and mighty city, and to interpret to it his providence. You cannot but
feel gratitude in being appointed to be such an instrument; and I trust
that you are to be used much and long, and for great good. Keep yourself
well and strong; look on yourself as having a message and a mission, and
live for nothing else but to perform it.

I happen to have found out, very accidentally, what is always the most
secret of undiscoverable secrets,--that you are asked to preach the
Dudleian Lecture. Do not let anything hinder you. We want you: you must
come; do not hesitate; and, mind, I speak first, to have you come and
house it with me while you are in Cambridge. Pray, deny me not.

Shall I tell you? Your sermon made me cry so that I could not finish
reading it, but was obliged to lay it down. Not from its pathos,--but
from a stronger, higher, deeper, holier something which it stirred up. I
am almost afraid for you when I think what a responsibility lies on you
for the use of such powers. May He that gave them give you grace with
them! Love to you and yours, and all peace be with you. Yours ever,

H. WARE, JR.

[154] In the same year he addressed a letter to Emerson, who, as
a cousin of his wife, was well known to him from the first. The
familiarity of the opening recalls what he said in writing of him many
years after: "Waldo, we always called him in those days, though now all
adjuncts have dropped away from the shining name of Emerson."

To Ralph Waldo Emerson.

BOSTON, May 13, 1836.

DEAR WALDO,--I felt much disappointed when, on going to Hancock Place
the third time, I found that you had gone to Concord; for I was drawn to
you as by a kind of spell. I wanted to see you, though it seemed to me
that I could not speak to you one word. I can do no more now,--I am dumb
with amazement and sorrow; [FN] and yet I must write to you, were it
only to drop a tear on the page I send. Your poor mother! I did not know
she had come with you. Miss Hoar 2 I do not know, and will intrude no
message; but I think of her more than many messages could express. My
dear friend, I am as much concerned for you as for any one. God give you
strength to comfort others! Alas! we all make too much of death. Like
a vase of crystal that fair form was shattered,--in a moment shattered!
Can such an event be the catastrophe we make it?

[FN: This letter was called forth by the sudden death of Charles
Chauncey Emerson, a younger brother of Ralph Waldo Emerso