, there am I strong."

Pray excuse the levity (specific) of this letter, on two
rounds,--first, that I am very heavy, and should sink in any other
vessel; and, secondly, that I cannot take in any of the weighty matters,
because I have no room for them.

Mrs. Dewey joins me in the regards to you and Mrs. Ware, with which I
am,

Most truly yours,

O. DEWEY.

In less than three years from this time the nervous suffering from
overwork became so intense that Mr. Dewey was advised to go abroad [143]
to obtain the absolute rest from labor that was impossible here.

To Miss Catherine M. Sedgwick.

SHEFFIELD, May 2, 1833.

My DEAR FRIEND,--I am about to go abroad. I have made up my mind to
that huge, half pleasurable, half painful undertaking; or shall I say,
rather, that both the pleasure and the pain come by wholes, and not by
halves? The latter I feel as a domestic man, for I must go alone; the
former I feel as a civilized man. Civilized, I say, for who that has the
lowest measure of educated intelligence and sensibility can expect to
tread all the classic lands of the world, Greece only excepted, without
a thrill of delight?

If you should think that I had written thus much as claiming your
sympathy in what so much interests me, and if you should think this
without accusing me of presumption, I should be tempted, were I assured
of the fact, to stop here, and to leave the matter on a footing
so gratifying to my feelings. But I must not venture to take so
considerable a risk, and must therefore hasten to tell you that what I
have said is only a vestibule to something further.

Nor is the vestibule at all too large or imposing for the object, as
I conceive it, to which it is to open the way; for I am about to ask
through you, if you will consent and condescend to be the medium, a very
considerable favor of a very distinguished man. Among many letters
of introduction which I have received, it so happens, as they say in
Parliament, that I can obtain none to certain persons that I want to
see quite as much as any others [144] in Europe. None of our Boston
gentlemen that I can find are acquainted with Professor Wilson, or Miss
Ferrier, the author of "Inheritance," or Thomas Moore, or Campbell, or
Bulwer. The "Noctes Ambrosianx," with other things, have made me a great
admirer of Wilson; and Miss Ferriers (I don't know whether her name
ends with s or not) I had rather see than any woman in Europe. She comes
nearer to S