looked like a goddess playing in the fountain of Helicon.

I have not an inch in which to say I am well. I do a little business at writing, am making a skeleton for Miss W. Quite forgot! Bruno's ear is nearly well, and Grimalkin has stopped fighting, and become quite a favorite in the family.

IV. TO O. H. W. ESQ., NATCHEZ, MISS.

RUSHVILLE, Jan. 20, 1845.

FRIEND OTIS,-Your missive from "the land of the sun," though it did not reach me until nearly a month after its date, came at last, fresh as a breeze from Araby. It was no unwelcome visitor, I assure you. I conceive it contained two histories; the one written, the other unwritten; the former of yourself, the latter of your travels.

I see you are determined to impose upon me the responsibility of instructress, my courteous refusal to the contrary notwithstanding. I conclude you are of the opinion of James the novelist, that "when ladies say no, half the time they mean yes." Now out upon you, Otis, for such a conclusion. But I must submit, and will strive to do it with the best grace imaginable. I suppose you have never heard the story of the "blind leading the blind," and the consequence. It is too trite for repetition; but the

lesson it teaches has not lost its force with its novelty.

The idea of receiving a letter from Mississippi is to me really unique; from one, too, who perhaps is dreaming away his winter over law or love tales, among the magnolia groves; or is looking out upon the "Father of Waters," and drinking in the breath of inspiration, the spirit of immortality. If I am poetical in my vision, I hope you will not charge me with plagiarism, for I certainly have not stolen the phrenzy from you!

I made a laughable mistake, in addressing my last to Kentucky, while you were regaling yourself at your father's board, and taking your ease in your "old arm chair" at home. I was much amused to learn that you did not leave till long after I had written you at Oak Grove. But I enjoyed it just as well as if you had been there a month with your friends. My allusions, however, to the then presidential candidates may appear a little ill-timed; but you may appropriate it all to yourself, and then I am sure it will be right. My prediction about the nominees has actually been realized quite beyond my own expectations. But I will not talk politics, nor will I triumph over a fallen enemy. Greely says, "We are not vanquished, but fallen;" so you say, I suppose.

Ι

You were right in your conjecture that I should expect a "chapter of travels." You did give me an inkling, so that I could "see through the glass

darkly;" but I should like a clear and full account of your peregrinations. In traveling you see life in all its forms, from the splendor of opulence to the misery of indigence. Nature and humanity present a study prolific of interest, each alternately producing changes upon the other.

I suppose you communicate often with your friends at Prattsburg. Any intercourse between them and us has actually become a matter worthy of record. I believe you were the only connecting link between the two places; and now that is severed, all intercourse is cut off.

Levi, like the seventh Pleiade, has disappeared by reason of marrying a mortal. Thales has not heard from him since that event, and a long time before.

O. P. F. is in New York, attending medical lectures, gloomy as the grave. Dr. Ashly is with him. My youngest brother, Myron, is at school in Lima. Thales is all over the country. Brother Anson and myself alone are at home. Winter is "wreathing his frolic architecture of snow," and I am almost imprisoned in my own chamber, while you are walking abroad beneath the sunny skies of the south.

I shall expect an early answer to this. It takes a long while for letters to travel the distance.

V. TO O. H. W. ESQ., NATCHEZ, MISS.

RUSHVILLE, MARCH 18, 1845.

FRIEND OTIS,-If your homeopathic dilution presents so rare a force of thought and imagery, I wonder what the original aleopathic combination must exhibit. That you should express an anxiety about the result of this compound, prepared for "transmission two thousand and two hundred miles to a friend," has awakened a corresponding solicitude in my own bosom, and at times I am almost induced to abandon the field. But cheered by the ' reflection that you will not look for grapes among thorns, or figs among thistles, I have again ventured upon our arena.

Your full and interesting sheet reached me just two weeks ago yesterday; and I frankly declare its merit called for an earlier attention. Let me vindicate myself. Kames says we always have a favorite argument at hand by which to justify our own actions; and if I employ such in favor of my present position, I verily think I shall be justifiable. My absence alone has prevented an earlier response to your salutation. I am glad you did not wait for the arrival of my last, before replying to my Kentucky visitor. I always laugh when I think with how much seriousness I sat down to write to you in Kentucky; while you, the truant! never touched upon her borders.

Though your letter had its birth in sunshine, it came to me in tempest. The snow was falling in

profusion, and the wind was waltzing with every flake. But it is said December sometimes puts on the livery of May; and I believe it; for your letter was certainly a green spot amid winter.

These messengers of thought I always hail as welcome visitors. I love to communicate with my friends from the bosom of the home circle. But when this endearing association has been broken, I know the value of letters. They come with a power to impart animation to the spirit and cheerfulness to the heart. Do not misinterpret me; I have not the vanity to imagine mine can produce this effect; but I have been situated something like yourself, from home.

Do not give yourself any farther anxiety about the interest of your letters, I pray you; or I shall certainly construe it into a hint at the dullness of mine, or a kind of negative way of asking praise for yours. If you should like, I will give you a puff, though I seldom try my hand at it. From your descriptions already, I am becoming charmed with the South. I wonder how you can write in any thing but flowers and tropes, in inditing from a land of sunshine to a region in which all vitality, save that of mind, is suspended. This, indeed, like the Alpine flower, though it "leans its cheek upon the bosom of eternal snows," continues in living verdure; neither summer facilitates, nor winter retards, its expansion.

Summer is returning to us in occasional bursts of sunshine; and winter is folding up his garments,