Paris, July 4, 1862.
. . . Seriously, I do cry peccavi, and desire to
confess myself a sinner, that I have not written to you, nor acknowledged the
receipt of the number of your Journal, wherein you describe, so wonderfully
well, your rollings and tossings, and fears and hopes in the great monster
steamship, and your happy escape from destruction. Since your restoration to
the good dry land of Boston, and to all familiar sights, of persons and things,
I desire to know how you have fared, and how it is with you spiritually.
I have often thought of you, dear friend, going back to your
lonely house, and even now as I think of you, in the dim cold light of that
great calamity which came upon you, and which you must have felt with tenfold
poignancy in your return home. . . .
Believe me, that though I have said little about your bereavement, there is no
one who has more sympathized with you.
As for myself, I have little to say, worth writing. I jog on
at about the usual pace, and with the usual ups and downs. The year has been
rather smoother on the whole, pecuniarily, than usual, and I have had several
sales and orders. But for some time, the good luck has ceased, and I fear, for
a few years to come, the tide will be against us. At the rate things are going
on in America, strict economy must be the programme for some time, for rich as
well as poor. And “inter arma silent artes!” When the end is to be, of this
greatest revolution and struggle the world has yet seen, is beyond my powers of
conjecture. One thing, however, I do feel sure of — and that is worth years of
bloody battle, and exhaustive expense — that the country is beginning to
breathe a wholesomer air than ever it did. If we can get rid of slavery and its
corruption, and brutalizing influences, North and South, it is worth all the
terrible crises we are passing through. It is the valley of the shadow of
death, and there are goblins and devils enough in our path, but there is light,
and health, and peace beyond. . . .
SOURCE: The life and letters of Christopher Pearse Cranch,
p. 251-2
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