But a truce with this nonsense. Anybody will find enough to write who will write out what is within him. Did you ever read much of German letters,--those, for instance, of Perthes and his friends? They are full of religion, as our American letters, I think, are not. We seem to have been educated, especially we Unitarians, to great reserve on this subject. I remember Channing's preaching against so much reserve. It is partly, I believe, a reaction against profession. But there is another reason; and that is, in religion's having become, under a more rational culture, so a part of our whole life and thought [317] and being, that formally to express our feelings upon it seems to us unnecessary, and in bad taste, as if we were to say how much we love knowledge or literature, or how much we love our friends or our children. Much talk of this sort seems to bring a doubt, by implication, upon the very thing talked about. Channing talked perpetually about religion,--that is, everything ran into that,--but never about his own religious feelings. Do get the life of Perthes, if you have never read it. That and "Palissy the Potter" are among the most interesting biographies I know. It is grim November weather up here, and I like it. Everything in its place; and we are having considerable rain, which is more in place, as winter is approaching, than anything else could be. Wife and I are bunged up with colds. No, I am; that ugly epithet can't attach to the grace and delicacy of her conditions and proportions. But alas! I am losing my old and boasted security against colds. I but went out one evening, to give a lecture at the Friendly Union [The Sheffield Friendly Union is the name of an association for purposes of social entertainment and culture, which meets one evening in the week, during winter, at a hall in the village, to enjoy music, lectures, reading, dramas, or whatever diversion its managers can procure or its members offer. Dancing and cards are forbidden, but other games are played in the latter part of the evening; and there is a small but good library, slowly enlarging, and much used and valued by the members. The subscription fee is small, and the meetings are seldom of less than one hundred or two hundred people, many coming three or four miles. The society was started in 1871, and Dr. Dewey took a great interest in it from the first. It was he who chose its name; and while his health lasted, he was a frequent attendant, and always lectured or read a play of Shakespeare before it two or three times every winter.] and this is the way I [318]pay for it. If there is any barrel in town bigger than my head, I should like to buy it, and get in. I was sorry not to see Coquerel, and pleased to hear that he had the grace to be disappointed at not seeing me. But I don't seek people any more. Why, I don't think I should run in the mud to see Alexis I himself. And to a New York lady I suppose that is about the strongest thing I could say.