During the past winter I have done
nothing but lecture, having delivered between seventy and eighty all
round the country from Maine to western New York, and even confronted
the critical terrors of the great city that holds half a million and
P---- M----. All this spring I have been working on microscopes, so
that it is only within a few days I have really got hold of anything
to read--to say nothing of writing, except for my lyceum audiences. I
had a literary rencontre just before I came away, however, in the
shape of a dinner at the Revere House with Griswold and Epes Sargent.
What a curious creature Griswold is! He seems to me a kind of
naturalist whose subjects are authors, whose memory is a perfect fauna
of all flying, running, and creeping things that feed on ink. Epes has
done mighty well with his red-edged school-book, which is a very
creditable-looking volume, to say the least.
It would be hard to tell how much you are missed among us. I really do
not know who would make a greater blank if he were abstracted. As for
myself, I have been all lost since you have been away in all that
relates to literary matters, to say nothing of the almost daily aid,
comfort, and refreshment I imbibed from your luminous presence. Do
come among us as soon as you can; and having come, stay among your
devoted friends, of whom count
O. W. HOLMES.
From this letter also we get a glimpse of the literary world of New
England at that time, and an idea of his own occupations.
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