aim- but a want of life=power to execute- a heart which can love, if it could ever stop long enough, and whose deepest love is mingled ever with so many other things- [that?]- what a life is mine. I did not remember making that remark to you to which you allude: but it would have been strange enough if I had not made it, for the thought is almost an ever present one to me: and I presume I said it, not with the kind motive to which you ascribe it-not at all, but in the restless overflowings of my own consciousness. Oh if I could only be, as I think, and feel- could do, as I plan, live as I dream, I could be happy! I have seen in you, in a degree the same thoughts which have often winged my fancies and hopes, and it is this which has made us friends: but I know also and recognize in you an element which dwell not in my nature, and which before you have reached my age, will have been to you, attaintment and fulfillment of much, and promise of all, which has been and is to my spirit “far off, un attained and dim.”

Henry- I have been writing in a strange and an unwanted strain. I have read over the last page- and have been hesitating for perhaps half an hour, whether I should not, ought not [destroy?] it. But my confidence in you will not be the less safe, that you see and feel how implicit it is, and you must know, that the expression of such sentiments as the above is no ordinary me, [from?] me. But I ought [how? now] to [expand?] it still further and implore you not to infer from what I have written that I am discontented, dissatisfied-unhappy. I am not. And the longer I live, the more I am convinced that such thoughts and desire as I used to have- somewhat akin to those on the last page, as not filling the sphere of woman: and perhaps your friendship will pardon me in saying that my daily life is but a poor commentary on the [aspirations?] which this letter has shadowed forth, and that I am fast becoming content that it be so. But you spoke once of the “ghosts of dead purposes”, and you know how sometimes they hauntr the spirit. However I will not one more word of this! I craved your indulgence long weeks ago, for all the wild vagaries which might creep into my letters: remember that it was granted, and [excuse?] and forget this episode.

I had read [Alton Locke?], I mean “[fease?pease?]”, before the arrival of your last letter, and I was so impressed by the book that I sat down & wrote out all my thoughts of it, on the instant. I cannot tell you what I think of it in few words, and therefore, I shall fast send you the astute […], for I do not like the idea of turning friendly letter into receptacles and coveyance for critiques on books! However don’t be unmerciful in your reading: one who can […] as you did Hamlet, can afford to be considerate to the productions of less practised pens. By the way have you heard John Emerson make any inquiries for a missing [number?] of the Judicator? I [brought?] away the one concerning that article- really through […], though I must plead guilty to not having been very sorry. But it was not a little strange that long before we came to Amherst, I had read and re-read that piece-with a deep interest- partly on account of my admiration for the play- but more for the knowledge of character and the cutting observationa on men and the world, which it contained. [Your?] Ophelia, or rather Shakespeare, whom you so wholly understand and appreciate, is like Jennie Abbot, Henry. Oh I do so want you to know her, and yet should I even see you together, I should be in misery all the while, for fear you were not getting acquainted, or would not like each other. But I know you could not help being attracted toward a character like hers: she is not wanting in energy, when it is needed, but her disposition would lead her to trust and rely, with the most implicit fondness, like Ophelia: and I have never known one, whom I thought capable of strange [feelings?]. She is much what Olive would have been, had she been beautiful and untaught by adversity: if she had not learned, though the crushing sense of deformity and poverty, an isolating self reliance, which for a time triumphed over her gentle loving spirit, and enabled her to give to others the protection and help, for which she yearned. But I have not forgotten though from this episode few might think it, that I once brought an impatient person to your [brow?], by speaking of Lennie: I will say no more of what I think.

I hear that there is a riding school, just opened here. I think I shall go for a few lessons before winter sets in, and see if I cannot banish from my brain-or heart-or soul- or from wherever it is located, the terrifying recollection I still have of that creature, which I rode to Pelham Springs. You never really know anything about their affairs. Henry, and I have feet like a hypocrite, ever since when I have thought of the [credit?] I received for self possession when I was actually in an agony of fright. I never knew before anything about the sensation of real terror, but it literally haunted me after that ride. Nothing but pride kept me from telling you of it, whenever you spoke of our riding again- but oh how I did hope something would prevent our going: I remember, after I was ready, and the horses were at the door, I sank into a chair by the window- and, if it would have done any good, I could have cried with clear mortification and fright: but there was no help- and we started- and oh, how every inch of the way between our [gate?] and the little cottages where we stopped, sank into my heart: at every step, it seemed to me that I feel the same sensation of vague honor, which I did in going over the horses head [before?] and I have no doubt that had it not been for this feeling, I could have [controlleed?] “South Hadley”, restive as he was. But when we reached home you would have laughed, or have been frightened, I don’t know which, if you had known how near I came to bursting into tears in your arms as I dismounted, and how like a petrifaction I stood in the yard watching your evolutions [in? on?] the house, and with the same nervous dread which I had before for myself, expecting each moment to see you fall! And then while you were [good?] (I may as well tell the whole truth) I locked one door, and instead of [dusting?], threw myself on the bed, and resorted to what Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe calls “the feminine expedient for supporting life under all circumstances”, ie a fit of crying. Then- if you only knew how afraid I was that you would see it when you came back- and how desperately. I forced myself to sit quietly & talk and mend gloves, when I trembled from head to foot! Ah it makes me laugh to think of it: and yet it was no laughing matter: it must have been a peculiar instance I am sure, for even to this day, I cannot fancy myself on horseback, without having that same, peculiar, perfectly indescribable, perfectly unendurable, sickening, shuddering, sensation, thrill me for a moment […], as completely as it did at first. But I am not going to indulge my foolish self in such a weakness any longer, and shall go to riding school as soon as I can become sufficiently acquainted with some young lady to invite [along?] to go with me. Don’t you envy me my first ride? Now it is very strange that I have told you this: it is the weakest thing I ever knew of myself and, (I don’t know [as?] you will be flattered!) I have been so ashamed of it that I have never told any mortal before! But is “all of a piece” with this letter! I don’t know what you will think of it: I am in a hurry to send it, that it may be out of my sight, and I shall be uneasy till I hear from you again, that I may know if I have given your friendship an irremediable shock, by writing such a “dis-understandable” epistle. And now, I have only these lines to say Goodbye! Imagine that all is written here, which you know I would have said, but for want of room & [time?] and […], now as ever, and [each?] as now- yours truly- Helen-

Writing across the sides of the pages

P.S. Annie is well and happy though her life in [Dean?] Palmer’s family is rather [quieter?] than in our boardinghouse home in [C?]. She is obliged to be absent from school now, on account of the [illicit?] of our grandfather-but- I hope she will soon return. I do not wish to betray confidence (though Mr. Sanford would have little right in my opinion to [condemn?] that fault in another.) but perhaps it may do no harm to say to you, that he wrote to Annie from […] & that in consequence of my influence she will not correspond with him. Poor fellow! I am sorry for him, if his “intent” is so “despicably intent” as you say. But it is by no means “unaccountable” to me: neither do I quite understand why you should regard it so. Annie is just such a girl, [as?] if I were a gentleman, I think I should be very likely to fall in love with. But, I think I should know better than to […] to the fancies of any girl of sixteen. You gentlemen know but little of such things- except one a […], who [said?] it out, to their sorrow, as I fear J.S. will. However, I must admit, in all candor & secresy, that Mr. Baufield does not seem to stand quite so high as he […] to in Annie’s favor: and I thought too that he had the appearance of having a little less supreme regard to her, than formerly. However, one might as well […] the operation of watching the weather vane, as of observing all the offs and ons, of such affairs as theirs!

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Does Tutor Dickinson board at Mrs. Emersons? And why cannot he be one of your friends Henry? I should think his might be a congenial spirit. Did you ever fancy that he too [articularly?] admired Susan [Gilbat? Golbat?] I did.

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Have you ever heard John Emerson allude to a letter from me? You know I promised to write him (& [sisters?]) all I could learn about Mrs. [Brit?]. I wrote him quite a letter about her, before I left Charlestown, communicating all the information which I could gather, and that was the last of it. I wonder, if he does not know that it would be polite to acknowledge the [receipt?] of it.

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I write here- [demurely?] to apologize for having written on all the [other?] margins, and to fill this up just by way of uniformity-oh –what a letter! [at?] last goodbyes- Helen

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Helen [Tupli?] goes to […] next week. What will John do next summer? She has no vacation in the summer at all, and consequently will not be at Amherst at Commencement!

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Have you called to see Mrs. [Moors?] yet Henry? If not [as?] go- (at some hour of the day, and on some day of the week when an old lady will be [deceased?]!)- for my [jabs?] & hers (of course it would be no great [felicity?] to you.) But it would make her happy for a month-and I love her because she loved my father & mother!

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you have not mentioned [Bauineid?]- is he not in College this [term?]? And [tell?] me too if you are willing […] [Gorbam?] has noticed that you do not “much affect his company”.

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I think I shall not write to Sue [Golbat?] after all. It would be quite an experiment- and after all it is but a few months before I shall see her again.

Albany, Friday Noon, Nov. 7 1851.

