l now pass between these two
worlds, hitherto so far apart, is a thing to rejoice at exceedingly.
Besides all personal considerations in the matter, the wonder and
delight of seeing this great enterprise of man's ingenuity and courage
thus successful is immense. One of the vessels took her departure for
England the other day, filled with passengers, and sent from the wharf
with a thousand acclamations and benedictions. The mere report of it
overcame me with emotion; thus to see space annihilated, and the
furthest corners of the earth drawn together, fills one with admiration
for this amazing human nature, more potent than the whole material
creation by which it is surrounded, even than the three thousand miles
of that Atlantic abyss. These manifestations of the power of man's
intellect seem to me to cry aloud to him to "stand in awe [of his own
nature] and sin not." And yet these victories over matter are nothing
compared to the achievements of human souls, with their powers of faith,
of love, and of endurance. I will not, however, inflict further
exclamations upon you....

Certainly mere details of personal being, doing, and suffering are of
some value when one would almost give one's eyes for a moment's sight of
the bodily presence of the soul one loves: so you shall have my present
history; which is, that at this immediate writing, I am sitting in a
species of verandah (or piazza, as they call it here), which runs along
the front of the house. It has a low balustrade and columns of
white-painted wood, supporting a similar verandah on the second or
bedroom story of the house; the sitting-rooms are all on the ground
floor. It is Sunday morning, but I am obliged to be content with such
devotions and admonitions as I can enjoy here, from within and around
me, as my plight does not admit of my leaving home....

I am sorry to say that the fact of letters miscarrying between this
country and England has been very disagreeably proved to me this morning
by the receipt of one from dear William Harness, who mentions having
written another to me five months ago, which other has never yet made
its appearance, and I presume would hardly think it worth while to do so
now.

We have had an uncommonly mild winter, without, I think, more than a
fortnight of severe weather, and in March the sun was positively summer
hot. I am out of doors almost all day. Our spring, however, has made up
for the lenient winter, by being as cold and ca