Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/72

 is than his own endeavours. “He is one of our hest men,” said Miss Sedgwick.

It will readily be supposed that it was painful to me to leave him and his truly sweet and kind little wife. Mr. Downing has drawn up for me a proposed route of travel—the plan of a journey for one year through the United States, as well as furnished me with letters to his friends in the different States. I still had a deal to say to you about my happiness in being here, my happiness in the new vitality which seems given to me, although I feel that the outer life is a little wearisome sometimes; and I expect to have to pay for it one of these days. But ah! how few there are who have to complain of having too many objects of interest, of experiencing too much good will! My beloved Agatha, think of me in thy prayers; and that I know thou dost, and thank God for me that He has so abundantly fulfilled my secret prayers, has satisfied my hunger and my thirst, and nourished me with His riches and His goodness!

In the Morning.—Yet once more a greeting from the beautiful banks of the Hudson from the heights of Newburgh, before I leave them, perhaps for ever. Mr. Downing says, indeed, that I must return to them next year; but it is long till then, and I must travel far and see very much.

Again a beautiful morning. The river is bright as a mirror; hundreds of little vessels glide softly, like swimming sea-gulls, on the bosom of the water between the lofty hills. I wonder how they are able to move. The wind seems to sleep. Over the river and the mountains, over the golden woods, which assume every day a yet more golden hue, over the white glittering villages with their church spires, and in the bosom of the wooded hills rests the thin, white misty veil of the Indian summer. It is a scene of which the character is grand and calmly romantic. I feel and see it, but not merely in external