Henry-I do wish you would mail your letters so that I shall get them at night and not in the morning! I [spoil? sport?] a forenoon just as regularly as I have a letter from you, and as I have grown, or am trying to grow to be [very?] systematic, the effect is positively […] this morning. I had just seated myself at the piano, for my hour and a half of practice, (which I take every morning, from eight till half past noon) when I heard Mr. Palmer step in the hall, and felt an instantaneous presentiment that he had a letter for me: I did not stop for many preparations this time, [for?] Henry, I was too impatient to see what sort of a reception my last had met, so I threw myself on the lounge and read it forthwith. I had such a long good laugh over poor Emerson too that the very thought of it does me good still: then I could not be so selfish as to enjoy it all alone, so I went to the study to read it to the [parson?], who is if not an admirer, quite a reader of [Carlyle?]. Of course we dashed at once into a long talk-which was wound up by my remembering that you said that [article?] on Reason was in the Edinburgh, and looking over a huge pile of them till I found it. Of course, I could not leave that unread- and then “Bobbie”, not knowing what to make of my presence in the sitting room before […], very aptly concluded that it must be a day of unusual things, and therefore demanded to be taken up into my lap, which I was in no [will?] indisposed to grant, seeing that I felt vastly more like sitting in a rocking chair, and reverie-ing about Carlyle- and Emerson, and that blind and deaf “brother and sister”-and you-and Amherst, and John Sanford and Annie, &c. &c. & so on, on, on- than I did like quietly going about my usual avocations. And there went another hour-to Bobbies ineffable delight- but to my uneasy satisfaction: and now the dinner bell has this moment rang-and the half of a day has gone! So- Goodbye- my dear friend: and don’t mail me another letter to arrive in this above described unfortunate way. And don’t misunderstand me either- and infer from all this that I do not love dearly to get your letters- and to read them- and to reply to them. Goodbye-Helen.

After Dinner

This was a long interval, was it not, to have been preface by such a decided leave-taking? However I had not the most remote idea that I should have another moment in which to put pen to this [sheet? sheep?] (What is the matter! Did you ever know so absurd a blunder? I will not even alter it, so that you may have a laugh too over it)- of paper, before Sabbath evening at the earliest. But Mr. Palmer has an engagement this afternoon and so we were obliged to give up our reading, which comes at this hour. I am glad of it today, for I felt exactly like writing to you. You wrote me a good letter Henry: I have just read it over, and I thank you for it. [You? For?] little [dream?] how for three days I have been dreading and yet longing for its arrival. Ever since I mailed my last letter to you, I have been haunted by the memory of that-page-of-what shall I say […?] what name can be given to such vague shadowings of what ought not to be thought, and, thought, ought not to be uttered! You did well to own frankly that you were “surprised”; had you not done so, I should have said immediately to myself ‘well-for [sure?] Henry Root has not been open: or stranger still, he has not analyzed his own emotions: I was very [long?] after it was too late, that I did not act on my first impulse and destroy it: -however- peace to all byegones:-only I must remember when we meet, that it will be of no sort of [tell?] for me to try to assume anything or to disguise anything before one who has seen and heard so much of the workings of my inner self. “Dissatisfied”-yes- Henry- that is the word: that is the feeling:that is the misery-of- I believe every heart on the earth: was it not the first cloud that rested on the peace of Eden: and is it not still the element and embodiment of all ill? And yet-are we not ungrateful- oh sometimes I could hate myself more for the [feat? fact?] that I thus repine at myself and my surroundings, than I do in the first [case?], at all my crushing [deficiency?] and short comings. I like your ideas of not seeking to make to yourself a friend, and yet- I am not sure that if every one had and practiced on the same theory, we should see much friendship in the world, should we? Henry- did you even think of being a minister? Pardon the abruptness of the inquiry: you will wonder what earthly association could have suggested it, and I cannot tell: I wrote it just as involuntarily, as I should have interrupted you to say it, if we had been sitting together and talking about something else. I can just see the long and yet lightning chain which linked it with the thought of friendships but I could not give it word-form. But I have often thought of it, in connection with you. You aim for the law-and for a high place in the profession, I know, though I do not remember that you ever told me. An obscure- unknown lawyer in some quiet town (Bridgewater for example!) you would never, and even if you tried, could never be: but, a lawyer of note- in a public position you could not be, without becoming a politician. I know this is the wisest field-that such a future promises most of distinction, and I often often think with a thrill, of the glory- the [peerless?] glory of a good and a great statesman: but- I often think too, that life must have become almost a trifle in my eyes before I could lay it with [crushed?] and stifled affections, wearily spent nights and days and years on such an affair. [How?] come the “clashing characteristics” of which you will not believe me possessed: I could sympathize with the ambition of a Lucifer. I verify below: and […] a friend a brother to “soar and reach the sun, or die”; and I can love the life of a lowly follower of the Divine haste who goes about doing good, and seeks no higher distinction than a seat in some “upper chamber”, when the disciples are assembled. Now-I have so often a fancy of you- and of some other friends that I have, who stand just about where you do- [or?as?] known of all men- famed and good, and then I think of you all, as strong earnest, but [retired?] and unknown men, and I cannot tell which life I would choose for which I hope. [How? Now?] do my dear friend let me have my […] as inconsistent and in some points capricious, will you not? I am so- at any rate, and I believe you know it! Now I know just what a brief second it will take you to put on that peculiar cloudy look, which you used to [wear?] something when I doubted your assertions, and I will pray your forgiveness: I don’t mean that you know that you know it: (philosophical distinction certainly) but that if you are not aware of it, you are open to the [imputation?] of having made an ideal and not a real friend, in the [person? pardon?] of my dearly beloved self! But without flattery (though I need not say that to you,) I sometimes feel an emotion of regret that such a talent for writing as yours, should be for years […] beneath the dry formal technicality of […] and Blackstone, the wording of [briefs?] [writs?], wills and the like- and even, that your reasoning powers should be reduced for their [exercise?] to the twisting and turning of petty law, before sleepy and stupid judges, and juries, and for the sake and the money of illiterate and poor, or rich and [pack?] proud clients. And there is something which seems to me very noble- almost sublime-in the position, if one has strength of intellect and fervor of heart enough to take it, of the messenger of words from the Eternal the direct and immdeiate steward of God- one, all whose relations- all whose life-long labors, all connected with, directed to the Immortal, and the Infinite. But here also, I am confident would come in ambition- as strong and all seeking as elsewhere; if I scrutinize closely my feelings, they are less those of reverance for the office, than for a power which can fill it and invert it with almost unearthly glory which can banish the earthly from the mines of the earth, and sway a world; can a man have such inspiration as this, and yet be a humble true Christian? It seems impossible: and yet Chalmers Hill Hall; Ah “who shall tell [of?] these things?” Henry I am no better [friend?] for you, than “Yeast” for a young skeptic! I wish you would not speak so often of my “influence”; it pains me to hear the very word: I wish I could live in the world without ever influencing our mortal in it: than I should not be saddened by the uncertainty whether it be for good or ill. Have I not written now just about as strangely as before? I do not know how it is, but I cannot write to you as I write to all my other friends, and as I speak to others- in a quiet common way of common every day things: but all the deep, earnest, speculative, notions, and thoughts and feelings which have lived restless in my brain for years, seem to find spontaneous utterance. Goodbye now- in earnest. My poor deformed [Hattie?] is waiting for me to go to walk with her, and I shall not have a moment’s leisure till next week. [Yours?] in all sincerity ever- Helen.

Monday Evening, Ten o’ clock. Oh Henry- is it such a night in Amherst as it is here? Such a moonlight- full wide spreading and glorious- a [noon? moon?] of beauty; such a glistening spiritual veil of snow laid lightly down over all the earth; such a clear calm cold- in the air; Oh- if it is[.?] I know you have been standing, as I, and gazing in unutterable thought on the scene! But you have the more fitting vicinity for the marshalling of natures pageantry: the long low range of hills on the other bank of the Hudson is beautiful as it mingles its white outline with the marble sky; and the terracing roofs of the city make a beautiful mosaic, with the dazzling snow, and the dark dimness; but I would rather look out on the frowning grandeur of old [Holyoke?] and the stretch of meadow and wood, to the west of my old home. How strange the link that binds our hearts to the external- the external of one spot, to that of another. Do you remember Henry [Buckley?] remark on this point, last summer? But I must seek rest, for a head which aches and eyes which have been more than usually taxed today, all admonish me that it is late. But I could write hours tonight; my soul is so full of a welcome to this bright winter which has showered down around us today; and it is just a night for the social affections to gush out most freely; but-goodnight- my dear friend. Be sure that such thoughts as these never rise in my heart, leading me to try to imagine the scene in which you are moving, unaccompanied by the most earnest prayer that all those scenes by night and day, may be but parts of the perfecting of your whole being. Helen.

Sat. Evening.

I am surprised to find that a week has gone since I wrote last in this letter. I am afraid [here? that?] you do not like letters written at such and so many intervals. Will you tell me Henry, Frankly, if you do not? For I can just as easily write eight pages at a time as one; and the only reason that I have fallen into this way of journalizing to you, is because I always [feel?] exactly in the mood to sit down and write to you just as soon as I have read one of your letters: for the same feeling, that if you were to address a remark to me. I should prefer to reply immediately to it, rather than wait an hour or two: therefore I have fallen into my present way. But I wish you could tell me candidly if you do not like it-if the first entries seem stale and dry when they reach you; and I will promise to send you no more [such?]. I have taken my first riding lesson- Saturday morning, on a good [cantering?] horse, and from a very pleasant gentlemanly teacher. I enjoyed it much-or rather I enjoyed much in the feeling that I was achieving a triumph over myself. It was not on your account at all that I was silent in regard to that unlucky ride about which you speak so feelingly! You gave me too much credit there, for regard to your feelings! It was simply and solely selfish; (my old theory you know?) I felt that it was foolish and ought to be conquered, and was only mortified that I succeeded so poorly. I am lame and hate “and every thing that is decrepit (excepting [blind?]) today, and I shall not take another lesson till next week on Friday. Do you have faith in unlucky days? It has been today one of the several most […] rains I ever know: our beautiful snow is all all gone; but I see the clouds are breaking in the west, and the sunlight is just striking in the windows of the Capitol, warming and lighting up the face of poor Justin who has been looking very uncomfortable all day in the storm. I must not linger now to chat- for I have practice hours to be made up, to a most discouraging extent: we have been so dissipated this week, that my regular routine has about lost itself; have you any hours to spare? if so do forward them “instantaneously” for we are in saddened want of them here. Goodnight.

