Charlestown, Jefferson County, Va., Nov. 16, 1859.
My Dear Wife, —
I write you in answer to a most kind letter of November 13 from dear Mrs.
Spring. I owe her ten thousand thanks for her kindness to you particularly, and
more especially than for what she has done and is doing in a more direct way
for me personally. Although I feel grateful for every expression of kindness or
sympathy towards me, yet nothing can so effectually minister to my comfort as
acts of kindness done to relieve the wants or mitigate the sufferings of my
poor distressed family. May God Almighty and their own consciences be their
eternal rewarders! I am exceedingly rejoiced to have you make the acquaintance
and be surrounded by such choice friends, as I have long known by reputation
some of those to be with whom you are staying. I am most glad to have you meet
with one of a family (or I would rather say of two families) most beloved and
never to be forgotten by me. I mean dear gentle ——. Many and many a time have she,
her father, mother, brother, sisters, uncle, and aunt, like angels of mercy,
ministered to the wants of myself and of my poor sons, both in sickness and
health. Only last year I lay sick for quite a number of weeks with them, and
was cared for by all as though I had been a most affectionate brother or
father. Tell her that I ask God to bless and reward them all forever. “I was a
stranger, and they took me in.” It may possibly be that would like to copy this
letter, and send it to her home. If so, by all means let her do so. I would
write them if 1 had the power.
Now let me say a word about the effort to educate our daughters.
I am no longer able to provide means to help towards that object, and it
therefore becomes me not to dictate in the matter. I shall gratefully submit
the direction of the whole thing to those whose generosity may lead them to
undertake in their behalf, while I give anew a little expression of my own
choice respecting it. You, my wife, perfectly well know that I have always
expressed a decided preference for a very plain but perfectly practical
education for both sons and daughters. I do not mean an education so very
miserable as that you and I received in early life; nor as some of our children
enjoyed. When I say plain but practical, I mean enough of the learning of the
schools to enable them to transact the common business of life comfortably and
respectably, together with that thorough training to good business habits which
best prepares both men and women to be useful though poor, and to meet the stem
realities of life with a good grace. You well know that I always claimed that
the music of the broom, wash-tub, needle, spindle, loom, axe, scythe, hoe,
flail, etc., should first be learned at all events, and that of the piano, etc.,
afterwards. I put them in that order as most conducive to health of body and
mind; and for the obvious reason, that after a life of some experience and of
much observation, I have found ten women as well as ten men who have made their
mark in life right, whose early training was of that plain, practical kind, to
one who had a more popular and fashionable early training. But enough of that.
Now, in regard to your coming here. If you feel sure that
you can endure the trials and the shock which will be unavoidable (if you
come), I should be most glad to see you once more; but when I think of your
being insulted on the road, and perhaps while here, and of only seeing your
wretchedness made complete, I shrink from it. Your composure and fortitude of
mind may be quite equal to it all; but I am in dreadful doubt of it. If you do
come, defer your journey till about the 27th or 28th of this month. The scenes
which you will have to pass through on coming here will be anything but those
you now pass, with tender, kind-hearted friends, and kind faces to meet you
everywhere. Do consider the matter well before you make the plunge. I think I
had better say no more on this most painful subject. My health improves a
little; my mind is very tranquil, I may say joyous, and I continue to receive
every kind attention that I have any possible need of. I wish you to send
copies of all my letters to all our poor children. What I write to one must
answer for all, till I have more strength. I get numerous kind letters from
friends in almost all directions, to encourage me to “be of good cheer,” and I
still have, as I trust, “the peace of God to rule in my heart.” May God, for
Christ's sake, ever make his face to shine on you all!
Your affectionate
husband,
John Brown.
SOURCES: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters
of John Brown, p. 591-3
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