before. My impulse is to say at once, go. The worst and all you can dread
is the foul breath that will befog your fair name, because E.W. has done
what he has, because you _were_ a minister and _are_ a Transcendentalist
and a seceder from the holy office, and a dweller at _that place_, unknown
to perfumed respectability and condemned of prejudice and error. This is
the first great reason, and the second is not unlike unto it. It is that
you retard your preparation for any permanent pursuit, as a centre of your
sensuous life, by passing two or three years in Europe. With respect to
the first reason, not your own feelings, but those of your friends, demand
some consideration. In Heaven's court will their sorrow at your departure
and intimacy with E.W. at this time outweigh your own happiness at the
trip, and because so you lend your own good character to one perhaps
unjustly condemned. Such a sudden departure and intimacy with him might
have an indirect influence upon your future attempts to base yourself in
some way. If your mind is determining itself towards no pursuit, and you
anticipate the same general employment that has filled the last year or
two, I should say go. If God doesn't call here, he may in Europe; and if
not for years, your voyage cannot interfere with him. There are privater
reasons, which you know, of his character and of your probability of
assimilation, and of your independence in intimacies. Perhaps you may link
little fingers, if you cannot clasp the whole hand. On the whole, I should
say go, though not without due thought of friends, to whom your name and
relation may be more than your friendship. You will soon let me know of
your movements, will you not?

For a week or two, I am man of the house for my cousin, whose husband is
in Boston. Burrill fulfils the same duty for an aunt. It is a great
separation, though only a step separates us when I am at home; but the
fine social sympathy of actual contact, in the early morning and late
night, the kind deeds that link the minutes and adorn the hours, the