The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-07-17

iHtIOuuceu among mon Dy men, DIS
you we'll know, was there any impos
sibility of recognizing the fatherly
character of the Creator.
If the Christian religion is in any
degree responsible for this, you and
[ must change our natures before we
can call it good tidings. We cannot
conceive of fathers allowing so
limited being as his human child to
utterly ruin himself" Again: "But
| do believe that good people, kind
fathers, kind mothers, are the type of
the creator, and not cruel, jealous,
vindictive ones. You remember
what Father Taylor said to one of the
sterner sort,-'oh l see! Your God is
my devilP Concerning the Congress
of Religions he writes to Mrs. Ward:
Il really look on that Congress as the
longest stride toward the millennium
that have seen or am like to see."
Concerning his method of compo-
sition he writes: "Like everything
tolerable l ever wrote, it was con-
ce;ved in exultation and brought
forth with pain and labor. The time
at which any new thought strikes me
is my Sybilline moment. but the act
of composition, so exciting and SO
easy to some people, is wearing
business, attended with dull disa-
greeable sensation about the fore
head,-only from time to time it is
interrupted by the simultaneous des-
cent of some group of words or some
unexpected image, which produces a
burst of the most insane enthusiasm
and self graduation, during which l
commit puerile excesses of language
and action"
There are occasional outbreaks of
hilarious impatience like the follow
ing:
Dear Mrs. Fields: Can you tell
me anything that will get this horri-
BILE old women of the c. Califor-
mia off my shoulderss Do you know
anything about this pestilent manu-
script she raves about? This conti-
nent is not big enough for me and
her together, and if she doesn't jump
into the Pacific l shall leap into the
Atlantic, mean the original damp
spot so called.
cps. To avoid the necessity of the
latter, l have written to her, cordially
recommending suicide as adapted to
her case."
He hated going away from home,
and mathematical all hotels as in
this extract: "The soups taste pretty
good sometimes, but their sources
are involved in darker mystery than
that of the Nile. Omelettes taste as
as if they had been carried in the
walters hat, or fried in an old boot. |
ordered scrambled eggs one day. 1t
must be that they had been scram-
bled for by somebody, but who-who
in the possession of a sound reason
could have scrambled for what had
set before me under that name?
Every six months tavern should
burn to the ground, with all its traps,
its properties, " its beds and pots and
kettles, and start afresh from its ashes
like John Phenix-Squibobi / have
fine parlor, but every time l enter it
perceive that
Still, sad odor of humanity
which clings to it from my predeces-
sors.
As old age came on he felt it's limi-
tations and its losses very much,
though for the most part he kept
cheerful. He studied old age as it
were, and reported upon it. A good
many letters of his old age are given.
To Whittier in 1891 he writes: II
congratulate you upon having
climbed another crevasse in your as
cent of the white summit which al
ready begins to see the morning
twilight of the coming century. A
life so we'll filled as yours has been,
cannot be too long for your fellow
men. | hope your years have not
become burden, so that you are
tired of living. At our age we must
live chiefly in the past; happy is he
who has past like yours to look
back upon. We are lonely, very
lonely in these last years. The image
which l have used before this in
writing to you recurs once more to
my thought. We were ON deck to-
gether as we began the voyage of
life two generations ago. A whole
generation passed, and the succeed
ing one found us in the cabin with a
goodly number of co-evals. Then the
craft which held us began going to
pieces, until few of us were left on