Clifton Springs, December 8,1860.
You want to know about every where and what and why and
wherefore of our very idle, insignificant life. We go to bed, we get up, we
look about, we yawn, stretch, and yawn again. And to this I sometimes add a
little coughing. As to weather, we do not have any, or it is so mixed that
nobody can tell what it is. The cold I had has either not left me, or it has
left me not improved.
The state of the country discomposes and untones everything.
What is to be the end of it? I do not exactly like the temper of our
Republicans, — The Independent, for example, and The Tribune. There
is too much of a provoking uppishness that wants dignity, and can only be
mischievous in its effects. My Thanksgiving sermon was on this subject, the
same that I delivered on the census a year ago, with some filling added. My
conviction of the want of such a view just now has induced me to send it on to
Hartford, where it is setting up for the press. You will see it in due time,
and I guess will not be displeased by it. If you are, why, then I will secede.
SOURCE: Mary A. Bushnell Cheney, Editor, Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell, p. 442
