Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/162

 154 INTRODUCTION

Boston, 17th June, 1862. Dear Frank,

Thinking to take a little journey ere long, I write you while in the mood of it, and on this score shall not, I think, seem remiss, at least for the present. First, it occurs to me how favorable is your present situation for studying and teaching botany. Many plants grow in your region not found here, indeed almost a new flora, as an herbarium made in and about Meadville would testify, and must, I think, agreeably amuse you to prepare. How happy, if these peaceful pursuits might be now engaging the time of many whose restless dispositions find occupation only in spreading death and despair through the land, or who, in the fine language of Cuvier, spend their lives in the pursuit after vain combinations whose very traces a few years are destined utterly to sweep away ! Yet among many evils perhaps this good may come, when a race that has waxed fat through too great prosperity will out of its self-created disasters learn more humility, more respect for other nations, more regard for social as the foundation of public happiness, and less concern for political combina- tions. But how can we help regretting the loss of so many thousands of lives, and that civil war which, while it de- vours the substance of society, is consuming also the whole generation of young men on whom depends its production ? When the taxes commence to be laid, what new evils, what new dissolutions have we not to dread t If anarchy should arrive, what successful general is it who is to be created dictator over us all .? But it is useless to anticipate evil. We may at least comfort ourselves that whatever we suffer is still but our destiny, or, if "young America" like it better, "manifest destiny" — a term which they may for some time to come be ashamed to abuse. Thus nations

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