The greatest disappointment that I meet in old age is that I am not so good as I expected to be, nor so wise. I am ashamed to say that I was never so dissatisfied with myself as I am now. It seems as if it could not be a right state of things. My ideal of old age has been something very different. And yet seventy years is still within the infancy of the immortal life and progress. Why should it not say with the Apostle, "Not as though [288] I had attained, neither were already perfect." I can say with him, in some respects, "I have fought a good fight." I have fought through early false impressions of religion. I have fought through many life problems. I have fought, in these later years, through Mansel and Herbert Spencer, as hard a battle as I have ever had. But I have come, through all, to the most rooted conviction of the Infinite Rectitude and Goodness. Nothing, I think, can ever shake me from this,-that all is well, and shall be forever, whatever becomes of me. . . . Ever your friend, ORVILLE DEWEY. To Mrs. David Lane. SHEFFIELD, July 9, 1866. DEAR FRIEND,--I am etonne, as the French have it; at least Moliere and Corneille--whom I have been reading by and large of late, having read all the new things I could get hold of-are continually having their personages etonned. Or, I feel like Dominie Sampson, and say, "Pro-di-gi-ous!" Not as he said it to Meg Merrilies, but rather to Miss Julia Mannering, when he was confounded with her vivacity. What! two letters to my one! I do believe you are going to be literary. And then,--was ever seen such an ambitious woman! Reading Mill, and going to read Herbert Spencer! And I suppose Kant will come next. But bravo! I say. I am very much pleased with you. And don't say, "I wish,--but what 's the use!" You are through with the great absorbing mother's cares, and can undertake studies, and I believe there is no study so worthy of our attention as our literature. I confess that I have come [289] to a somewhat new thought of this matter of late. What is there on the earth upon which we stand,--what is there that offers to help us, to lift and build us up, that can compare with the productions of the greatest minds which are gathered up in our literature? Whether we would study human nature or the Nature Divine,-whether we would study religion, science, nature in the world around us, in the life within us,--these are the lights that shine upon our path. For those who have time to read, it seems a deplorable mistake not to turn their thoughts distinctly to what the greatest minds have said; that is, upon as many subjects as they can compass.