Writings by Susan Dickinson: Correspondence with Bishop Huntington

	? View[?]. Cambridge Nov. 22 1858 - My dear friend - I think I have the first & last flower of the Summer of fifty-eight. - tokens, I will believe, of a thought & affection which know no mutations of season or climate, but which, spring- ing once, never decay. Such, at any rate, shall be the gratitude & attachment they
	awaken. You have been watching by the side of a sick hus- band. And that is all I know of his illness. But let me rejoice with you & him that the disease is kindly losing him; for that I gather from y'r too [?] note. Doubtless the appropriate & sacred? fruits of pain strengt- hens [?] [?] in the sick-room; - patience, gentleness, the love of goodness, human confi- dence, - & that ? in the Christ? of God which says, -
	"Thy will be done." I wish you & yr husband listen in free [?] [?] by the Master himself into the Fold & fellowship of his disciples: it is so right, so true, so comforting to the Love, so healing to our natural restlessness & self-accusings[?], - so noble & beautiful as the necessary crown[?] of a manly & womanly completeness of character - Thanksgiving is almost here. I want you to get this before the Feast; so that you may know I think of you at that dinner[?], ? old anniversary. I do so wish I c'd go up & break bread, or cut turkey, -- [?] follow & listen at the old homestead!
	That wish includes a [?] supplement of a ride, & a call, & a nice time consequent, at Amherst. But I will wait till the Minister's[?] vacation. This letter [?] of a week's rest is refreshing, better. It has been an autumn of very, very hard work, - incessant & absorbing; - a [?] [?] of lectures, partly new; out of the old chapel into the new one, with occasional sermons (you don't say you got one I sent you); making a service[?]-book; - & many other ? & morning duties. The Fall has [?] away like the wind. I am tired out. My brain is [?]: it feels like a lump of dough. I wish you would come & knead it into something nutritious. The other day I saw an Amherst graduate in Cambridge, who, on being introduced, said he once spent an evening with us at yr
H bMS Am 1118.95, Box 9	house: & forth [?] I took a new interest in him. Yet, true I did not remember him. Must also be accounted for by the fact that it was with you that I met him. And did you lose[?] y'r journey to y'r Sister? God bless you, & y'r husband, & yr house! With sincere, strong affec. regards, Yrs, F.D.H.


	Image reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. Not to be reproduced in whole or in part without permission. Transcription and commentary copyright 1998 by Martha Nell Smith, Laura Elyn Lauth, and Lara Vetter, all rights reserved Maintained by Rebecca Mooney <rnmooney@umd.edu> Last updated on January 25, 2008