Sat. Morning Nov. 22

This is a [little?] the worst letter you have had yet. Henry: I have been looking it over this morning, and were it not for the huge pile of unanswered letters which lie by my side, and for the thought of a host of other […] which must be attended to today, you would […] behold the disjointed fragmentary thing. But when I recount to you the incidents of the last walk, you woll at once appreciate the causes of this last seven days interval. Late last Saturday night, who should appear to our infinite surprise and delight but one good guardian [Dean?] Palmer and his daughter Lucy, on their way to New York, and with the most inviting plan, for the rest of us to join them. So on Monday evening last we all, a right merry party of six, went on board the Hendrick Hudson-slept-and awoke in New York! It was so sudden a thing that I could not believe the evidence of my sense when I looked upon the glorious old [tries?] of the [Battery?], and listened to the din of Broadway! But it was even so- and the bright fan of Jennie Abbott who joined me at the [Astor?], a few hours after our arrival, was a convincing reality. I cannot and must not attempt to tell you of all the whirling incidents of the two days which I spent there. I saw most of my old friends, but I did not go to La Fayette [Peace?]. Our beautiful home has been changed into a large and fashionable boarding house, and I did not care to see it. Jennie and I were together (of course)- all of the time- we were out, literally the whole of each day, and I am sorry to say we talked nearly the whole of each night- So that on Thursday morning when we took our seats in the [cars?] for home-I was completelytired out and longed and cared for nothing but rest. But I must not forget to tell you one of the pleasantest incidents of the week and the forming of a delightful acquaintance. I sent my […] to Tutor Dickinsons brother, Tuesday noon, but he did not get it till after the hour on Wed. at which I was at home. He called [again?] during the day, but I was out, and I was much dissapointed [in?] not seeing him. However at quarter past eleven,in the evening, he called sending up his [word?] to know if I would see him a moment. Jennie and I were in what Mrs. Howe calls “[ditchabille?]” and you would have laughed at the lightning changes which […] lighted apartment witnessed, but, I felt the most irresistable impulse, I could hardly tell why, to go down. And who should I find with him, but Henry [h?] Parker, an old graduate of Amherst, the perfect hero of my ten and twelve year old ideals! I presume you have heard of him: he was poet-painter-scholar all in one strikingly handsome and and with a frank generous disposition. I had seen his name in the papers, as having him chosen to deliver the poem at the opening of the course of lectures before the Young Men’s Association here but I could not ascertain if it were the same person. And here by this strange chance I met him, and learned that he would be our traveling companion the next morning- together with Henry Ward Beuher, who was to deliver the lecture on the same occasion! Was it not singular? The boyish beauty which he had in college is all gone, and I do not think the expression of his face is happy, but he is very fascinating still. He is preaching somewhere in this [state?], I forget where, but it seems to me he would be very much such a preacher as the author of [Feast? Yeast?]! His poem was glorious in its conception, and beautiful in execution, for about half way: and the rest was poor: though we heard it under a disadvantage, as he was obliged to omit a great part of it for want of time. Beuhers lecture was as striking and original and Beuher-ish as usual more studied and rather less brilliant than some of his efforts- and if you will believe it, so conservative in its doctrine, that some of the radical papers yesterday morning, almost condemned it, Mr. Beuher [staid?] with us, and his social character is certainly far more pleasant and genial, than from his manner you would infer. He was acquainted with my mother in her young lady days, and professed to discover a verycomplete resemblance to her in me. It is rather laughable to see how our friends divide on that question: I have long since, ceased to place any reliance whatever, on anything which any or all of them say, in regard to it, but Annie is quite [studious?] on the subject. Mr. Parker [took?] tea here on Thursday evening and spent part of yesterday forenoon here, so that we became quite acquainted, and I have not met for a long timeso pleasant an acquaintance. I wish you knew him. It seems that Mr. Dickinsons sister is the lady whom you spoke of, as possibly coming to board at Mrs. Emersons: I have a great curiosity to hear all about her: I fancy that she will not be pretty at all but be a girl of strong mind, good feelings, and a warm heart. So much for [conjection?]: most probably, the reality will contradict it; it is the way in such cases!
Henry- do tell me (if you ever look at my old letters) if the ink has not faded nearly out: I see the first to age of this is a light brown already! I do not see what I shall do! The discomforts of poor ink and uncertain pens, and changeable paper seem to have been fore ordained as my peculiar affections! Whose ink do you like? Your writing is always of a beautiful blackness. I have tried a different [actuale?] this morning,and I think it looks as if it might be black in time, but is of a most cadaverous hue, as I write. And now I must say, goodbye- I tried to finish this letter last night, that you might get it today, but I had a forlorn headache, and was blue besides; so it is better for you to wait till Monday. Why do you ask me, if you write too much? (Excuse me), but really I think it might almost be construed into a reflection upon my [folis?] sheets to you, which contain just about twice the quantity of yours. And moreover you know well, that my interest in your welfare, your life- your progress, would make it impossible for me weary in reading and answering any record of either or all which you are disposed to confide in me.

Yours, as ever, sincerely- Helen

Writing across the sides of pages

It is fortunate that the Indicator died! Had you made that […] of the [criticism?] I [seat?] you. I could never leave [forgiveness?] it […]!

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What [will?] John […] [regard?] to the [elegant?] […] of that letter!

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Thanks for J. [Es.?] articles. It was quite pleasant!

Albany, Thurs. Eve. Dec. 11 1851

My dear friend,

Never was letter snatched, as was [tours?] of tonight; I hardly think letter had ever been so looked for before! Five hours after my last was sent, I would have recalled it at any cost, could I have done so: it was an impulse of all impulses, most impulsive, so much so that I could scarcely recollect one of the words to which it gave utterance, and it was with an anxiety which I seldom allow myself to [ful?] as to the sequels of my deeds, that I waited for your reply: and now it has come- so good- so honest- so cordial and true, that I cannot help telling you, at once, how happy it has made me. Henry- you are a good friend-: I feel it in the bottom of my heart and I wish I could do something besides talk to prove it! As to the matter of which we have written- let it rest for the present: it was a [queer?] impulse which led me to have it all “up” so long beforehand; we will wait now for time and its destinies. However, I am not [sorry? long?]; we each understand the other now, more fully than before: and I shall even have the certainty that so far as you are concerned, my friendship for you is […] above the possibility of misconstruction: and in this certainty, I shall feel a happier freedom than before: and perhaps when we meet, I shall tell you, in the fullness of our confidence, of that past, which has made me what I am; that strange chain which has [flung?] almost the letters of a double [nature?] over my soul. This is mystical you will say: I know it: so am I- so are you: else we had [cured?] nothing for each other. Now- I ought not to write more- the hands of my faithful watch point silently to a stern admonition that I should retire. I have been tonight to hear [Dempster? Dempsten?]- and my soul is in a tearful mood, while the words “I am alone though I roam” &c- and the wild pathos of Jennysons most beautiful conception, “The hay queen” dwell in my thought. Have you heard him? If you have, I am sure you felt as I did, that no one else ought even to sing his music. Last night I listened to Sheets poem, which you will find in the Journal I send you. It is literally rich in classic gems, and draped with descriptive beauty, as with a garment, but it is all objective: and his delivery is worse than that of any schoolboy who shouts of the “[Grampian?] Hills”. I [pitied?] his sweet little wife who sat before him: if he had been my husband, I would have thrown my cloak over his head, and muffled him, for his awkwardness! She is a very interesting, but very practical lady, and it seems to me they live in two worlds: I like him as a soul- very much, but I am fain, in talking with him, to shut my eyes, to keep the man out!

And now-Henry- I must say- Goodnight. The midnight of your letter could not have been more glorious, than that which wraps earth now- I wonder if you are looking at it- or are most unenthusiastically- fast asleep! You will be in Amherst in four weeks. I will try and welcome you there with my next letter though I may write before: this however is quite a little epistle, and my hours are so occupied: they flit away from me like ghosts. Tomorrow morning I take my third riding lesson: I wish you could go with me. I wish Amherst were west of Albany, so that you could not get there without coming here- Alas- “if wishes were wings the cripples could fly.”

Goodnight again- I shall think of you in [your?] long good reads and talks, [with?] that sister, of whom you gave me so very indefinite an idea, when you undertook once to describe her? [Dost?] remember? Oh- by the way – if I don’t forget- I shall say quite a say, to you in my next, about Emily F. There- that’s food for your [mason?] line curiosity, (of which of course, as a gentleman, you haven’t enough to trouble you!) for the next month!

Eleventhly (isn’t it?)- I am as ever, Henry-

Your true and warm friend Helen.

