Vienna, June 16, 1863.
My Dearest Mother:
Now that Mary is gone, you will not hear regularly through her once a week that
we are all well and going on as usual. If her arrangements were carried out,
she must now be six days out from Boston, and will be due in Liverpool in six
days more, so that next week we shall be anxiously looking for the telegram
announcing the steamer's arrival.
We have awful weather. A dry, cold, pitiless, howling
whirlwind has been sweeping over Vienna for the last four or five days. To say
that our June is a severe March would be to slander that blustering month
unjustly. I never knew such hideous weather. If it would rain, I shouldn't
mind, but it rarely rains here. The Vienna climate has much resemblance to that
of Boston, particularly in the matter of wind. The winter is not half as
severe, but, en revanche, I never knew such glacial weather in mid-June
at home. Five such days as we have passed through, with the prospects of five
more, are more savage than six months of the worst east wind that ever swept up
Boston Bay.
You see I am weak-minded enough to find nothing to talk
about but the weather. We have just had the pleasure of having Mrs. Parkman and
her children and Edward Twisleton here for a few days. They were with us to
dinner or in the evening nearly every day, and it was a great satisfaction, so
rarely do we have any old friends in this out-of-the-way place. She, you know,
is a woman of remarkable intelligence and character, and her children are
uncommonly well educated and well mannered. Poor Twisleton we had not seen
since his wife's death, whom we saw much in England and liked exceedingly. He
is saddened much, but not changed; it was very agreeable to talk with him about
American matters, for he is as good an American as I am, and thoroughly
understands the subject, besides being a man of talent and great attainments.
They are gone now. He is on his way to England. She will join Mrs. Cleveland in
Schwalbach, so that if Mary and Lily keep to their present plan of going to
that place to meet Mary and bring her back, while Susie and I keep house at
home, they will meet again in a few weeks. The Clevelands are expected in
Schwalbach July 18.
Ever your most
affectionate son,
J. L. M.
SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The
Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition,
Volume 2, p. 335-6
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