BLACKWELL FAMILY ALICE STONE BLACKWELL HOOPER, NELLIE 1883May the shadow never grow less! Jan. 13th, - 83 151 Nassau St. Brooklyn, N.Y. Dear Alice:_ The account of your adventurous journey, gave me quite a new notion of the Boston boat; I had hitherto regarded them a sufficiently tame mode of traveling, but I suppose “if you’re bound to have adventures you’ll meet them anywhere.” Jan 13th This is the way I write letters now-a-days, piecemeal.Yesterday was Papa's birthday. I thought about him all day. I wanted him, & ached to hear his voice, or feel the grasp of his hand - (papa never clasped hands) - again. - I remembered with delight how he constantly taught me to look forward to the next life with joy as a life of greater opportunities & noble possibilities, & what comfort he took in thinking that then we should not be always making mistakes. - I am sure wherever he is, he is doing some of God's work & rejoicing in it. - I often think, if my will was as pure as his, I should not be so depressed by my mistakes & failures, - but my motives will not always bear inspection. When I enter into life I shall feel like a child who gravitates into a higher class; with a wretched percentage, - only just wins in, - I shall feel as if I have wasted glorious opportunities. There I didn't mean to write a word of this page to you, but it ran off the point of my pen! - Mrs Burns sent me over a pupil the other day. I gave her her first lesson on Thursday, she is to come to me Monday & Thursday evenings. She seems eager to learn, which is a comfort! - Think of it. I shall be twenty-five next month. When I try to find anything I have conquered for myself in those twenty five years, the result is rather discouraging. I am perhaps a little healthier than I used to be, & I am not so entirely dependent on the opinions & judgment of others as Ionce was, it used to break my heart to be censured, & I was quite incapable of entering on a course of action against the judgment of my friends, however my own sense of right demanded it. - but even if I have gained a trifle of health & independence, I seem to myself, more selfish, more cold-hearted more egotistical, less imaginative & less enthusiastic than I used to be. - What is to be done with her? It is only you, - long suffering much-enduring L.O.B. that I would think of boring with so much nonsense, Ben has his wish at last, & is to travel for his House, this year - he goes on Saturday. - to Michigan & Illinois & as far as Minnesota. Don't try to read this terrible letter by gaslight my friend. - Pity your eyes! 2. Jan. 16, -1883- I have a letter to you nearly finished, somewhere. Woe is me. I cannot find it: - but will not therefore be moved from my purpose of writing you. I should like to hear you read your paper on Temperance! I think I will come there in the spirit. I take notes": - by the way I wonder if Phonog. will come in the future existence? - Have you read about Mr Heaphey's Ghost, in Monday's N.Y. World? I think that's a very nice ghost-story. It's quite in accord with my ideas of the way in whichspirits "walk" when they do walk, - & I assure you, from positive experience, they do! Whether they ever really walk in bodies after - what we all death, I don't know; but I know they sometimes can make themselves present to an earthly consciousness without ghostly accompaniments. How is your cousin Florence enjoying her winter at Martha's Vineyard? I should like it. I think winter in the city is a disgrace to its name, giving us the slushy, muddy, windy, wet, thawy side thereof, without the beauty & quiet which are alleviating circumstances in the country. - How did it happen you had to read two manuscript novels, I didn't know you ever reviewed 'em that way! Jan. 18 - 83 "Infernal machines" indeed, trying your blessed eyes & bothering your blessed brain as they had not business to. I am glad you liked the owls, but it was by no means an original idea, - the stores this winter were full of owls in different designs, & with different mottoes; I partly copied mine from a couple at the head of a sheet of letter paper. Isn't this an awful way of writing a letter but I have been very busy & have had to snatch the time. You see I have sometimes used the ink in the office & sometimes at home, I rarely leave the office until after six o'clock now! - Guess I'll add the "last straw" in the shape of a rhyme writing of its author" What can I say more!"The Garment of Praise for the Spirit of Heaviness" Out of the gloom of December 1. Spring comes triumphant, divine! - - O in thy midnight remember Light out of darkness shall shine! Up from the Earths frozen bosom Lifting their shy starry eyes 2. May-flowers! - Bid they hope's blossom Joy out of sadness shall ride! - Out of the blind toil of learning Knowledge & power we attain:- 3. Soul, for a fuller life yearning Wait for the gurrdon[?] of pain! - Eyes that are