Writings by Susan Dickinson


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  6

You know me well enough to know that of all nature, human nature is the
most interesting and quickening to me. One can exist on snow peaks, and
apple orchards-- can dream of pansys, and buttercups, and admmire [sic] paintings -
but to live, one needs contact with higher life of humanity, and of that
life, I have had nought this summer. The Alps are marvelous, and though
avalanches are wearing them away, they will stand until you come. They will
oppress you however with their cold hard forms, they stand out awful, in
their majesty and severity. No wonder John Calvin lived and cradled in
Switzerland, and probably Mt. Tom and Holyhoke are responsible for Jonathan Ed-
wards. It is regular Old Testament scenery, this of the higher Alps,
"Watts and Select" ought to be a pocket companion of Alpine travellers - one
involuntary chants "Solemn yet beautiful to view".

He has never been summed up in any memorial, he eludes transcription,
the fine aroma of his nature cannot be materialized. He gave out 'till he
burned out, long before the set time for man for - with so large a flame, the
oil must sink fast in the cup. We his friends are lonesome without him, but to us he
can never be dead; he largely made our past, and that projects our future.
In some realm of brave souls of integrity he moves serene to day.



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