Green Peace, Thursday
Evening [probably 1850].
My Dear Sumner: — I
have called twice without finding you.
Why do you not put
upon me part of the duty of lionizing strangers? I can show them our own and
other Institutions without going very much out of my beat. If I can serve them
and you it will be a pleasure indeed. I now look upon your time and thought as far
more valuable than my own, and if I can spare you for higher labours I shall be
content.
As for myself,
alas, the silver cord is loosed. I have lately, encouraged by apparently
returning vigour and urged by letters from Lieber and Henry, applied my mind to
the preparation of a paper for the Smithsonian on Laura; but a few hours' brain
work prostrates me. Slight as have seemed my ailments, they have been
deep-seated and severe; more so than you can conceive, unless you are
physiologist enough to know how much is required to exhaust the fountain of a
nervous energy so abundant as mine was and which has never been abused. But n'importe;
let the wreck of me not rot uselessly, but let the bits be of some use to
my friends, and to you the most beloved of them.
I send you Felton's
letter.1 I have read it not only with brimming but with overflowing
eyes; it has made me sad and heart-sick. What a lesson! How completely are most
minds moulded by external pressure, and how untoward is that pressure in our
old friend's case. He is not one of those who are a law unto themselves; he is
not even richly gifted in capacity for the highest and best moral attainments;
but think of what he was with old surroundings and what he is now! When he
wrote that letter you did not deserve his praise and admiration so much as you
do now; I say this deliberately. You then merited and had the homage of the
heart and the affections, for your own overflowed to your friends; but now you
have a claim for the approval and admiration of the intellect. I sometimes fear
that the fountains of affection are growing less abundant; but never mind; you
will soon open a new spring, and the living waters of love will gush forth at
the call of wife and children, as they never have at the call of friends.
But I do not know
what I am writing about, except to say I want much to see you: — yet when I see
you I have nothing to say worth your hearing. But then I have nothing to say to
my children worth hearing, though I love to be with them even when they sleep.
. . .
Ever yours,
s. G. h.
_______________
1 See ante, page 265. This was
evidently a letter written before the quarrel between Felton and Sumner,
SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and
Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 328-9
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