SMALL | MEDIUM
"I have arrived thus far, my dear mother, onmy journey; and, according to my promise, ambeginning the correspondence which is to softenour separation.
"My spirits have been heavy. My anxious
thoughts lingered with you, brooded over dear
Bessie and the little troop, and dwelt on our home
affairs.
"I feared Harris would neglect the thrashing,
and the wheat might not turn out as well as we
hoped; that the major might forget his promise
about the husking bee; that the pumpkins might
freeze in the loft (pray have them brought down,
I forgot it!); that the cows might fail sooner than
you expected; that the sheep might torment you.
"Our land at this moment teems with scenes
of moral and poetic interest. We made our first
stop at the little inn in R -- . The landlord's
son was just setting off to join the quota to be sent
from-that county. The father, a stout old man,
was trying to suppress his emotion by bustling
about, talking loud, whistling, hemming, and cough-
ing. The mother, her tears dropping like rain,
was standing at the fire, feeling over and over again
the shirts she was airing for the knapsack. `He's
our youngest,' whispered the old man to me, `and
"All this was rather too much for me to bear,
in addition to the load already pressing on my
heart; so without waiting for my horse to be fed,
I mounted him and proceeded.
"My next stop was in H -- . There the com-
pany had mustered on the green, in readiness to
begin their march. Some infirm old men, a few
young mothers, with babies in their arms, and all
the boys in the town, had gathered for the last fare-
well. The soldiers were resting on their muskets,
and the clergyman imploring the benediction of
Heaven on their heads. `Can England,' thought
I, `hope to subdue a country that sends forth its
defenders in such a spirit, with arms of such a
"I arrived at Mrs. Ashley's just as the family
were sitting down to tea. She and the girls are
in fine spirits, having recently received from the
colonel accounts of some fortunate skirmishes with
the British. The changed aspect of her once
sumptuous tea-table at first shocked me; but my
keen appetite (for the first time in my life, my
dear mother, I had fasted all day) quite overcame
my sensibilities; the honest pride with which my
patriotic hostess told me she had converted all her
table-cloths into shirts for her husband's men, and
the complacency with which she commended her
sage tea, magnified the virtues of her brown bread,
and self-sweetened sweetmeats would have given
a relish to coarser fare more coarsely served.
"I have been pondering on the character of
our New-England people during my ride. The
aspect of our society is quiet, and, to a cursory
observer, it appears tame. We seem to have the
plodding, safe, self-preserving virtues; to be in-
dustrious, frugal, provident, and cautious; but to
want the enthusiasm that gives to life all its poetry
and almost all its charms. But it is not so; there
is a strong under-current. Let the individual or
the people be roused by a motive that approves
itself to the reasoning and religious mind, a fervid
energy, an all-subduing enthusiasm bursts forth,
not like an accidental and transient conflagration,
"But good-night, dear mother. After this I
shall have incidents, and not reflections merely, to
send you. The pine-knot, by the light of which
"I shall enclose a line to Bessie -- perhaps she
will show it to you; but do not ask it of her. Tell
dear Fan I shall remember her charge, and give
the socks she knit to the first `brave barefooted sol-
dier' I see. Sam must feed Steady for me; and
dear little Hal must continue, as he has begun, to
couple brother Eliot with the `poor soldiers' in his
prayers. Again farewell, dear mother. Your
little Bible is before me; my eye rests on the
few lines you traced on the title-page; and as I
press my lips to them, they inspire holy resolu-
tions. God grant I may not mistake their fresh-
ness for vigour. What I may be is uncertain;
but I shall ever remain, as I am now, dearest
mother,