P.S. on the front page

P.S.-
Henry- there is a strange sort of tone to this note- something akin to the flippant, which I detect, and to the melancholy, which I never am. I cannot explain it- but by the crowd of feelings which are in my heart tonight and quite jostle each other! –What I meant to write was just one word of gratitude and appreciation for your kind good soul-full letter! But I have written four pages and then, put all I had to say, into the postscript. Yours-as ever- Helen.

Albany. Wed. Morning Dec. 24. 1851.

My Dear Henry
I have just folded the newspaper which you will receive with this notes, and was about sealing it, when Mr. Palmer brought in yours of Monday evening. Such a perfect gale of [merriment?] as we have had at poor Helen [Jafis?]’s expense, you could hardly imagine. I wish I could have been present at that report of [travel?] which was delivered in the back room and to the personage alluded to: you were wrong in supposing I had never seen “Grandpa”, as I have not only seen him, but talked with him: I think I must read it- your account of it- to Helen, verbatim; it will do her good! I was glad to get your note Henry: I had been half looking for it- why, I hardly knew, but with a sort of “presentiment” that it would come. However- the most important part of it to me, was that regarding your visit to New York: and now, in great haste, I am going to make a proposition to you- in all sisterly frankness too- and with the full confidence that it will not be misunderstood. Annie is with me, as I mentioned, in my newspaper note: Mrs. Ward who came on with her from Boston (Mrs. P’s brother) came on business, and with return on Monday of next week, and will take [Hatne?] Palmer with him; Annie had expected to return with them, although her vacation extended till New Years, rather than go alone, a few days later. Now, the plan which struck my fancy, as soon as I read this move of yours to New York was as follows; I will write directly to Henry, and ask him to go home by way of Albany; the I can see him; and Annie can wait until he comes and they have a longer visit with me- and pleasant company to Springfield: then of course- a thousand objections suggested themselves: the propriety of my sending you a direct invitation to come and see me &c. &c. &c. &c. & so on; especially after the tone of our last two letters! But on the whole, I have concluded to keep to our honest policy, and act on my first impulse. I suppose I might have written a very circumlocutory note: and by gentle [intentions? intonations?] and carefully worded statements, have suggested the idea to your mind! But I would not do that: I should [love?] right well to see you and have one good love talk- and I should love to see you here- and I should love to have Annie stay a day or two with me, after [Hattie?] is away, so that we can see each other more, and I should love to have her have your company on her way home; and therefore-come- if you can, and would really like to; and if not- and I know there may be a hundred reasons why you cannot- say so, as frankly as I have said the above: and I shall know from your own candor that you appreciate mine, and understand it. If at this stage in our acquaintance- after such true confidence, you have not sincerity enough to make such a return, you ought to have the punishment of being forced to go where you don’t want it, and I shall hope, that after you get here, you will be compelled to remain by all possible combinations of the wind-weather-snow-railroad accidents- and every other agency conceivable for the hindrance of travelers! I have written so hurriedly that I hardly know what I have said; however I guess I have said what I mean; and as you will get this letter, certainly, by Thrusday- will you not write us a line, so that it will reach us, Saturday? And now my dear friend-Goodbye- with all good wishes, and warm regards, from- [yours?] as ever-
Helen.

P.S.
I have concluded not to send this paper: (perhaps you might have inferred that whithout being told!) it seemed rather a superfluous [addiction? addition?] to this letter.

I am glad you are in New York for the Holidays. You’ll have such a merry time I know. Once more- Au […]’ecrire!

Helen
Tues. Eve. 7 o’clock

Are we friends Henry, or enemies- strangers or acquaintances? I think it would have puzzled the lawyers to tell from our meeting and interview this afternoon, don’t you? I have been reverie-ing over it ever since you went away, and have come to these conclusions, one of which I think must be the right one-either you are displeased- not perhaps seriously, but still somewhat so- (a state expressed by the common but exceedingly inclusive phrase “don’t like”) by something: or- an intimate letter acquaintance is a bad preparation for a personal one; or- my strange embarrasing consciousness of the difference between “Henry”, my correspondent, and “Mr. Root” a tall dignified gentlemen of whom, to save my life, I can’t help being afraid, spread itself over my face and manners, and infected you; making constraint and silence, when there should be cordial and familiar greeting. If I were to try to write you all the ten thousand thoughts I have had about it since you left- I might wait till tomorrow. I never was so puzzled:

10 ½ o’clock

Now-Henry- shall I give you this- which has all been said- explained- unsaid and done away with? But I promised, and so I will, though I must confess that I do not want to at all. I will only add a few words of Goodnight- and Godspeed- I have really enjoyed so much in seeing you- that I feel like thanking you for the thoughts that are in my heart- but you will get there by degrees! In the mean time I shall look for your next letter: and by the way, I’ll tell you here though I wouldn’t at the door, (and before I had made you promise to give me the first letter), why I was so anxious that you should write first. It was because I want to see if your ideas after this [drole?] little shaking-heads-visit, will correspond with my own: strange fancy isn’t it! And I have your word for it too- so I shall succeed! Now I am not sure that it is wise for me tell you this after all- however it is written! Goodnight! I wish I were going too tomorrow; and I wish I could see you in the morning before you start- but it is such a forlorn home- and I don’t want to make a parting impression on your brain in the sleepy “dishabille” of a dark morning! I fear that your memories would be more distinct there, than it seems they have been, since last summer! Why- it is so laughable to think that you entirely forgot my poor [..]! I was the better friend of the two-Henry- for I remembered yours even to that “cloudy look” which flies from your eye to your brow, sometimes!

[These? There?] are my “few words”! Prolix as ever! –Once more- Goodnight- and a right good journey to you. –I shall think of you both often- and at four o’clock, fancy you at home,-and you will not travel faster nor farther than the earnest and sympathizing good wishes of your friends Helen will follow you! –Goodnight.-

P.S.

Write to me-Henry- as soon as – the mood [serves? surges?] you. I shall wait for your letter, with the impatience of curiosity added to that of friendship.

Please tell me- in it, just why you were so “surprised” at my asking you to come here. I cannot define it satisfactorily to myself. Oh, I am so so so sorry I [shewed?] your “Jennie”- it is a perfect […] on that sweet Jennie Abbott- whom you would love if you knew her. I fear you & Charlie are having a serious time of it: it is so late: tell me all about it. Yours, as ever- now-, & now as ever- Helen.

Albany, Friday Evening Jan. 2 1852

My dear friend,

I have just caught the first glimpse of myself, which I have had since I bade you goodbye in the misty gloom of Wednesday morning: never before was my personal identity so completely nullified by excitement, and the reaction from it, as it has been for the last two days. Wednesday- I followed you and Annie on your Eastern journey- and the day glided rather dreamily by till noon, when we learned that Lucy was coming that night- and then, I assure you there was no lack of bustle and preparation. We had had company so long that Mrs. Palmer was no more ready in her apartment, than I was in mine, for the reception of a new guest, and on most accounts we could have wished her arrival deferred till after New Years. But when she came and said that she met you and Annie at S. I was quite reconciled, for it seemed like having a telegraph dispatch from you:- then came New Years day- that list of thought and patience- from ten in the morning till ten at night we sat in solemn state in the parlor, [playing?] the entertaining to people that (with some few exceptions) we […] not a […] for. Oh how often I thought of what you said about society! At six o’clock, I was completely exhausted, and resorted to an expedient never before tried (by me, I mean.) I drank a [tumbler?] of the strangest possible green tea, and in an hour, was as much excited as if I had taken brandy! Wrong-was it not? I thought so this morning when I woke with an aching head, and stiffened eyelids, and a brain teeming with almost delicious fancies; [are?] the long forenoon floated by like a cloud, and I hardly knew, in the crowding confused medley of thoughts, what [were? was?] memory, and what imagination: this afternoon, I have finished “Dream Life”- and made sundry dips into “Hamlet”- an old Annual of [1834?],- and my letter box! Thus luxuriously have I let myself drone along till tonight: but the episode is over now- the New Year upon us- and I mean- I trust to fall back into former habits. First of all[…] my neglected pen: ten unanswered letters swell out the sides of my portfolio; and yet- I am writing to you! However I must not write many words more; it will be weeks before this sheet starts on its journey, and its pages will have many a record besides the dreamy thoughts of tonight. I have just had a right good long letter from Annie: she says you looked “very sober” while you were reading my note: I do wonder what the reason was, and if you will tell me in your next letter, and how long before you will write-: and with all these wonderings- Goodnight. I think I’ll not write again in this till I hear from you- unless indeed an irresistable impulse seize me, as tonight. Your true friend as ever, Helen.

Tues. Eve.. no, Wed, morn. 12:20 o’clock!

