Catharine Maria Sedgwick Online Letters

Albany 15 Novr '22 --

Your last letter my dear Eliza breathed a spirit that made me long to put my arms around you as a mother would around a sick & restless child, and on my bosom to hush your troubled spirit to repose -- -- I have always seen you so bright, possessing as I thot the mastery of your own destiny, and controlling it with a holy energy and soaring with so firm a wing, that I didnot fear to see the bird fluttering, or to see any sign of weakness -- -- I may, & I think I have done wrong -- and that I should have given you hardy counsel, & fortified you & instead of that I have been a very woman --

I am rather inclined to beleive that the tenderest friends and those that on common occasions are quite safe & judicious cannot help us in these slippery passages -- we can only take counsel from events and from the 'small still voice' 1 and then that voice is so very still that we can scarcely hear its bidding, to heed it -- if we would -- -- --

Oh that I was worthy of being what you would have me to be,! capable of it! -- I think I have some power over those I love, but it is not by wise saws -- I must be with them, & my ministry must be one of watchfulness and steady devotion, and all those cares that love teaches, and can pay without being asked -- Eliza, I have had many friends during my pilgrimage -- many helpers by the way, but I never have had one -- I have not one, that suits me in all points like you -- -- & I could tell you why -- but perhaps I ought, for tho 2 I despise all that mean calculation that teaches reserve in love as a matter of prudence -- yet I think that in friendship -- there may be something left unsaid, --

We are, & we are probably destined to be, so little together that the pen must do a part of the work that in common cases the conduct should express --

Therefore I think myself justified in telling you again that I love you -- that I will not be constrained to measure my love by the rule & square of prudence, for I should be ungrateful to Him who has given you to me, if I put any check upon my feelings no! I know the blessing -- and I will feel it, & you shall know that I feel it -- Eliza I am not equal to you -- perhaps not in any thing, but in that way that my ambition runs I know -- I am not -- As my friend Jenny Davis says -- (of whom more anon) I have not "travelled so far as you out of an evil nature," or as you and I would say I have not gone so far as you on the heavenly road -- -- and I do not expect to overtake you -- but you will stimulate me to keep within speaking distance -- and dear Eliza tho' you have to look behind you, to see your friend you will not so eagerly press on as to forget her -- --

I do know his name and could say as surely as Nathan said to David 'thou art the man' -- 2 and I have heard too the other rumor, which Mrs C mentioned to Susan 3 -- but I didnot feel very uneasy about it, for I trust it is an idle story -- & if not I am sure you can & will 'ask a plain question --

I think you couldnot be happy with one, who hadnot sympathy with you -- but of this you must judge and determine for yourself -- There is certainly a difference between the infidelity 3 of a serious thinking man, & that of the trifler who finds it easier to disbeleive than to investigate, or of him who breaks the yoke because it constrains him to walk in the 'strait & narrow way' 4 -- There is a difference -- but still dear Eliza it would not be right & therefore not happy for one who has taken the oath of fidelity to a good master to be a yoke-fellow with one who distrusts the authority of the Master -- -- I have no fear about you I am sure you will feel on this subject more strongly than I do -- & I am equally sure that your religion is the master spring by which you will be able to govern -- and if necessary to subdue all your other affections _____

-- Do write to me dearest Eliza oftener, it is good for you to pour your heart on paper -- and it is certainly good for me --

I came from Stockbridge on Tuesday -- and now all that made our home so busy & so happy have dispersed -- -- I will not trouble and weary you with what I have felt and suffered -- I try to look beyond all these things -- and even to put out of my thoughts my bright-eyed -- little darling who has slept in my arms and nestled so close to my heart this Summer -- -- how apt we are to forget that these bright beams which seem to repose on the waves of life while they are tranquil are in their nature as transient as the surface is changeful -- -- --

Charles & Eliz' are already looking forward to a visit from you next Summer -- -- We all went the other day from Lenox to Hancock (a shaker settlement) 5 a most enchanting ride -- and Eliz' often exclaimed to me -- "how much you and Miss Cabot will enjoy this next Summer" -- shall we dear Eliza? -- I passed 4 two days with the shakers -- They are a strange, and I will say it, tho' you will laugh at me a very interesting people -- and if I could introduce you to Sister Jenny or Sister Cassondana -- or lead you through their neat and well ordered household -- or along a grass grown road, that opens a pathway between the mountains, by the side of a little Silver stream that sings a glad song -- as it glides by -- and then if you would seat yourself and look down upon this peaceful village -- when all is as peaceful, and quite as silent as the inanimate and beautiful works of nature with which they are surrounded, -- you would as I did love to look upon them -- and go away and leave them -- Their religious notions are, except their peculiarities, rational -- and illegible such as you would approve -- Sister Jenny had seen the abstracts of unitam in Sparks' first no -- & she said to me with great energy "Katy a shaker couldnot have writ it better" -- Would not Sparks be amused with the compliment? -- --

I shall stay here about ten days -- Sister F & I have had a real good time talking about you -- she sends her kindest love -- --

I am very glad to hear that you have avoided the domestic evil you feared -- I hoped before this to have heard from Mrs Channing -- but I suppose these dreadful household toils for the meat that perisheth monoploize her time -- her heart I am sure they donot -- My love to her and to Susan, who I really feel to be as near to me as my -- Sister --

It is a shame to send such pot hooks to you -- send me dear soon a letter 'to look upon' in your true "Calisser aller" style -- in which you are inimitable -- -- -- One wants such comforts in Albany if ever --

Yr's truly --CMS -- 5

Letter

Massachusetts Historical Society

Catharine Maria Sedgwick Papers I

Wax blot and tears; the last short paragraph and closing are written in the right margin of page 4.

Miss Eliza L Cabot --/No 1 Mount Vernon/Boston --

1822 is written in the upper right margin of page 1.

1

1 Kings 19:12 (KJV).

2

2 Samuel 12:7 (KJV).

3

There are several possible identities for the women mentioned here. "Mrs C" may be Susan Higginson Channing (who was Eliza Cabot Follen's cousin and a Sedgwick correspondent), a different Channing relation, or one of Eliza's Cabot sisters-in-law; among many options, "Susan" could be Sedgwick's sister-in-law Susan Sedgwick or Eliza's sister, mentioned later in the letter.

4

An allusion to Matthew 7:14 (KJV).

5

Hancock Shaker Village is a religious community founded in the late 1780s near Pittsfield, Massachusetts.