ASHFIELD, July 7,1864.
My Dearest James,
— We are having such a pleasant quiet time that I wish you were with us. The
house we are in is a good old-fashioned farmhouse, with a stretch of outhouses
and barns such as one likes to see. There are no modern conveniences, — unless a bell for the front door be
considered so, — and we fall inevitably into primitive ways of life. . . .
The little village itself where we are has an air of rural
comfort and pleasantness that is really delightful. It is embosomed in the
hills, not crowded upon by them, but seeming to have a sweet natural sufficient
shelter from them. We are within a stone's throw of the tavern, of the meeting
houses, the three shops, and the post-office, — and on the other side we are as
near two hills between which the road runs, and from either of which there is a
wide and beautiful view. . . . Yesterday
we took a drive over hills, through hemlock and beech woods, over an upland moor,
through Bear Swamp, and “Little Switzerland,” that we all agreed we must take
again when you are with us. I am sure this country will delight you. To my
taste it is far more attractive, and more beautiful, than the scenery in the
parts of the Berkshires that I know. Many of the views remind me of scenes
among the English lakes, on a smaller scale. Joined with the picturesqueness of
nature, there is a charm from the evident comfort of the people. Wherever you
see a habitation you see what looks like a good home. There are but three town
poor, and they are very old. There is but one Irish family, they say, in the
township. The little village of Tin Pot, two miles away, does, however, look as
if its name were characteristic. There is a good deal of loafing and drinking
there, but the loafers and drunkards are not permitted by public opinion to
come up here. The line is one of positive separation between the two villages.
The air has a fine bracing quality, — 1300 feet above the
sea. To-day we have a little rain. I lounge and invite my soul. The newspapers
come regularly but late. We seem out of the world. Still we were glad last
night at the news of the destruction of the Alabama, and not sorry for the mode
of Semmes's escape. He would have been an unpleasant prisoner on our hands. We
could not properly have hung him as a pirate, and to leave him unhung would not
have suited our vindictive commercial classes.
I find it hard to be patient in these days, — it would be
much easier were you here, but now I have no one to talk over affairs with.
I wish Mr. Quincy1 could have lived happily a
year or two longer to carry the news of the suppression of the rebellion and
the extinction of slavery to the other world, so as to be able to remind
Hamilton of their conversation the year before his death and convert him to
trust in the people, and to confidence in the permanence of the Constitution.
But now that public honours will be paid to the memory of Mr. Quincy, cannot we
get the sum raised for the Statue? About $4000 is needed. $5000 would be better
to cover expenses.
What a kind old man he was! ... A judicious person might
make a brief memoir of him that should be full of interest, — but save us from
these big Parker 8vos, these elegant Prescott 4tos.2
The July “North American” seems to me good but too heavy.
How can we make it lighter? People will write on the heavy subjects; and all
our authors are destitute of humour. Nobody but you knows how to say weighty
things lightly; nobody but you has the art of light writing. And have you
written to Motley? If not please do so before replying to this note. We
really need to get him on to our staff of contributors. . . .
_______________
1 Josiah Quincy, president of Harvard when Norton
was in college, died July 1, 1864, in his ninety-third year.
2 Weiss's Theodore Parker and Ticknor's Prescott
each appeared in 1864
SOURCE: Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters
of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 269-72
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