aws they may well be called, for they sever prudence
from virtue, instead of making them a rounded whole. The fact is, nobody
has any sense--I mean the perfect article--but me. For I say, what if
"living while you live" comes to not living at all? Is that what you
call working? And why not let other people work? Is Mrs. Lane to be made
the queen bee of New York philanthropy, and to become such an enormous
conglomeration of goodness [319] that she can't get out of her hospital
hive to visit her friends, nor let them visit her, with any chance of
seeing her? And is nobody worth caring for unless he has been knocked
down in the street, and has got a broken leg or a fever?

I am quite serious, though you may not think so. I do not like your
taking another hospital, or the visitation of it, in charge. It must
devolve an immense deal of care and thinking upon somebody. There 's
reason in all things, or ought to be. Your brains and eyes ought to be
spared from overwork. We shall hear of you as blind or paralytic next.

Tell your mother that we have to "stand to our colors" for the climate
of New England nowadays, else they would be all blown away. It 's awful
weather in New York too, I hope. I don't go out much. Really, if this
March were not-a march to spring, it would be a hard campaign. With love
to all your house, I am, as affectionately and warmly as the weather
will permit,

Yours,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

To Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D.

ST. DAVID'S, Feb. 21, 1873.

DEAR FRIEND,--I need not say we shall be rejoiced to see you. Don't be
proud, but it is "real good" of you. If "a saint in crape is twice
a saint in lawn," a friend in winter is twice a friend of any other
season. "If I shall be away?" Only by being beside myself could I be
away in winter. "Or have other guests." No, indeed, they don't fly like
doves to our winter [320]windows. But the white snowflakes do, and it
will do your eyes good to see the driven and drifted snow. We have had a
very quiet winter, and few drifts, but to-night, I see, is blowing them
up. I should not wonder if they blocked the road and kept my letter back
a day or two.

To the Same.

March 5, 1873.

. . . WE thought you might be stopped somewhere, and not to go at all
would be the worst "go" that could be. All Sunday we kept speaking about
it, with a sort of feeling as if we were guilty of something; so that
I felt it necessary to calm the family distress by setting up a new and
or