And how is Ashfield? I should have written you there before
if I had supposed there was a post-office at such a height. Do you have to eat
oil more than three times a day to keep warm in this weather? We don't. But
then we live upon an island in the temperate zone. Or are you warmed by the
news of the isolation of Washington? There is something comical about it which
I cannot escape, with all the annoyance. The great Dutch Pennsylvania annually
sprawling on its back, and bellowing to mankind to come and help it out of the
scrape, is perfectly ludicrous. I hope that this year all the States will learn
that, while they have no efficient and organized militia, they will be
constantly harassed by raids to the end of the war. We have all kinds of rumors
here at every moment, from which you are free. But the sense of absurdity and
humiliation is very universal. These things weaken the hold of the
administration upon the people; and the only serious peril that I foresee is
the setting in of a reaction which may culminate in November and defeat
Lincoln, as it did Wadsworth in this State. I wish we had a loyal governor, and
that New York city was virtuous.
Have you thought what a vindication this war is of Alexander
Hamilton? I wish somebody would write his life as it ought to be written, for
surely he was one of the greatest of our great men, as Jefferson was the least
of the truly great; or am I wrong? Hamilton was generous and sincere. Was
Jefferson either? In Franklin's life how the value of temperament shows itself!
It was as fortunate for him and for us as his genius.
SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p.
180-1
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