Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/19

 in one word, in all its truth; and I felt that my best work would be merely a faithful transcript of that truth. But how that was to be accomplished I did not clearly know when I left America.

“You will understand, you will know it all when you are at home!” frequently said that precious friend who first met me on the shore of the New World, whose home was the first into which I was received, whom I loved to call my American brother, and who beautified my life more than I can tell by the charm of his friendship, by the guidance of his keen intellect and his brotherly kindness and care; whose image is for ever pictured in my soul in connection with its most beautiful scenes, its romantic life, its Indian summer, and, above all, its highland scenery on that magnificent river, where he had built his delightful home, and now—has his grave! Yet no, not alone in connection with these pictures does he live before me; time and space do not contain a character such as his. To-day, as yesterday, and in eternity, shall I perceive his glance, his voice, his words, as they were once present with me; they are united with all that is beautiful and noble in the great realm of creation. His words are a guide to me as well in Sweden as they were in America. I love to recal every one of them.

“You will know it all when you come into your own country,” said he with reference to many questions, many inquiries, which at my departure from America were dark to my understanding.

The thought of publishing the letters which I had written home from America, as they first flowed from my