My dear friend,

I received your good and welcome letter this afternoon, just I was reluctantly laying aside Hamlet, and trying to nerve myself to the bore of dressing for a small party, which Mrs. Palmer was to give tonight. Right right glad was I of it- and I lingered over its good words, until twilight looked in at my windows, and dressing operations had to be performed in obscurity. The party is over (quite a pleasant one though rather [clerical?].)- and every one in the house is in bed but myself; Charlie’s lunch is packed, even to the last apple- and he is snoring in the next room; Lucy has ceased imploring me to give [info?] writing, and “I’m alone all alone” with the night-myself- and you; a good [trio?] [tis?] too for thought and earnest utterance! Henry- your ideas did […] with mine- in regard to this little flying flitting dream- interview, which I am forced to admit that we have had- vague and unsubstantial, [as?] seems its memory. I felt just as you did exactly- a sort of unconsciousness at the time- a kind of bewilderment- an impossibility of realization; which taken all together did certainly succeed in making it about as unsatisfying as [little?] visit as I ever knew of; still there is a comfort in it too, we shall not have the same ground to go over, when we next meet and that alone is quite a consideration! But I laughed quite heartily at my own conceptions of the state of mind you must have been in, while sitting in the parlor, and awaiting the appearance of the un-recal-able “Miss Fiske of last Commencement”!! That is [queerer?] than all the rest! And do you know, that you did not call me “Helen” once while you were here? That was one of the things which made all seem so strange. I hardly know how to answer your question as to the difference between “Henry” and “Mr. Root”: a very great difference there was one that I felt though I cannot define exactly: if I were obliged to state it, I should say, that there was much less heart (apparent) in the latter than in the former, and yet this is a little more than the feeling warrants. I presume it was the same thing precisely which you felt to be a distinction between “the Miss Fiske and her who wrote you the last letter! Have I not, at last, succeded in defining my idea- or rather, making it evident, by illustration? But I must not write more tonight. The snow is literally [raging?] without, and the windows look as if they have just been peeled off of an iceberg.[My?] room is colder than I dare allow myself to realize, and I must say Goodnight, though I am not at all inclined to sleep. I am so happy tonight that I feel as if I must have some extra safety valve for surplus emotion. Jennie Fry is coming tomorrow to visit me for a day or two: the only drawback is that her huge brother William, must come to bring her, and I shall have to entertain his silent majesty one whole evening. Excuse me! That was both illnatured and unnecessary! Goodnight. Do you dream at Amherst or [Greenfield?], I wonder! Bon soir- mon amis- Helen!

Wednesday Evening

The furious snowstorm which raged all all day yesterday, and still [lingered?] […] forenoon in the shape of gray clouds and raw air, has finally fled, and the cold moon looks down now most beautifully upon the white [realm?]-I am again alone in my room, as the whole family have gone to the weekly prayermeeting; I suppose it is a very wicked thing in me but I cannot go to prayermeetings. I do not believe that they [act? are?] profitable service to any but Christians, and such Christians too, [as have?] religion enough to enable them to lay aside all intellectual [prejudice?] and squeamishness of taste, and regard only the spirit, and not the form of the petitions offered up by their “brethren”. I sometimes wish I could feel differently, and have several times this winter resolved to go at any rate, but I shrink from the sacrifice. I wish you- or [Mr.?] John- or Jennie Fox, or some other real good heart-[…] would walk in and take a seat in my little rocking chair for all evening; my soul is in a social mood, but my head is a little too tired for writing: we have been today to dine at Mr.Woods (he was the Democratic Senator from Albany, some years since; a pity I could not have known him previous to last summer, Henry is it not, so that I could have alluded to “my friend the [How?] So and So.”!) He is one of the most fascinating men in conversation that I ever met- keen-brilliant, shifting-speculative, heart-full; in short, everything, except a whig. He is terribly radical withal-and I fancy, a little set; a bosom friend of H.W. Becher, and also a staunch admirer of R.S. Storrs! democratic in principle and politics, but as aristrocratic and exclusive, as you please, in practice. His wife is a most lovely woman: I do hope I shall know her; if I was a painter and going to paint and Ideal of Truth- I would paint her eyes; they are beautiful-beautiful. We met there a Miss [Towensend?], who I imagine, would about compare with those young ladies upon whom you called, the Sat. night that you wrote to me. Quite young, a little pretty, a great talker (with gentlemen) and come to Albany for the winter to take music sessions and go to parties! Mrs. Wood has a son (by a famous marriage) a Mr. Clarke, who seems to me just like a character in a story, a little like Charley [Leicester?] in Lewis Arrendel, only with more head and less amiability. He graduated at Williams, and has since been travelling extensively in Europe; retirement last fall: I think he has fine natural powers- and a good heart; but the one dormant and the other sourced, by the want of a necessity for [exertion?]: he has a fortune in his own right- his mother another which will be his, and therefore he is, and I fear ever will be, a little misanthropical and gloomy, (from the consciousness of what he might do) listley-weary- un-useful. (I don’t like the word useless.) I am sure that there are chords which might be touched-if one could but reach: and I do so with that some chance circumstance would bring him when I dared speak, there is nothing in the universe which so thrills my soul with an unquenchable desire to do something, as the sight of a noble nature- going astray- or sinking into action. But I shall tire you with my stories of people that you have never seen, nor ever will. And I must not let myself ramble further tonight, for a letter to Annie must be written. This cruel snow storm has kept Jennie Joy at home- and prevented Charlie P. from starting for Yale, but I suppose it would hardly keep you from Amherst: and you are probably sitting now in that armchair in your old room. I should like to take a peep at you: however I can imagine very nearly how you look; I don’t forget my friends’ faces! My [look?] to the “fireplace” of which you spoke; how many dreams and reveries is it the unconscious sepulchre! Goodnight, my dear friend. As ever, Helen.

Thurs. Morning

I have just [dosed?] a letter of eight “pages” to my little sister, and I cannot put away pens and ink, without writing a few words to you. It is a glorious morning- the thermometer at zero, and the sunlight making perfect glory everywhere on the glistening snow. Charlie Palmer went this morning at the same hour at which you and Annie started, but I did not see him: it was too dark and cold to wake up! “Bobbie” is parading about the room with a handful of [motro?] wafers- and just now came up to me with “Are you going to write to Henry Fruit?” I told her yes and asked her what I should tell him: “give my love to him.” “Is that all?” “No. Give my kiss to him!” I hope you will appreciate the favors, for I assure you they seemed to be most heartfelt and they certainly were spontaneous. I do not know how it was that you suceeded in making such an impression upon her infant “fancy.” The other morning at breakfast, immediately after the blessing, she broke out suddenly with “Henry Fruit-how do you do-Mr. Fruit!” to our infinite amusement! Now she is soliloquizing to herself about the heroine who just put on all her ascension robes.

And climbed up a big pine née. She grows more and more fascinating every day; sometimes a dark thought crosses my mind of the fate of idols: I believe it would kill her mother, should she die, and I am sure I could not live here without her: and yet I never feel that it is a sad thing for children to become angels! How different must be their state in Heaven; I have often thought of it till thought became perplexity and bewilderment: do they mature in death- is their life in Heaven progressive, so that early in their Eternity they are like their parents-or do they ever remain infants? I know Time is no more, there; and in a certain sense all distinctions of age must be annihilated; and yet, we believe that the essential characteristics of the soul endure forever- Daniel and Saint Paul will be still one, the […] enthusiastic nature- the other, the glorious thinker and reasoner: ekse it seems to me, there would be no Heaven at all! With all reverence be it said- but I could not tolerate the idea of an infinity of stereotyped saints- all run in one mould of perfection, and having lost their individuality. Could you? Then for the child-angel there must be a process and a progress, different from that which its father has, or else it remains child forever. Is it no so? I wish [Dr.?] Mawel would write a book of philosophy not mental nor moral but universal and hidden- the things that we all dream over and wonder about, and talk about with our hearts closest friends. I told you I believe that I had finished Dream Life: oh, what a book it is: I seldom whed book-tears but there are several [blistey?] on the page of my Dream Life. And do you know, Henry, that I have had the most irresistable impulse to write to him! Don’t laugh at me, I do not doubt that he receives hosts of anonymous letters from silly sentimental school-girls, and I have no desire to add one of mine to the list, to be laughed at and crammed between the bars of the grate in his [bachelor’s?] room! But for all that, I would give a world if I could write to him- what I hardly know- or why but, just write to him once- and hear just one word written on papers for me! However you need not be alarmed [for?] me: I have no very serious intention of doing it, at present! If I do I’ll promise to send the letter to you, for your approval! Safe promise!

