Wentworth now went to his mother's in Cambridge for a few weeks, whence he wrote, ‘An exquisite soft spring day which would have cheered the soul of a lobster–and it did mine.’ A few days later he added, ‘Assumed my Cambridge state of mind. . . . I certainly intend to try—and not give way to the causeless melancholy I have occasionally fallen into heretofore,’ and ‘resolved to wake up from my dreams and work.’ All through these early years, one finds allusions to a habit of indulging in occasional despondent moods, when silence and sadness cast their spell over him. These visitations lasted into middle life, but were eventually outgrown. In a letter written a year after leaving Jamaica Plain, Wentworth said:—
You will be glad that I got hold of a stock of spirits this evening that may last me throa some days, who knows. But that's always the way with me— the grasshopper is a burden to me, but I can carry a hippopotamus and dance and sing.
