He is a live man this, and I wish you would read his poem
and send it to Longfellow, for it does one's heart good to see the
French made the vehicle of so much real heroic sentiment. The
description of a slave hunt is splendidly and bitterly satirical and
indignant and full of fine turns of language. Thank God _that_ is
over. No matter what happens to you and me, _that_ great burden
of sin and misery has tumbled off from our backs and rolled into the
sepulchre, where it shall never arise more.... I have been the most
industrious of beings since my return, and am steaming away on the
obstacle that stands between me and my story, which I long to be
at.... I want to get one or two special bits of information out of
Garrison, and so instead of sending my letter at random to Boston I
will trouble you (who have little or nothing to do!) to get this
letter to him. _My own book_, instead of cooling, boils and
bubbles daily and nightly, and I am pushing and spurring like fury to
get to it. I work like a drag-horse, and I'll _never_ get in such
a scrape again. It isn't my business to make up books, but to make
them. I have lots to say."...
The story which had so taken possession of her mind and heart was
"Oldtown Folks," the one which she at the time fancied the best
calculated of all her works to sustain the reputation of the author of
"Uncle Tom's Cabin." The many proofs of her own interest in it seem to
show that she had been moved to a livelier and deeper satisfaction in
this creation than in any of her later productions.
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