Henry- I am quite puzzled to know what to tell you in regard to John Sanford. I don’t think I quite understand my own sentiments on the subject. I’ll tell you, however, what changed them so far as they are changed: it was a long letter from Jennie Hitchbach to Annie, in answer to one which Annie wrote her, asking a full frank explanation of all the mysterious stories about J.S. and herself (Jennie.) It was a noble letter- and made me love and admire Jennie for more than I ever supposed that I should, or indeed could. I never allow myself, at least I try not to, to condemn a person simply because I dislike them: in J.S.’s case, to my strong personal dislike was added a feeling that I had a right to condemn him: I thought his conduct towards Jennie must have positively destestable: now I think it was only imprudent and unfortunate: she clears him completely and in evident frankness, from anything in hispast acquaintance with her, which did not leave him at perfect liberty to transferhis attentions to another: I really think that in this case, as in many, the world’s estimate was a wrong one. I have spoken briefly, because I do not care to fill up all my letter with so uninteresting a matter, but you will see at once how a letter of this sort might set his character in a more favorable light. This does not directly affect my personal feelings-and yet [it?] has somewhat affected them. I think I did J.S. injustice. I am [sorry?] that I [hated?] him in such a way as to cause hostile feeling. I presume that if we meet again, in that “future” to which you so maliciously refer we shall be very pleasant amiable friends. This is the substance of the “change” in my veins which has delighted Annie and puzzled you. Does it seem inconsistent or capricious? If so I am sorry: it is nevertheless [here?]. On the other hand-were we destined to live together to all Eternity, J.S. and I could never harmonize or assimilate; he is a person who does not interest me, in the slightest degree, in any point whatever, except as I am interested in every one I meet: had it not been for the very peculiar circumstances under which we were together- and (I am ashamed to confer it, but it is so.) for the peculiar [decision?] he seems to have to me- I never could have ever disliked him! But I feel now very little fear that I shall ever be called upon to “get up” any warmer regard for him than now suffices. Your question about Annie was not an impertinent one, as it rose in your mind though the expression sounded rather singularly, and I will answer it [frankly?]: and- in the negative:- of course, I would say to you what I would say to our brother- and I know you will receive it so too. Annie does not now “love anybody”- not that she has not a capacity for loving: she will never love anyone passionately, it is true; but she will love [devotely?] and truly, and unchangeably, and with a love which is happier at any rate, if not better, than the wild idolatry for which some hearts are formed. But she, as yet, has only “fancied”. There was a time when I really feared it was otherwise, and I believe I wrote to you to that effect: it was at Thanksgiving time when he was in Boston: but now my fears have quite subsided, though I dare say, I shall have quite a relapse as soon as she sees him again. However at present there is a Mr. [Dana?], (now Henry- you must lock this in your memory, and give me the key. It would be ungenerous and unsisterly in me to tell it to any one but you.) in Boston, with whom, Lucy says Annie is “perfectly fascinated.” I thought so before, but of course Annie would not admit it: she “liked” him- oh yes- she “liked” Mr. Dana very much indeed- and so she did John Sanford too! All of which means that she “fancies” them both. It is no fault in Annies character; it is only a slight peculiarity in her temperament, and her youth, and want of development. I will trust the future for her, after all. I was foolish, I think, very foolish to let any of it trouble me: had J.S. been a person whom I could endure, I should have had more common sense. I should like to have Annie marry Mr. Dana- so far as I know: he is an intelligent business man and highly connected; and though of course I should prefer that her association be with [the?] educated class of the community, still how much better to be the wife of a wealthy and respected merchant, than of a poor, mediocre, obscure lawyer, as J.S. will be. (Now if he should be President, or a distinguished Statesman, thirty years hence, how we should have to swallow our predictions, or rather I should: I believe I never heard you make similar ones.) However this is very plain talking: between two plain spoken souls though- so let it go! And apropos to plain speaking, Mr. Henry Dwight Root, I think you do deserve a premium for truth telling! I am sure now that you are not half so afraid of me, as I am of you, for [next?] in the world, should I have dared to tell you anything which I thought should displease you half so much as you had reason to think I would be with you, for telling Bliss of that foolish freak of ours! Really and candidly, Henry- I did have very hard work not to be offended! Nothing but the frankness with which you told me, could have atoned for it. And the most [vexatious?] thing about it was that you did not mention also the fact of John and Annies sitting [after?], and that it was done merely for the joke of our sitting them. I am glad it was Bliss to whom you [told?] it. I like him very very much, and would trust his discretion sooner than that of most persons. Still it was not a thing to be told to anyone, for of course no third person could at all appreciate the circumstances. And my dear friend- I cannot tell you how glad I am that you told me: had I discovered it in any other way I should have been perfectly unhappy: I do not believe that I should ever again have had entire trust in any mortal, and my regard for you would have no longer been, as it now is, so whole, so true, and so confiding, that, independently of my pleasure in knowing you, it is “a thing of joy” to me, to know that there can be such friendship. But do you know at the very time to which you allude- an intuitive flash crossed my mind, of all which you have mentioned? It is very very strange but so it was: after the change in the conversation which you may remember, I made myself and intentionally, I kept continuously reverting to it- recalling the peculiar expression of your eye, as you said “I guess not” and several times I was on the point of asking you, point blank, “Henry you have told of that to some one?” But I banished the thought as an unjust and suspicious one and I have had several twinges since then, to think that I so wronged our friendship! Supposing I had done as the impulse prompted- how startled you would have been! And how sad a blow would my trust have received in the consciousness that you spoke of it only because you were forced to do so! Henry-this is a [ends here]

postscript on first page

you defend yourself so eloquently in regard to the change of […] in […] about a certain young lady that I am ready to […] myself vanquished. I will withdraw my charge & substitute another, from which I forewarn you, I shall not retreat. you have changed in expression in regard to her-be the sentiment new or old! Poor girl- Should Mr. [M?] die-what will life be for her? [Now? How?] much preferable would death be to a woe like hers! Is the power of passionate love- a blessing? I cannot- cannot think so.

I hope you will not forget to call on good old Ms. Moore. I wish I could go with you- only I am afraid we should exchange too many looks of comment. Poor old lady-what does she live for- I do think that all the people in Amherst ought to go and see her often. If I lived there, I would spend two afternoons a week in that quaint old

second page

parlor- and I do not doubt I should be all the better for dwelling so many hours with the past.

third page

I have had a visitation this morning, from an old schoolmate of mine at [Pittsfield?]- whom I had not seen since I was twelve years old! We had a charming talk of olden times, and she paid me the very equivocal compliment, that I looked exactly as I used to look then. It is not the first time that I have heard the same flattering truth, and I think either I must look decidedly juvenile now- or I did look remarkably old then. Nine years older and no more mature!

you say you had 10,000 questions to ask me. Won’t you ask some 100 or so of them- in your next letter? I am quite impatient to see to what they all [find? tend?]. With [some?] to, yours as ever- Helen

P.S. This is the last nook filled up. It will be [impatient? important?] for you to preserve the “unity”

Do you not think it rather mortifying? I am sure I do, sincerely speaking!

fourth page

After all-Henry- I do not think that this letter contains many of those “thoughts” which I promised you- and of which my heart was full, as you drove away from our door a week ago. They were pleasant and also very happy thoughts & still I do not find them very definable. I fear you will not be pleased if I give them their most obvious expression. And yet I longed to tell you them- and I have ever since, how plainly your countenance revealed a happier heart- and a more earnest life, than it bore record of last summer. Had I not heard one word from you in the interval- had I seen you but for a moment, & not exhanged a single word with you, I should have still been sure that a change had dwelt in your thoughts: that you were more satisfied

fifth page

more yourself. Have I spoken too plainly! If so forgive me. You know always, ever, that though my words may be not well chosen- there is nought in my heart- towards her- which could

sixth page
wound or offend. I am sometimes afraid- after a letter has gone- that I have gone beyond the limits even of our truthfulness- but your good replies always reassure me- and – Henry – I do not say it to flatter- you know I would not do that-every letter that I receive [but?] makes me

seventh page

more truly prize the friend-whom such a little [chance?] gained for me! you do not know how often that thought humbles me Henry- But once more and finally goodbye. yours ever in all truth, Helen.

This letter is like those [while?] [first?] […]

eight page

long letter- and a speedy answer- but I know you will be gladder of it in these few first lonely days than after you are fairly established again in the old routine. Write to me as every frankly- and believe me now as ever- your true and trusting friend-Helen.

ninth page

“one thing more-Henry” (as you said.) Don’t be offended at the question-you suggested it. Does Amherst know of our correspondence? Of course though it must be known. I forgot for the moment […]

Albany Sat. Eve. Jan. 17, 1832.

My dear friend-

Your good long letter has just arrived: or rather it arrived an hour ago, and I have just risen from my reverie over the […], into which I feel after reading it. Oh! What a sentence! If I had fallen into the fire, and made as bungling work in getting out of it, as I did in the construction of that claim, I should have been [burnt? brunt?] up bodily, and never been heard from afterwards! But soberly- I have had a right good time reading your letter; and it came just at the time, when above all other times I love to get my letters- Saturday night; and I have a whole host of [crowding?] things to say: and such an irresistable impulse to write you at once, that all objections are over ruled. So I have been searching high and low for some sort of a pamphlet-sermon-newspaper; anything which I could send to you, and thereby smuggle in a wee note. I can’t find anything except a [Familial?Funeral?] Discourse, and a Poem, by the [Res.?] Ray Palmer; of which I select the latter, as being the fairest specimen of his style of thought and expression.

And now my dear Henry- do let me set your heart at rest, at once and forever on the matter of my regard for you, as affected by the incident to which you alluded. It is indeed “whole” and warm- and in no [wise?] shattered; neither does it repose on any “argumentation” foundation- but on the same broad base of confiding sympathy where it rested at first, and has ever since. And, (as you have had some reason to infer), I not only would confide as readily as before, but with a more perfect certainty that the trust was well given. This seems perhaps strange: it is [true?], nevertheless: why, I do not quite know myself, though I think it is because you told me so frankly of the whole. Therefore- let us both bid farewell to the whole topic- you with the good assurance that the affair has not weakened, but strengthened- and I, with the consciousness that the friend so trusted is to be trusted still. The city clocks chime a long hour- and I must not indulge myself in writing at this late “time o’ night”. Pity me, as I lay down my pen, with the comforting knowledge that fourteen letters are unanswered, in my portfolio! Oh, how could I forget to tell you, that my dear dear Jennie Fox has been making me the most delightful visit: the [light? life?] this afternoon, and I have been sitting still- all ready to [cry?], ever since she went away! – I will tell you all about her visit- if I ever find time to answer your letter: I am going to begin to be more systematic and impartial in my letter writing, and answer my letters in order of time. I really think, Henry, to speak in all sincerity, that I ought not to write to you, so often. I sometimes write and receive three or four letters to & from Amherst, while one poor letter from someone else is neglected. Now I don’t think this is right; and so I am going to begin to crucify inclination, and write “as in [duty?] friend” to all my correspondents. Thus you see, you will come fifteenth on the list of recipients, and you had better not begin to “wait” till some time next month: this affair is merely a little sort of “[treat?] to resolution”, not to be dignified by the name of a letter at all!

