[5] and may I not add, dear Charley, that it is happy in the future? I am sure you are destined to a happy career, if you will only open your soul to welcome the sunshine which is ready to be poured upon it. . . . We all have our destinies; and yours is grand. Live up to it! Reverence the powers God has given you. Cultivate, expand, and exercise them; and you will be happy. God bless you, my dear fellow I and, when your next birthday comes, may you find yourself as happy as you are now. I speak of your next with no common interest, because I hope and believe you will keep it with us. Oh, a happy gathering will we have!
Mrs. C. wrote April 30, 1838:—
I never meet any of your friends, dear Sumner, that you are not enthusiastically remembered. In all the pleasant meetings where you were seen, we think “of the friend who once welcomed us, too.” Surely, your right ear must burn very hot sometimes.
Felton wrote, July 19 (his wedding-day):—
There are not many men in this wide world to whom I should write on my wedding-day. . . . You have heard of the dinner Cleveland gave the “Five of clubs.” We drank your health in full bumpers, and had a superb time, I assure you. Longfellow and I returned to Cambridge at ten, and agreed that the day must be noted with white chalk. . . . Excuse this rambling, my dear Charley, and take my writing at all as a proof of the warm affection with which I regard you.
Again, Nov. 5:—
I had the “Five of clubs,” the other day; and we drank your health in the first bumper. Indeed, this is our standing libation at the beginning of a feast. I hope you do not forget us in your wanderings. I am growing more and more attached to that excellent institution; and I devoutly trust we may carry it forward to old age. We have formed a design of catching you, immediately on your arrival, and conveying you to some place of security,— say, Pine Bank,—where we shall probably keep you three or four weeks, giving day by day the history of your adventures, before any other person has the least opportunity of hearing a word. I have amused myself with imagining you shooting grouse, accompanied by a sporting parson. Is it possible you killed any thing on purpose? Did you think of Mr. Winkle? Did you remember Mr. Tupman's shooting a partridge by accident? That unfortunate rabbit will haunt you as long as you live, if you are indeed guilty of his blood. I think we must have a series of papers after the manner of Pickwick, describing the adventures of the Club; and it is plain that you must be the travelling committee, to say nothing of being our great oracle on matters of sport.
Again, Jan. 23, 1839:—
You can hardly imagine the joy your friends feel at the brilliant reception you have had in England. They have no forebodings of evil from all
