Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/174

 1 66 INTRODUCTION-

caterers. We are faithful copyists of the Greeks and Romans, whose wiser men disdained, but did not oppose, the creeds of the people. Such must be still more the condition of nations where all read, and few think.

This covers by reference all the special points to which you called my attention, which it would be, of course, idle to think to exhaust in a letter. I would hurry to some- what more interesting, and say only, further, that I care not a penny for men's opinions except as they are made just and humane by them. A good disposition, even more than a good understanding, is my chief delight in a friend or companion.

I visited Beverly last December, I believe for but the second time since you left Massachusetts. 'Tis much changed from my old associations, a duller place. With neither you nor Stanley nor your grandfather, I missed my most frequent companions ; no bedfellow at night, no welcome smile of the good old man by day, so that I woke up glum as at home for lack of chat. I viewed the coast and the clear shining bay with chattering teeth, but the back river with its jagged bosom of muddy ice was dreary enough. The weather was so cold that the popular image of Hell was to me, as to the Greenlanders, scarcely repul- sive. The arrival of a Mr. Barrett, a preacher, had at first nearly driven me away, but I found him a jovial man, fond of his joke, ever good testimony to an innocent character, as sour (not grave) faces are of self-dissatisfaction. Your mother seems well, but works too hard for others ; your father never better nor yet so cheerful — we had two or three long and pleasant night-chats. He, too, seems too hard worked at his school, and his salary ought to be raised in these times when paper is so depreciated ; but I suppose the people there, as everywhere else, are poorer than before

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