Poor Mr. Carter! I hope he does not [buy? pry?] into pamphlets and the like! Are you not vexed at his impertinence in refusing to give that letter to [Branierd?]- as if he were cognizant of some mighty secret, which would be divulged by the passing of the poor document into any hands but yours! I [hate?] postmasters: excuse that word: I know it is very unladylike to be guilty of so strongan emotion- or if entertained, to express it. But it is so annoying to feel that they are as it [was?] legalized spies upon everybody’s affairs! I do not speak they, however, because I have the slightest objections to the facts having been known to Mr. Harrington-or to the others: I have not. I should be very inconsistent if I had.

And now my dear friend-Goodnight! I fancy I see you in that oft mentioned “[chair?]” I wonder if the opposite one is still empty! I should like to seat myself therein, for a few moments “would circumstances admit” as Mrs. Tyler at Pittsfield, used to say! notwithstanding your doubts as to the propriety of the [with?].

yrs as ever, H.

postscript first page

I’m glad you have seen Mrs. Moore: and that you are going again-if you do! There is an Iricisme for you. Please tell me Sue’s address again. I have forgotten it- and I want to send her a paper. What sort of letters does she write? Oh- I do wish I could write you a letter instead of this little parenthesis of a note. I never [can?] say anything in a note! Once more and this time finally Goodnight-

Pleasant dreams-

Helen M. F.

Albany Thurs. P.M. Jan 22. 1882.

My dear friend-

How stands the thermometer in Amherst I wonder- and if you are half as cold as I have been, for a few days! The weather here is actually [terrific?] 20˚ to 10˚ below [zero?] and the air as [keen?] and biting as air can be-; this morning Lucy and I walked two miles to riding school and back, and when I got home- I do not believe that you would have seen much of the “Miss Fiske” in me! Oh such an object as a lady is, with her forehead, nose, and chin, stiffened into one great unmanageable red! And since we got home I have been fairly listless from the reaction-just capacitated for darning stockings, (excuse me.) and entertaining two such specimens of our [six?], as those of whom you were complaining so bitterly, in one of your letters from Greenfield, and now that dinner is over, and the long afternoon stretching away before me, I cannot resist the impulse to sit down and chat a while with you: “the pile of letters” is still [wofully?] high: I am in almost every body: debt: and I believe I told you in the little note that I smuggled into Mr. Palmer’s poem, that I should not mail a letter for you, till all other claims were discharged; so this will be [state?] enough before it reaches you, but still I cannot deny myself the pleasure of at least a few moments talk. -Henry- you say my letters do you “good”: I don’t see exactly how such conversational letters as are mine, can do anybody any good; but at any rate- it does me good to write to you; I do love it: I think as you say, that there is a pleasure in writing to a person in whom you can confide, simply in the fact that you write out every thought so unreservedly- the single pleasure of perfect honesty: and when to this, is added the pleasure of a [congenial?] and sympathetic return- it is pleasure indeed. You must not think my dear friend any longer of that fancied [cloud?] of yours, in the [horizon?] of my regard for you. It was nothing but a mist of your own conjuring- and which I was at first so inclined to be angry with you for raising, that I had half a mind not to try to clear it away for you! My trust in you is perhaps stronger than you suppose: possibly I ought not to say it, but I have often thought that if in years to come, I should be found to distrust you- if I should be dissapointed in your course, or find I had mistaken your character, I should never again be able to rely implicitly upon any mortal. So you must mind “Mr. Fruit” and not upset my faith in all humanity! I sat up last night until one o’clock reading “the wide wide world”-: have you read it- and will you not enchained by its life like-ness? And yet I do not know that you would be so much fascinated by it: on second thoughts I rather fancy that you would not: much of it would be too childish- part would seem to you like [cant?]; and the whole rather too woman-ish, too captivate your fancy very decidedly. Neither do I admire it “by the wholesale” myself: was I forced to [criticize?] it, I could not be enthusiastic in its [prarie? presence?]: but the book is like some of my friends- I do not admire them I would not be like them-I could not delight others by a detail of their character- but I do love dearly to be with them. I have such a friend in the lady of the Birdsnest, as I call the little white cottage, which you probably noticed, next door to us. Her husband is one of the proprieters of the Argus, and though I suppose they are by no means wealthy, they have the most luxurious delightful little home conceivable. She is young- pretty- graceful- ladylike- bright- talkative- charming; she is not [cultivated?] – refined –intellectual- educated- nor the possessor of much feeling: now I can imagine how you will puzzle at this description- how you will triumphantly ask me to define “ladylike” and not include “refined”; “graceful” without “cultivated”, “bright” without “intellect”- and I shall simply point you to a definition in living characters in Mrs. Johnson! I think her in some particulars, the most incomprehensible character I ever met- and yet, there [‘s?] not a particle of mystery about her: she will converse with any gentleman interest and please Mr. Palmer- almost more than any lady here- and yet she cannot talk ten minutes without violating some common law of [constitution?]- and displaying evident ignorance; and I am more intimately- or I ought rather to say, familiarly acquainted there, than in any family in the city! If you are ever here again, I think I shall ask her permission to show you her parlors- they are little miniature editions of perfect beauty, well worth looking at. She has already promised me that I may take “Mr. John” in, if he ever comes! But I fear so sadly that I am to be dissapointed in regard to his visit. Oh Henry how I wish he had moved to Amherst instead of Brunswick; what a friendship you could have had with him: and then you would have seen Jennie too! I was a bad friend to show you that Daguerreotype-: I am glad you do forget faces- (though sometimes I have a sort of queer wonder whether if you should ever meet me accidentally, I should have to introduce myself!)- for you will not cherish the memory of that caricature of Jennie! I wish Henry I could help talking to you about her! Funny wish is it not? But I cannot: for I have always associated her with you, ever since I read Hamlet. She is your perfect [beau- ideal?], in heart- and disposition- and she is intellectual- and deeply deeply sensitive: I wish by some marvellous process I could just give you an intuition of her character. And here I am- at the bottom of my third page- and the shadows along the snow covered roofs are fast lengthening! I must not sit longer thus! When I shall write again I cannot tell: when I shall want to, I know well enough, and that will be tonight, after the whole of the day is over: but goodbye my dear friend for a season. I am glad that my friendships are not quite so ideal as yours- my friends not quite such abtractions living disembodied in my brain! That was ill natured was it not? If you think so, forgive me, for I did not mean to be; only I was thinking just at that moment, that I should not care much for writing letters, if it did not seem to bring me into the actual presence of my friends- not simply into an intellectual – and spirit communion – but really into veritable sight of them – so that I can almost rest my eyes on theirs, or shake hands. If it were not for this, I would nearly as […] had a letter from some spirit (always supposed congenial, &c.) that I had never seen- as from a friend! And then thoughts suggested to me – or made me my try to conceive the state of mind you must be in, when reading one of my letters – [intersected?] in it – as another emanation from the head (for you know they are from the heart.) and head of that certain intellectual knowledge – derived through the channels of ideas – words &c. – but of whom as a common flesh and blood existence you know nothing at all! You will be [tried? tired?] out with my remarks about this; and I will try not to allude to it again, but it is really the funniest most inconceivable thing to me! Once more dear Henry – for today – Goodbye. Helen.

Sat. Eve. Jan. 24.

I have had a right “pleasant Sat. night” my dear friend – and in no small degree owing to the arrival of your note. I had a half pre-sentiment that the mail was freighted for me tonight, and therefore I walked down with Mr. Palmer to the office, (although I had walked about five miles today) for I do love dearly to take anything in my own hands from the office, and carry it all the way home: I was quite sure too that it had not come empty – and therefore I made all sorts of preparations before breaking the seal – and resolutely abstained from opening it till I was comfortably established “en destabille”. Sat. evening is my […] night for every thing: I love to read – write – get letters – anything, on this night better than on any other. I wish you would always mail your letters that they will reach me then! I appreciate them and enjoy them twice as much. But I must not indulge in many words tonight – it is late – cold – and moreover – this will be an overgrown letter, at this rate, long before “the fourteen” are replied to. By the way I had a nice letter from Jenne H. – k – yesterday, making fifteen in the list. A pleasant ride to you both – but don’t you go to discussing me and my “character”! With all my regard for you, I have a great [horror?] of your analytic dissecting knife, which so often cuts and slashes to the right and left, among treats and tender cries, excellencies failings; and though I love dearly to be your friend, and take a little niche in your heart – I beg leave to be excused from appearing anatomically in the museum of your brain! Pardon me – Henry – I don’t mean much more than half of that! It sounds too, as if there were a veiled [song?] in it, but there isn’t – not a bit: so goodnight – my dear friend.

