Letter to a Member Considering the Fellowship

Dear Martin —

Eleven years is a long time to have kept a Thursday, and I am not going to pretend a Fellowship is a rung on anything. There is no ladder, and there are no years to it either; there are only the fields, and you may take up one or none. What is asked of a fellow is what has already been asked of you, for longer: the long attention, which is mostly Februaries and mostly nobody noticing.

You write that you feel you ought to be doing something larger. I would rather you did the near work. The near work at Shore this spring is a hedge, a boiler, and two people who need driving to the hospital on Wednesdays. It is not smaller than a vocation; it is what a vocation turns out to consist of.

Come in April and we will talk. Nothing follows from the conversation. If you decide against it the matter is closed and no second asking is made, by me or by anyone.

One caution, kindly meant. People who take up the Fellowship in a good week often set it down in a bad one, and there is no shame in that; the place is kept and the work is carried while they are away. But it is easier to keep the whole day than to keep an hour of it and spend the rest arguing with yourself.

— E.H., steward