Boston, April 9th, 1852.
My Dear Mann: —
I am indeed grateful for the kind expressions contained in your note of the
7th. (How it got here on the 9th I cannot conceive.)
You have one virtue in an eminent degree, that of magnifying
and multiplying through the eyes of affection the virtues and the capacities of
your friends. If I could only get you into Rhadamanthus’ seat when I go below,
I should have a less warm berth assigned to me.
But your words stir me up to merit a tithe of the
praise you give me.
I should be with you now but for the illness of my Flossy.
She has ever been in the most robust and uproarious health, and her present
illness, though other people tell me it is nothing, seems to me alarming. I
employ a homœopathist,
just to keep away all doctors and drugs, and to prevent the women nursing her
and coddling her. Fresh air and cold water, inside and outside the belly —
these are all my medicines. As soon as she is better, or so that I shall not
worry and be pained by the thought that the poor thing is asking for Papa, I
shall start.
I must however be here when Kossuth comes. If you see him in
Washington tell him to be sure to enter the State from the West, and to gather
strength and popularity and heat, so as to melt something of the iceberg
he will find here.
I have no news for you, for I see nobody. At the State House
they have their sop and I am quiet. We shall have to be quiet until the
devil stalks abroad again and behaves so intolerably that we can get up a
public battue and hunt him down again.
Ever yours,
S. G. H.
SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and
Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 369-70
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