Sabbath Afternoon. Feb. 1. 1852

We have one of our old snow storms again, Henry, and are fairly blocked up for the day. “I wish I could be sorry” as I remember saying in my younger days when I was told to ask pardon for some of my many misdemeanors! But do all I may, I can’t help feeling exactly like staying at home; and how hard it is too to “keep Sunday” at home- on the afternoon of a snowy day, when the very air is peopled with fancies, and each flake brings down a new thought! I can’t: and after trying in vain to confine my attention to a [suitable? sensible?] look I made a despairing plunge into “[Sartor Resartus?]” where my conscious would not let me stay long however: and so I […] off into a good review- which had been [transporting?] me backwards “adown the [vale?] of Time”- and helping me live over a few years of the past- and bringing before me hosts of good friends and welcome incidents-&c. &c.- of all the good offices which reveries perform: Then I read over some half a dozen of your letters (among others, the first one you ever wrote me- the one which you handed me in the garden when […] want of a pocket, I was at such a loss to dispose of it) after the reading of which, I came to the sudden and very satisfactory conclusion that this idea of mine of answering all correspondents in the order of time, was arrant humbug and [shell?] now; sense, and that to write to one when you wanted to write to another was ridiculous besides being […], in short that in spite of my nineteen […] letters, (fifteen of which have […] claim to yours!) in spite of my twice repeated resolution to the contrary, I should just sit myself down for a good talk with you, this afternoon, and send the letter on its way tomorrow. But you must remember, and [neon?] in all your letters to come, allude to the topics of “consistency”, “firmness of purpose, or the like, for I shall at once regard it as putting me in mind by implication, of my own short comings. I think I must have been in a queer mood Henry, when I made the last entry in this letter. It is written even worse than my [won’t?], and is not amicable at all in its tone. I don’t believe you will like it in the least, and I am sorry I said it. I’d take it back, if I could, consistently with entire veracity. There! Haven’t I made matters better now! Last Sabbath afternoon I said to Bobbie “who do you think this letter is from?” pointing to one of yours; she looked very deliberative, for some moments and then said inquiringly “Henry Fruit- Mr. Henry Fruit?” “Yes,” said I “and what do you think he sent to you” “His love and one kiss” was her “instantaneous” reply! Now was it not strange? I do believe there is a something [mesmeud?], electrical, about that child: she seemed to have the most perfect soul-affinities with some people: and again, others hardly attract her attention at all. It is almost too trite a remark to make about a child- fond deluded parents, and foolish aunts say it so often- but it really does seem to me, that her spirit is not of the earth- and that a seal of another Kingdom is set upon her brow. And as I imagine how perfectly desolated this house would seem to me without her, you cannot know what a shuddering thought I have of her mothers woe, is she should die. The drollest part of the affair of which I was just telling you, however, was, that, at supper, she turned very gravely to me, and said in her clear loud tones “You didn’t give me that kiss that Mr. Henry Fruit sent in his letter!” You can’t conceive the shout that followed: it was perfectly irresistible: and she, finding that her remark was considered funny, began, as children always will, to reiterate it louder and louder, until it seemed to me that if I laughed another moment immediate dissolution must ensue! I could pacify her, only by giving her the […] in question, multiplied indefinitely- and I don’t think that hereafter I shall deliver any more such messages verbatim- you must select some other proxy”!

I wish you could see the icicles which ornament my window. I do not recollect seeing any like them, since the cold days when they used to hang down over our “north door” at home, and I used to pull them off-to eat. These are really beautiful- I can count thirty two of them, and some must be three quarters of a yard long, at least-: they look like the fringing edge of an ice thatch, and their monotonous dropping would chime, I am sure, did it fall on metal, so regular and measured does it look. They are not smooth, either, like ordinary icicles but are ridgy, like the small sticks you find on ground in a forest: I wish I knew the principle of their structure; it must be very much the same which forms the crystal stalactites in caves- and yet different too. Oh- if we understood all the working powers around us- what a life we should live! And how I hate people that live like “spectacles without eyes” as Carlyle says- and believe always- wonder never. I am fast growing into an appreciation of Carlyle! Out of my old contempt. I am forced to the mortifying admission, that when I tried to read Sartor Resartus four years ago, and could not tolerate it, it was for the simple but good reason that I did not understand it. They say it always has been and still is a disputed question among the learned, what the end of the book is: perhaps I am presumptuous- but it seems to me now, as evident as daylight- that his aim was – covertly and under the droll semblance of an expose of [wishes? Clothes?] and their absurdity – the difference between what dressed up […] appears, and […], a simple existency; is – to set every mortal being for granted, and the perceived – the actual and the apparent in and throughout the universe: and to introduce some of the transcendental myths with which his brain was so thoroughly imbued. I do admire some passages which I have read today; more than I admired anything before – and I have laughed over some of the first chapters more than I ever laughed at any thing written. By the way speaking of laughing (rather a slight association I know!), I wonder if you have ever seen a caricature, illustrating some peoples unwillingness to take advice and assistance from others over which I nearly went into convulsions (pardon that school quil-ism) the other day. The subject is taken from a supposed scene in the commencement of the flood. The waters are already quite deep – so that everything is covered except the tops of the trees and [hill?] and then the summit of a high hill: on one of them is seen a poor mortal up to his very chin in the water and the rain pouring furiously into his eyes and mouth; The Ark has just come up, and Noah stretches out one hand to help the man in, but he rejects all aid, and is represented as saying “Go along with your old ark! I don’t think it’s going to be much of a shower!” What a train of thought have this last page and a half borne along! icicles – Carlyle – caricatures! Some people write such good orderly letters – with the subjects all marching along regularly like the mourners at a funeral, according to the degrees of relationship. I wish I could: but mine are so dislocated or to carry out my first figure – like the citizens part, in the processions, where everybody and everything are jumbled together. The past week has been a strange one I remember thinking as I closed my Saturday night words to you, that I should probably write in this letter every day: but the days have gone like phantoms. On Tuesday evening we were invited to a “tea” at the Benedicts, and there I met a gentleman whom I should like to have you see. He is a lawyer – very talented – very misanthropic – very self connected – and they say, very dissipated. I think we took a mutual aversion to each other, at first sight: I am terribly afraid of him, and yet his conversation is very fascinating. He declares that he always makes up his mind about every person he meets as soon as his eyes meet theirs, and he can never alter! This is not a very agreeable prelude to an acquaintance! With all this, he reminded me more of you, than any gentlemen I have ever met – now don’t look back at my first enumeration, and say to yourself “misanthropic – self conceited” It was not by either of these traits, unless it may be a little tinge of the first, but by an undefinable something in his manner of speaking, and the general times of his remarks upon people. Wednesday was the day of our Sewing Circle. Thursday we drove to Kenwood, a beautiful country seat about a mile distance, to return the call of Mrs. Rathbone the lady proprietress of the place. I never before saw a house which completely realized my ideal. This is [faultley?]. No words could give you a correct idea, either of the situation, or of the building. It is on the bank of the Hudson, below Albany – and is said to present a fine appearance from the river. It certainly commands a beautiful view of the river – particularly of a bend in the stream when it widens almost into a lake – not unlike Loch [Katrine? Ratiner?]

Monday May 17, 1852

My Dear Henry

Although you seem quite to have cut my acquaintance this spring, I shall use the freedom of a good true friend, and [fasten?] myself on you once more- if by such means I may at length exhaust from you some sort of recognition of my existence! I mailed a note for you, in the early [part?] of our pilgrimage- I believe, at Philadelphia, and I certainly expected that some of our dispatches from Boston would have brought a reply, especially as you were for some days actually there, in […] persona: however I have faith and will to believe that untoward circumstances have been the only architects who have been at fault in the bridging of this long gap in our communion by letter: and that I shall ultimately-somewhere- at home, if not earlier- be greeted by those free characters of yours- whose features [are?] good reflection of the strong truthful [earnesty?] of some of the thoughts they have given visible life to. There! Henry-you won’t like that sentence! I wish I had not written it: you will say it sounds like flattery, and you hate flattery. But you know I never say anything with that intent, & I assure you that was written almost without my knowing what words my pen was tracing. I was thinking of Amherst & last summer, & of the strange beginning of our acquaintance; Annie in her last letter, said that Mrs. Prof. Peabody is very anxious to go to Amherst next summer & board at the […], & wants someone to go with her! I wrote to her, that I should be more than delighted to be her company; and as I was closing the letter, it all reminded me so much of similar plans last year, that I took an “instantaneous” resolution to write a [wee?] messenger to you this very afternoon and send it to Annie to mail, for these western mails are so atrociously singular that I feel totally unsafe in committing to their charge anything directed to a place not universally known. And now as to this new Amherst plan- of course it is “all in the moon”- but then, it would be charming wouldn’t it? It would be so delightful to relieve the widow & all her interesting family from such a burden as we three young ladies proved last year! And with Mrs. Peabody as matron I should like boarding at the […], & I think Mrs. P might allow Annie to go too. However you know Mrs. P. made just such plans last year and gave them all up, and very likely she will, this. But you may rely (if you care anything at all about it!) on my not forgetting my promise to make one of the audience on the 14th! Ah- how soon it will come, too, will it not! But this is a strange note, for a traveler! Just a date to let you know where I actually am at the present […] moment, but not one allusion to the hundreds of miles of the interval! Of course you would not look in these [charm] swathings of leisure moments, for anything like detailed journals- nor even interesting descriptions of places & scenes. Traveling must be indeed bewitching if one can take it leisurely enough to stop every other day, and write the record of the preceding: but we are hurried along through the current of events- altogether too much like [sicoes?]: and yet I fear even now, much as we have made haste we shall not reach Albany again before the last of June. I have enjoyed every moment of the journey until last week [...].