Thursday, August 3, 2017

Salmon P. Chase to Charles Sumner, September 2, 1849

Portland, Sept. 2 1849.

My Dear Sumner. Professor Henry returns to Boston tomorrow, and I shall of course prefer to take his deposition there. As Hillard will be out of town I shall have to call on you. So be ready to commence Tuesday morning. I want to finish the same day if possible, so as to leave in the Evening train for New York. Henry will leave in the afternoon train. I shall get into the morning cars, and spend a few hours with Hale at Dover. We both expect to be at the Revere House by 8 P. M.

I wish you could have been with me at Professor Bache's encampment yesterday. There is no more glorious prospect visible from any point on which I ever stood, and both Bache and Henry said the same thing. The former was in raptures.

It is very pleasant to write you; though not half so pleasant as to hear you and look into your face and see your soul, and answer you after my poor fashion. I never feel my poverty so much as when among you affluent scholars of Boston and its environments. The humiliation is more than compensated by the pleasure and profit I derive from your learning. But pleasant as writing is — or rather not writing for the manual part of it I fairly hate — but communication even with this drawback, I must not spend more time on it, but bid you, good evening

Ever yours, faithfully,
[SALMON P. CHASE.]

SOURCE: Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 182-3

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