Poor, dear Miss Dix!
Her bill has failed this morning in the House; or, at least, it has been
referred to the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, from which it
cannot be returned should the session continue for a year. I went to carry her
the news; but she has not come up to the library to-day.
Yesterday, when her
bill came up, men were starting up on all sides with their objections; but
to-day the point under discussion is, to pay an additional sum to the soldiers
in the Mexican war for expenses of coming home, and almost all are in favor of
it. It is amazing how war-mad all the South and South-west are. Conquest and
numbers constitute their idea of glory. Christianity is nineteen hundred years
distant from them.
I have not yet had
time to read S——’s letter; but her letters have a charm for me always. I wonder
how so much poetry as she has ever kept itself from flowing into rhyme. I am
sure she might make her everlasting worldly fortune by writing songs for
children, reasoning like a fairy on all the realities and moralities of life.
Hasn't she the word-faculty? or what is the reason she doesn't do it?
I am glad Mr. Pierce
has arrived.* How deep the feeling with which we look back upon perils escaped
and the object of our labors secured! It must be a little more than a year
since we had the fête that "welcomed" him away. I rather envied you
your visit to him. I should really like to hail him again. Why could not the
old soul transmigrate into another body? However, he has done his work, a great
work; one that can never be undone. What he has done is not the erection of a
structure that will not increase, and will decay, but it is the planting and
early culture of a seed which will grow, and cannot but grow, and must protect
other trees of the same healthful influences in their growth. "Lame, cold,
and numb” as he is, there are few young men that could equal him in the race.
It is very cool
here," autumnal," as you say; and to-day it is beginning to storm. I
am always glad to hear of you "gardening;" and, when you are out, the
children are out too.
_______________
* Cyrus Pierce, of
the West Newton Normal School.
SOURCE: Mary Tyler
Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 334-5
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