Transcription
CATALOG NUMBER S 1050
OBJECT NAME Letter
DATE October 16, 1847
AUTHOR Rev. Orville Dewey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orville_Dewey
RECIPIENT [Mary Anna Sawyer] Schuyler
MEDIUM Paper, ink
PEOPLE Regina ??, “the Gentlemen”, Mrs. Miller, Mr [Southey?],
[Henry Whitney] Bellows, [Thomas Starr] King,
PLACES Sheffield, Italy, New York, Eliza Schuyler (which one?), Europe,
Hotel de Cluny, Paris, the Louvre, Champs Elysee, [“Radan”] to
Schaffhausen, Charlestown,
KEYWORDS MAS travel to Europe, steamship, refers to MAS as “Zenobia”,
Phedra & Hippolytus by Guerin, “a stone of Erisé”, “Taglione's toe-nail”, “mosaic mountains”, fall leaves, Universalist ministry,
Sheffield Oct. 16. 1847
My Dear friend - friends I may say / for I shall feel that I am writing to Regina / as well as you; perhaps I may include / the Gentleman too . What an audience! I / am afraid, it will turn out a sermon . But / the audience is not so serious perhaps as / a certain feeling I have that it is a great / thing to write a letter that is to go over the / ocean . Often as I have done it, I can't / get over the feeling - I wish I could . I / think it has partly prevented my sending / a letter sooner _ for I have been med- / itating it these two months . It is true / however that much quill-driving has / been the main hindrance : for I am / writing sermons whenever I am able. /
I have heard with much concern that / Mrs Miller is very unwell & that the / party cannot go to Italy this winter / as consequence. I shall go down to New / York in two or three weeks & then shall / know all about it . & I hope to hear that / things are not so bad. I want much / to see Eliza Schuyler - for I have not seen / her all summer_ & to know how you are going on.
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Going on : that includes a good deal. More / than carriage & horses, more than hotels and / waiters - does it not? More eve than / being sick & well . Travel in Europe is / to us Americans a journey thro' fairy / land . I fancy that you, Zenobia, take / it quite en principe - very calm & majes - / tical : but I pray you not to pass things / by too philosophically . And do write it / down. You can't trust your memory. You / will be glad of it afterwards . As Mr / [Southey?] said to me "travel is a sacrifice / of the present to the future". And when / that future comes, you will wish to have / some memoranda to refer to. Don't fail / to see the Hotel de Cluny in Paris - for many / know nothing about it . And look for me / at the picture of Phedra & Hippolytus by / Guerin in the Louvre - the beautiful face + / air of the youth + the awful countenance / of the Mother. And could n't you bring home / some little [pet] souvenir de Paris - a coup d'/ oiel of that glorious out-of-door multitude / in the Champs Elysees , a st[one?] of Erisé , or a / paring of Taglione's toe nail ? I shall look / to your Journal for them : I am sure you / will have them packed away somewhere - in / the leaves or between them.
As for us - we / live here pretty much as we last : not obliged /
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to see solemn Cluny nor graceful Taglioni, nor to / hear Erisé nor [Geuriot] not [Coquiral] . With no ma- / jisty of the antique nor fairy forms swimming / in air, am I surrounded ; but with a squad / of carpenters, masons, painters, diggers, stone / menders - putting us in order for the winter / _ in most admired disorder for the present. / But then there is something else, stretching ar- / ound this little [habbal] - something that you / might see if you were riding down from / [Radan?] to Schaffhausen, about this time, but / can't see at Paris _ & that is, the mosaic / mountains, the far spreading carpet of Autumn / leaves [page torn] the bright horizon _ the glowing / Zone of this great beauty . /
I wish I could / think of something to tell you : but you get / the news papers & worlds of letters from home: / and what can I do _ that will at all com- / -pare in the way of fabrication ? (I mean the / news papers.) . Bellows is going on bravely, / fast widening the basis of his influence and / I think he will build it high _ tho' he / does every now & then tumble down a stone / that he had laid rather hastily a little while / before . He is fitted to be a great Denom- / -inational man, as I never was. We have / just found out a young Universalist of the name / King of Charlestown (Mass.) who writes & preaches / so well that I don't know but the "Messiah"
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will try to [git?] him . But don't you think / that New York is likely to get on very badly / with only a quarter of me & none of you ? / Pray come back, & make all whole again / My Wife & many send their love to you & / Mrs Regina & their kind regards to the Gentlemen . / I hear that none of the party is very well but you. / But I don't mean to believe any thing so bad / of them . However I'm forgiving & send my love / to them all.
You did not ask me to write . / I shall not ask you, & I will see what you / will do. However you can hardly do any / thing that will make me any the less / My Mother desires her kind / remembrances to you.
Your friend Orville Dewey
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[ADDRESS]
A Madame,
Madame Schuyler
Care of GReen + Co.
26 Place [de] George
Paris ___Transcriber
Kathryn AlexanderLanguage
English
