et to a much-admired friend,
will give us some idea of the playful mood which relieved her days of
serious application.

"GROTON, 1834.

"TO MRS. ALMIRA B.

"Are you not ashamed, O most friendshipless clergywoman! not to
have enlivened my long seclusion by one line? Does the author of
the 'lecture delivered with much applause before the Brooklyn
Lyceum' despise and wish to cast off the author of 'essays
contumeliously rejected by that respected publication, the
"Christian Examiner"?' That a little success should have such power
to steel the female heart to base ingratitude! O Ally! Ally! wilt
thou forget that it was I (in happier hours thou hast full oft
averred it) who first fanned the spark of thy ambition into flame?
Think'st thou that thou owest naught to those long sweeps over the
inexpressive realities of literature, when thou wast obliged to
trust to my support, thy own opinions as yet scarce budding from
thy heels or shoulders? Dost thou forget--but my emotions will not
permit me to pursue the subject; surely I must have jogged your
conscience sufficiently. I shall follow the instructions of the
great Goethe, and, having in some degree vented my feelings,
address you as if you were what you ought to be. Still remains
enveloped in mystery the reason why neither you nor my reverend
friend came to bid me good-by before I left your city, according to
promise. I suspected the waiter at the time of having intercepted
your card; but your long venomous silence has obliged me to acquit
him. I had treasured up sundry little anecdotes touching my journey
homeward, which, if related with dramatic skill, might excite a
smile on your face, O laughter-loving blue-stocking! I returned
home under the protection of a Mr. Fullerton, fresh from London and
Paris, who gave me an entirely new view of continental affairs. He
assured me that the German Prince[A] was an ignorant pretender, in
the face of my assurances that I had read and greatly admired his
writings, and gave me a contemptuous description of Waldo Emerson
_dining in boots_ at Timothy Wiggin's, _absolument a faire mourir_!
All his sayings were exquisite. And then a _sui generis mother_
whom I met with on board the steamboat. All my pretty pictures are
blotted out by the rude hand of Time: verily t