. . I wish I could do something for the Great Fair; [FN] but I am
exhausted of all my means.

With my love to all around you, I am, as ever, Yours affectionately,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[FN: The Great Fair, held in New York for the benefit of the Sanitary
Commission, and of which Mrs. Lane was the chief manager and inspiring
power.]

[268] To Rev. Henry Bellows, D.D. SHEFFIELD, Dec. 31, 1863.

. . . Ah! heaven,--what is rash or wise, shortsighted or far-seeing,
too fast or too slow, upon the profound and terrible question, "What is
to be done with slavery?" You have been saying something about it, and I
rather think, if I could see it, that I should very much agree with you.
Bryant and I had some correspondence about it a year ago, and I said to
him; "If you expect this matter to be all settled up in any brief way,
if you think that the social status of four millions of people is to be
successfully placed on entirely new ground in five years, all historical
experience is against you."

However, the real and practical question now is, How ought the
Government to proceed? Upon what terms should it consent to receive back
and recognize the Rebel States? I confess that I am sometimes tempted to
go with a rush on this subject,--since so fair an opportunity is given
to destroy the monster,--and to make it the very business and object of
the war to sweep it out of existence. But that will be the end; and for
the way, things will work out their own issues. And in the mean time I
do not see that anything could be better than the cautious and tentative
manner in which the President is proceeding.

One thing certainly has shaken my old convictions about the feasibility
of immediate emancipation, and that is the experiment of emancipated
labor on the Mississippi and about Port Royal. But the severest trial
of emancipation, as of democracy,--that is, of freeing black men as of
freeing white men,--may not be found at the start, but long after.

[269] To the Same.

SHEFFIELD, Feb. 12, 1864.

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED, THOU AND THY PEOPLE,--We are so much
indebted to you all for our four pleasant days in the great city, that
I think we ought to write a letter to you. We feel as if we had come out
of the great waters; the currents of city life run so strong, that it
seems to us as if we had been at sea; so many tall galleys are there,
and such mighty freights are upon the waves, and the captains and the
very sailors are so thor