close sealed in slumber Wake at the summons of light; - 4. Spirit, the days ye may number E'er thou received they sight! Walk not in sadness of spirit Prisoner, fain to be free 5. Think of the hopes you inherit, Think of the glorious to Be! - 6. Look, there's an ocean of gladness Dancing & dimpling beneath Lo the last vestige of sadness 7 lees on the winds balmy breath - March 9th 83 Dear Alice: Your letter, when it did come was rich, richer, richest. Rich to hear of your tender yearnings "young olive branches" (don't imagine I can't sympathize though!). Richer to hear of your lecture to "retired whatever" at Scushnet[?]; Richest to know of your actually ascending the pulpit & indulging in Jeremiads over - or was it launching Phillippics at this gluttonous & wine-bibbing generation! I would have given my head (though that may not seem saying much, tis in truth saying about all!). to have sat in that "front seat" & listened tomy Daniel. - Gling! glang gloria!!! - O, I can see you ascending the pulpit stairs with stately deliberation, while the organ plays fortissime to hail your entrance - I gaze on you with a thrill as you sit on the ministerial cushions in preternatural calm, & with face portentously solemn, during the dreadful pauses between the hymns while an awe-struck congregation eyes the Apostle of Temperance! I behold you, fired with your subject, a carmine flush illumining that speaking countenance & as I gaze descends your fist with crushing force upon the long-suffering desk, while in awful accents (which compel the belief that Jove,his Eagle, & this Thunderbolt have consented to perform in concert, for this occasion only). - You thunder "The Rumsellers must go!" - and the $20. was not bad either. - So it is old chum, all through - I dream, and you do! Have I been torturing my brains to any extent to extract therefrom a few ideas on "Horticulture for Girls" to accommodate a certain Publisher who wanted three articles on that subject, & I've made a regular "hash" of it He wanted me to illustrate them too (Imagine!) & I have sent them over today, but candidly, I shall thank Dr. Phin shows his sense if he rejects them. - He took a fancy somehow to the first one & wanted 2 more, but now I don't believe he'll want any of them. Dr Phin, by the way is very delightful. & he has a lovely place in New Jersey, - and he hasasked me to come over there as soon as the wildflowers blow & see his "charity", he has a fine telescope there. He publishes the "Journal of Microscopy" & the "Young Scientist" & an American print of the "London Lancet." My things were for the Young Scientists. - I fear I shall never be any good for steady painstaking work, especially in the way of writing. Unless I can pitch right in and keep on till I come to the end of my task I get off the boiling point and coming to my theme a second time find whatever material was in my brain has become flat, stale and like warmed-up cocoa! I suppose we ought now to be looking for Wiggin's great storm. Lizzie has the utmost faith in his prediction, and though we laugh [at her] a little at her seriousness holds firm, & days she would on no account start on a journey till the date for its arrival Friday evening talk. - I [have] am trying to keep a resolution I have made, not to go out in the evening until summer comes. - Love to you, - & health "The Terrible Fool with a Corkscrew Leg[?]"3. — March 9th -83. Con, who took my papers over to the "Young Scientist," brought home word tonight that the Dr wanted them all, I think that they had looked at my little drawings through the microscope (!) I thought they were good for a beginner, so you see I have been better treated than I deserved, certainly than I expected. Lizzie & Con have gone to Beecher's 2. and continuance [?] pass. You ask what I have been reading. I don't read very much now besides newspapers & magazines (of which Con brings home almost as many as you used to bring to clip from) & I look through Con's library books; sometimes she has one of Kingsley's, or William Black's or Backmore's, or Mrs. Whitney's & then I get spoonfuls of science & art & history from my "Chautauquan's". Mama is thinking of moving this Spring and is not a little worried over the idea. We have been having really cold, though very fine weather here. Yesterday the thermometer was at one time 12. We had a letter from Aunt Dollie, postedtwo weeks & more ago, saying that primroses, violets & snowdrops had been blooming out of doors in England & I had a letter from Mr Mitchell telling of a surf bath taken on Christmas day! What climates! Providence permitting, I mean to try a new climate next year. I don't think I should come out alive from another Brooklyn winter! Lizzie sends her blessing. Do you know you are my sole absolutely only one friend? Fact. However, you are a host in yourself & I needn't feel lonely. Yours Affy'y Nellie M. Hooper A.S.B.