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Again by the sea! Again I inhale the fresh breeze of the great sea in company with my excellent friends. Marcus is well, and enjoys life here. Baby improves every day. The place is solitary, and has a wild charm. The moon shines magnificently over the sea, which roars loudly, agitated by the wind. I walk on the shore in the evening with Marcus, and in doors Rebecca tells me in the clear moonlight occurrences in the history of the inner light, which prove the wonderful life and guiding of that inner light, where the soul truly waits for it with quiet, introverted attention.

Small fires, in rows and circles, shine out on the sands by the sea, or among the trees on the shore. There are brushwood fires in which the "clams," a kind of large mussel, are roasted for suppers on the sands. They are delicate in flavor, and to my taste superior to oysters. The weather is cool, and bathing refreshing. We all enjoy ourselves, are all happy.

Before I left Brooklyn, we heard, one Sunday, a sermon from young Mr. Beecher. He had lately expressed his feelings very strongly on the subject of the Fugitive Slave Law, in an evangelical newspaper of which he is a co-   [p. 554]   editor. Several of his congregation had taken great offense at this, and Beecher now delivered from the pulpit his confession of faith as regarded the duty of a minister with reference to his congregation and his conscience. It was in few but powerful words, as follows: "If the law of God and my own conscience bid me to do one thing, and you, the people of the congregation, say that I must not obey it, but you, if I would remain quiet among you--in that case, then, I must--go! And I will go, if I can not remain quiet among you with a good conscience." The chapel was full to overflowing, the congregation as profoundly serious as the minister. It was reality, and no make-believe, with them all. But there is no danger that Beecher will have to go. He is too much esteemed and beloved for them not to concede to him, when they know that he is in reality right, at least in intention, if not always in manner.

August 27th. I now, my beloved child, am preparing to set off to the great West, which stands before me in a kind of mythological nebulosity, half mist, half splendor, and about which I know nothing rightly, excepting that it is great, great, great! How? Why? In what way? Whether it is peopled by gods or giants, giants of frost and hobgoblins, or by all those old mythological gentry together--I have yet to discover. That Thor and Loke yet wrestle vigorously in that fairy-tale-like Utgaerd, is however, what I quite anticipate, and that the goblins are at home there also, that I know, because of certain "spiritual rappings or knockings," as they are called, of which I have heard and read some very queer things since I have been in this country. These are a standing subject in the newspapers at this time, and are treated partly in jest and partly in earnest. But I shall certainly find Iduna with the apple of the Hesperides in that Eden of the setting sun. Do not the Alleghany Mountains and Niagara stand as giant watchers at its entrance, to open   [p. 555]   the portals of that new garden of Paradise, the latest home of the human race? Those glorious cherubim forbid not the entrance; they invite it, because they are great and beautiful.

The people of Europe pour in through the cities of the eastern coast. Those are the portals of the outer court; but the West is the garden where the rivers carry along with them gold, and where stands the tree of Life and of Death. There the tongue of the serpent and the voice of God are again heard by a new humanity.

That great enigmatical land of the West, with its giant rivers, and giant falls, and giant lakes; with its valley of the Mississippi and its Rocky Mountains, and its land of gold and the Pacific Ocean; with its buffaloes and its golden humming-birds; the land which nourishes states as the children of men, and where cities grow great in human life; where the watch-word of existence. is growth, progress! this enigmatic, promised land, this land of the future, I shall now behold!

I long for it as for the oracle which shall give a response to many of my spirit's questions. My little basket is filled with bananas and peaches, my traveling-fairy is with me, and the last letter of my beloved. God bless my precious sister, her sea-bathing and her friends, and for her sake also, her sister and her friend, FREDRIKA.

P.S.--How fervently with my whole heart do I thank my beloved mamma for that permission, so kindly given, for me to remain over the winter in America. Those kind, dear words will accompany me on my pilgrimage like my mother's blessing. And be not uneasy for me, my sweet mamma. Human beings continue to be infinitely kind to my mother's daughter; and I meet with good friends and good homes every where. Excepting in my own country I could not find better homes, nor experience kinder care, than here. I can not describe how thankful I am for this journey, and the effect which it has   [p. 556]   on me. May I only be able some time to develop its garnered treasure in my Swedish home, and with my beloved ones!