I suppose I ought to have something special to say after having
been suddenly transplanted to a new place and among new people, yet
there isn't much to tell. I came because they all thought at home
that the climate might do me good; I don't feel, however, any
difference in my sensations between this and New York--if I do it's
in favour of New York. I wish it might turn out that an inland
climate isn't after all necessary for me, as I like the other sort
much better and really think I feel stronger in it too. My doctor
told me that Boston would kill me in six months--though he is
possibly mistaken. I am going to try it a little longer here, and
then go back to Pelham, where I'm pretty sure I shall find myself
better again. It may be that the mental atmosphere is more to me
than any other, for I feel homesick here all the while, or at least
what I call so, being away from what is most _like_ home to me, and
what if I were there I should call tired. The chief object I had in
coming was to listen to Phillips Brooks; I have heard him several
times and am not, I think, disappointed. To be sure he didn't say
anything new or startling, but I certainly oughtn't to have
expected that, though I believe I did have a secret hope that he
was going to expound to me the old beliefs with a clearness that
would convince me for ever and banish doubt. I had placed all my
hopes in him as the one man I had heard of who, progressive in all
other ways, had yet been able to keep his faith firm in the things
that most earnest men have left far behind them. Yet in preaching
to his congregation he doesn't, or didn't, touch the real
difficulties at all. He was leading them forward instead of trying
to make it clear to _me_ that I have any good reason for my
feelings. Still, it was something to feel that he has them too, and
isn't afraid to trust them and live for them. I wonder what he
really does believe or think about it all, and whether he knows the
reaction that comes to me about Thursday, after the enthusiasm and
confidence made by his eloquence and earnestness on Sunday.
To-morrow will be Saturday, and I shall be glad when Sunday comes
to wind me up again. I feel sadly run down to-night and as if I
should like to see some honest old pagan and shake him by the hand.
It will seem all right and easy again soon, I know, but is it
always thus? Is there no more of that undoubting faith in the
world that there used to be? But I won't talk any more about it
now, or I shan't sleep; it is getting late and all themes but the
least interesting must be put away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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