Upon the return voyage, which was a stormy one, he accomplished a feat
that many a storm-tossed traveler would consider marvelous indeed.
"Not out of my berth," he wrote, "more than twelve hours the first
twelve days. There cabined, cribbed, confined, I passed fifteen days.
During this time I wrote seven poems on slavery. I meditated upon them
in the stormy, sleepless nights, and wrote them down with a pencil in
the morning. A small window in the side of the vessel admitted light
into my berth, and there I lay on my back and soothed my soul with
songs." These poems, with one added as a dedication to Dr. Channing,
"threw the author's influence on the side against slavery; and at that
time it was a good deal simply to take that unpopular side publicly."

He took up his correspondence at this period with renewed fervor, and
what other life can show such devotion to friendship or such a circle
of friends? Through good report and evil report his friends were dear
to him, and the disparagements of others failed to reach the ear of
his heart. In one of his letters to G. W. Greene he says: "It is of
great importance to a man to know how he stands with his friends; at
least, I think so. The voice of a friend has a wonder-working power;
and from the very hour we hear it, 'the fever leaves us.'"

Upon his return home in December, 1836, he began his life in Cambridge
among the group of men who became inseparable friends,--Felton,
Sumner, Hillard, and Cleveland. They called themselves the "Five of
Clubs," and saw each other continually. Later came Agassiz and a few
others. How delightful the little suppers were of those days! He used
to write: "We had a gaudiolem last night." When, several years after,
he married Frances Appleton and began, as it were, "the new life," his
wife wrote to Mr. Greene: "Felton and the rest of the club flourish in