[21]
at as soon as I receive the rest of my books.
At present I am at work on Xenophon's Memorabilia. ... He is withal one of the pleasantest fellows I have met with in a long time.
I heard from John Brown [of the Coffee Club] some two months since.
He is good-natured as ever, happy in his wife and baby, and overflowing with love for all men. His heart is a continual fountain of gladness, and once in a while he comes out with a thought so beautiful and poetical that it makes you wonder how such a soul ever got into such a body. . . .
On April 12, 1840, he wrote again to
Barrett, but this time from
Guildhall, Vermont, whither he had gone to save money and continue his studies:
... I am glad to see, in your account of miscellaneous reading, authors of such inoppugnable orthodoxy as Coleridge and Carlyle.
To Coleridge, though I have read but a moiety of his writings, I look up as to a spiritual father; to me he is a teacher of wisdom.
Apropos of Carlyle, in a recent letter to Mr. Emerson he says, that in preparing a second edition of the History of the French Revolution for the press, he was himself disgusted with the style, so that we may hope for his return to the pure and beautiful English of his earlier works.
As for myself, I am living at my uncle's in true otium cum dignitate, no bells calling me to prayers or recitations, no college official coming to my door with “the president wishes to see you, Mr. Dana,” and not one of those cursed bores “seeking whom he may devour” ever disturbs my meditations.
In one corner of my room stands my bed, next a window looking towards the sunrise is my desk, a side-table is covered with books; while your humble servant in dressing-gown and slippers sits near the fire in a great arm-chair, having “pen in hand.”
Here I study eight hours daily, having an occasional relaxation with a famous old fowling-piece that hangs in the kitchen, and a little tinkering once in a while in the workshop.
I am fed, warmed, lighted, and otherwise cared for, for about nothing — perhaps a dollar a week, and that unwillingly taken.
Besides all this I am with my only sister, who is now about
