Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis

, Septembe

ly I need not tell you. After the quiet beauty of our farm home, there was a striking grandeur in the sea that I never beheld so plainly before. There is

into the tones of his songs, into the colors of the sky. So in the landscape, tint fades gently into tint, and the beauty that attracts spreads from leaf to hill, from hill to horizon, till the whole is bathed in sunlight. Is not this fact also recognized in other arts? In painting, the great picture is without marked outline; in music, the truest and deepest is undefined. Beethoven is greater than Haydn. The precision which offends in manner is as disagreeable everywhere else. Is it not because when named as Precision, the depth which necessarily means a graceful form is absent? As when we say a woman has beautiful eyes we indirectly acknowledge her want of universal beauty. Certainly a man of elegant manners is admired not for himself, but what he represents. Indeed, all society is only thus en

r for that fading light, half-mournful, half-tender and hopeful. I passed by the houses brilliantly lighted and filled with finely dressed people, who also thronged the streets. Before one of the principal hotels was a band from the fort serenading, and surrounded with a crowd of easy listeners. The ice-cream resort was

to crutch about the house, but will probably return to Brook Farm with me d

he will not be gone when I return. I am exceedingly obliged for your kind suggestion of "Ade

luding mainly Charles D. and James S.; to Mr. and Mrs. R.; and if you

fri

CUR

ll perform her commission. Moreover, that I am gratified at so distinguished

W.