I promised you some thoughts long ago, but it would be hard to tell whether these are the ones. I suppose that the great questions of Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge absolute, which used to he discussed in Concord are still unsettled. And here comes Channing with his “Present,” to vex the world again—a rather galvanic movement, I think. However, I like the man all the better, though his schemes the less. I am sorry for his confessions. Faith never makes a confession.

  Have you had the annual berrying party, or sat on the Cliffs a whole day this summer? I suppose the flowers have fared quite as well since I was not there to scoff at them, and the hens without doubt keep up their reputation.

  I have been reading lately what of Quarles’s poetry I could get. He was a contemporary of Herbert, and a kindred spirit. I think you would like him. It is rare to find one who was so much of a poet and so little of an artist. He wrote long poems, almost epics for length, about Jonah, Esther, Job, Samson & Solomon, interspersed with meditations after a quite original plan. Shepherd’s Oracles, Comedies, Romances, Fancies and Meditations—the Quintessence of Meditation, and Enchiridions of Meditations all divine,—and what he calls his Morning Muse, besides prose works as curious as the rest. He was an unwearied Christian and a reformer of some old school withal. Hopelessly quaint, as if he lived all alone and knew nobody but his wife, who appears to have reverenced him. He never doubts his genius;—it is only he and his God in all the world. He uses language sometimes as greatly as Shakspeare, and though there is not much straight grain in him, there is plenty of tough crooked timber. In an age when Herbert is revived, Quarles surely ought not to be forgotten.

  I will copy a few such sentences as I should read to you if there. Mrs Brown too may find some nutriment in them!

  Mrs Emerson must have been sicker than I was aware of, to be confined so long, though they will not say that she is convalescent yet though the Dr pronounces her lungs unaffected.

  How does the Saxon Edith do? Can you tell yet to which school of philosophy she belongs—whether she will be a fair saint of some Christian order, or a follower of Plato and the heathen? Bid Ellen a good night or a good morning from me, and see if she will remember where it comes from. And remember me to Mrs Brown and your mother and Elizabeth Hoar.

Yr friend
Henry.