Her strong and simple nature checks not, falters not. Her experience is entirely unlike mine, as, indeed, is that of most others whom I know. No rapture, no subtle process, no slow fermentation in the unknown depths, but a rill struck out from the rock, clear and cool in all its course, the still, small voice. She says the guide of her life has shown itself rather as a restraining, than an impelling principle. I like her life, too, as far as I see it; it is dignified and true.’
‘Cambridge, July, 1842. — A letter at Providence
would have been like manna in the wilderness. I came
into the very midst of the fuss,[1] and, tedious as it was at
the time, I am glad to have seen it. I shall in future be
able to believe real, what I have read with a dim disbelief
of such times and tendencies. There is, indeed, little
good, little cheer, in what I have seen: a city full of
grown-up people as wild, as mischief-seeking, as full of
prejudice, careless slander, and exaggeration, as a herd
of boys in the play-ground of the worst boarding-school.
Women whom I have seen, as the domestic cat, gentle,
graceful, cajoling, suddenly showing the disposition, if
not the force, of the tigress. I thought I appreciated the
monstrous growths of rumor before, but I never did.
The Latin poet, though used to a court, has faintly
described what I saw and heard often, in going the
length of a street. It is astonishing what force, purity
and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear
of falsehoods. These absurdities, of course, are linked
with good qualities, with energy of feeling, and with
a love of morality, though narrowed and vulgarized by
- ↑ The Dorr rebellion.
