t never about his own religious feelings.

Do get the life of Perthes, if you have never read it. That and "Palissy
the Potter" are among the most interesting biographies I know.

It is grim November weather up here, and I like it. Everything in its
place; and we are having considerable rain, which is more in place,
as winter is approaching, than anything else could be. Wife and I are
bunged up with colds. No, I am; that ugly epithet can't attach to the
grace and delicacy of her conditions and proportions. But alas! I am
losing my old and boasted security against colds. I but went out one
evening, to give a lecture at the Friendly Union [The Sheffield Friendly
Union is the name of an association for purposes of social entertainment
and culture, which meets one evening in the week, during winter, at
a hall in the village, to enjoy music, lectures, reading, dramas,
or whatever diversion its managers can procure or its members offer.
Dancing and cards are forbidden, but other games are played in the
latter part of the evening; and there is a small but good library,
slowly enlarging, and much used and valued by the members. The
subscription fee is small, and the meetings are seldom of less than
one hundred or two hundred people, many coming three or four miles. The
society was started in 1871, and Dr. Dewey took a great interest in
it from the first. It was he who chose its name; and while his health
lasted, he was a frequent attendant, and always lectured or read a play
of Shakespeare before it two or three times every winter.] and this is
the way I [318]pay for it. If there is any barrel in town bigger than my
head, I should like to buy it, and get in.

I was sorry not to see Coquerel, and pleased to hear that he had the
grace to be disappointed at not seeing me. But I don't seek people
any more. Why, I don't think I should run in the mud to see Alexis I
himself. And to a New York lady I suppose that is about the strongest
thing I could say.

All send their love to you and yours.

Yours ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To the Same.

ST. DAVID'S, March 7, 1872.

DEAR FRIEND--OF ALL MANKIND,--I see you have let them make you President
of the Bellevue Local Visiting Association. Was there nobody else
that could take that charge? Was it not enough for you to have the
Forty-ninth Street Hospital to look after? But M. says, "Let her; let
her work." And she talks about "living while you live," and comes at me
with such saws. S