Worcester, January 9, 1857
I had various Kansas and other experiences, saw “old Captain
Brown,” but not Governor Robinson. Captain B. expects quiet till spring, and
then another invasion, and is trying for means to repel it.
The best thing I did, you will think, was to see Mr. Sumner
at the Athenaeum Library. He seemed at first very well, looked as usual, while
seated, and spoke as easily and in as firm a voice as ever. But finally I
proposed to him to go up and see Page's Venus in the upper hall, of which I had
the key, and when he rose I saw the change. He rose slowly, . . . holding both
hands upon his back, and walked with a cane and quite feebly, instead of his
peculiarly vigorous stride. He thinks of going to Washington this month, but I
suspect he will be persuaded not to do it till the end of the session, if at
all. He is obviously unfit to deliver his future speech, which, he says, will
be to his last one “what first proof brandy is to molasses-and-water.” “I think
I shall probably be shot,” he added; “I don't see what else they can do.”
Perhaps it is so, though he had better not say it, still it was simply
uttered, and I never saw him appear nobler or abler. But I do not think he will
ever be, physically speaking, what he was.
SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters
and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 77-8
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