Cedarcroft, Kennett Square, Pa., October 31,1861.
I hoped to have fallen in with you when I was in New York
t'other day, but my stay was so short that I could not go down to the Island.
How are you, and how are wife and children? I am living here
in comparative seclusion, and know the world only by the newspapers. But I see
that you are to lecture in Philadelphia, which is a great satisfaction to me,
and I presume it is a greater to you. Who could have foreseen the changes
of this year? I do not despair of lecturing in Richmond before I die.
Now, my object in writing is twofold: first, and most
important, to ask you to come out here for a day or two, if you possibly can,
when you lecture in Philadelphia; you shall have pen, ink, and silence, if you need
'em. Secondly, what is to be the state of our business this winter? I get
precious few invitations, and from widely scattered places. What is your
experience? Am I, the individual, passed over, or has the institution “suspended”?
As I have no other dependence for this winter, I am curious to know what
calculations to make. (Tribune dividends and copyrights silent inter arma.)
I am writing a lecture on the “American People, in their
Social and Political Aspects,” being sufficiently cosmopolitan in my experience
to judge objectively, — at least, I so flatter myself. What is your subject? I
wish you could give us a lecture here, but the place is rather too small in
these times. Our young men are all away fighting. My wife sends love to you. .
. .
SOURCE: Marie Hansen-Taylor and Horace E. Scudder,
Editors, Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, Volume 1, p. 382
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