To Miss Woolsey, Dorset, June 23, 1872.

I wish you could come and take a look at us this quiet afternoon.  Not a soul is to be seen or heard; the mountains are covered with the soft haze that says the day is warm but not oppressive, and here and there a brilliantly colored bird flies by, setting “Tweedle Dum,” our taciturn canary, into tune.  M. and I have driven at our out-door work like a pair of steam-engines, and you can imagine how dignified I am from the fact that an old fuddy-duddy who does occasional jobs for me, summons me to my window by a “Hullo!” beneath it, while G. says to us, “Where are you girls going to sit this afternoon?”

Your sister’s allusion to Watts and Select Hymns reminds me of ages long past, when I used to sing the whole book through as I marched night after night through my room, carrying a colicky baby up and down for fifteen months, till I became a living skeleton.  We do contrive to live through queer experiences.

To a young Friend, Dorset, Aug. 3, 1872.

The lines you kindly copied for me have the ring of the true metal and I like them exceedingly.  People make too much parade of their troubles and too much fuss about them; the fact is we are all born to tribulation, as we also are to innumerable joys, and there is no sense in being too much depressed or elated by either.  “The saddest birds a season find to sing.”  Few if any lives flow in unmingled currents.  As to myself, my rural tastes are so strong, and I have so much to absorb and gratify me, that I need a mixture of experience.  Two roses that bloomed in my garden this morning, made my heart leap with delight, and when I get off in the woods with M., and we collect mosses and ferns and scarlet berries, I am conscious of great enjoyment in them.  At the same time, if I thought it best to tell the other side of the story, I should want some very black ink with which to do it.  We must take life as God gives it to us, without murmurings and disputings, and with the checks on our natural eagerness that keeps us mindful of Him.

You speak of the “Higher Life people.”  I still hold my judgment in suspense in regard to their doctrines, reading pretty much all they send me, and asking daily for light from on high.  I have had some talks this summer with Dr. Stearns on these subjects, and he urges me to keep where I am, but I try not to be too much influenced for or against doctrines I do not, by experience, understand.  Let us do the will of God (and suffer it) and we shall learn of the doctrine.

To Mrs. Washburn, Kauinfels, Friday Evening, (September, 1872).