Writings by Susan Dickinson: Society at Amherst Fifty Years Ago

The light weather stained walls patched & cracked
were bro't into bold relief by the heavy mahogany
pulpit & the really immense red damask curtain
draped for the background -- Whoever conceived and
~~car[ried out?]~~ executed the plan of that end of the meeting-
house must have been fresh from an exciting dream
of Solomon's Temple -- The pulpit was so high the
minister must mostly infer the effect of his sermon
from the tops of the heads and bonnets before him to the
exclusion of the usual and more favorable angles for
sympathetic observation of human expressions -- I have
often wondered what became of all these ramparts of
rich old mahogany forming the sides of the pulpit
The chairs I think are in the pulpit of the Coll. Church
sofa & table --

When Dr Dwight nephew of Pres. Dwight of
Yale Coll accepted in (1850?) a call to the church
for a few practical conditions there were a few softening
changes in the revered old buildling -- He begged that the
tin kettles hung from the long stove pipes that ran from
the stoves down the two side aisles to the chimneys in the
opposite walls to catch the black cresote that dripped
from the pipe joints might be abolished by some ingenity
and the big iron catches of the front doors of more than
Eastlake boldness of design be replaced by some

H bMS Am 1118.95, Box 9


	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