. . . HAVE you seen the "great Hungarian"? Great indeed, and in a way we seem not to have thought of. Is n't there a story somewhere of a man uncaging, as he thought, a spaniel, and finding it to be a lion? We thought we had released and were bringing over a simple, harmless, inoffensive, heart-broken emigrant, who would be glad to settle, and find rest, and behold, we have upon our hands a world-disturbing propagandist, a loud pleader for justice and freedom, who does not want to settle, but to fight; who will not rest upon his country's wrongs, nor let anybody else if he can help it; who does not care for processions nor entertainments, but wants help. Kossuth has doubtless made a great mistake in taking his position here; it is the mistake of a word-maker and of a relier on words, and he has not mended the matter by defining. But I declare he is infinitely more respectable in my eyes than if he had come in the character in which we expected him,--as the protege and beneficiary of our people, who was to settle down among us and be comfortable. To Rev. William Ware. WASHINGTON, Jan. 3, 1852. . . . I MUST fool a little, else I shan't know I am writing to you. And really I must break out somewhere, [224] life is such a solemn abstraction in Washington to a clergyman. What has he to do, but what's solemn? The gayety passes him by; the politics pass him by. Nobody wants him; nobody holds him by the button but some desperate, dilapidated philanthropist. People say, while turning a corner, "How do you do, Doctor?" which is very much as if they said, "How do you do, Abstraction?" I live in a "lone conspicuity," preach in a vacuum, and call, with much ado, to find nobody. "What doest thou here, Elijah?" one might say to a prophet in this wilderness. What a curious fellow you are! calm as a philosopher, usually, wise as a judge, possessed in full measure of the very Ware moderation and wisdom, and yet every now and then taking some tremendous lurch--against England or for Kossuth! I go far enough, go a good way, please to observe,--but to go to war, that would I not, if I could help it. Fighting won't prepare men for voting. Peaceful progress, I believe, is the only thing that can carry on the world to a fitness for self-government. I have no idea that the Hungarians are fit for it. See what France has done with her free constitution! Oh! was there ever such a solemn farce, before Heaven, as that voting,--those congratulations to the Usurper-President, and his replies? To Rev. Henry W Bellows. WASHINGTON, March 7, 1852. . . . I HAVE seen a good deal of Ole Bull here within a week or two. I admire his grand and simple, reverent and affectionate Norwegian nature very much. He has come out here now with views connected with the welfare [225] of his countrymen; I do not yet precisely understand them. Is it not remarkable that he and Jenny Lind should have this noble nationality so beating at their very hearts? To the Same.