I had a letter once, from a most lovely woman, announcing to me the death of her husband, a worthless person; and she spoke of it with no more interest than if a log had rolled from the river-bank and floated down the stream. What do you think of that,--with affections, venerations, loves, sympathies, swelling around you like a tide? I know that among all these there is an unvisited loneliness which nothing can reach. May God's peace and presence be there! I could not write before, being from home. I do not write anything now, but to say to you and your dear children, "God comfort you." From your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. [246] To his Daughter Mary. BALTIMORE, Nov. 24, 1856. DEAREST MOLLY,--I must send you a line, though somehow I can't make my table write yet. I have just been out to walk in the loveliest morning, and yet my nerves are ajar, and I can't guide my pen. I preached very hard last evening. I don't know but these people are all crazy, but they make me feel repaid. The church was full, as I never saw it before. The lecture Saturday evening was crowded. So I go. I am reading Dr. Kane's book. Six pages could give all the actual knowledge it contains; but that fearful conflict of men with the most terrible powers of nature, and so bravely sustained, makes the story like tragedy; and I read on and on, the same thing over and over, and don't skip a page. But Mrs.--has just been in, and sat down and opened her widowed heart to me, and I see that life itself is often a more solemn tragedy than voyaging in the Arctic Seas. Nay, I think the deacon himself, when he accepted that challenge (how oddly it sounds!), must have felt himself to be in a more tragic strait than "Smith's Strait," or any other that Kane was in. Your letters came Saturday evening, and were, by that time, an indispensable comfort. . . . This will be with you before the Thanksgiving dinner. Bless it, and you all, prayeth, giving thanks with and for you, Your ORVILLE DEWEY.