How I wonder how it fared with those you love in all these
late disasters, — with Willy, and Frank Shaw's son, and young Russell, and all
the precious, precious lives offered up for sacrifice to redeem your land. Oh,
what a country it ought to be hereafter, ransomed at such a cost! I leave my
own folks and friends in London immersed in their own amusements and pursuits;
and as by far the most serious half of my thoughts and feelings are just now
dwelling all but incessantly on your side of the Atlantic, I am not very sorry
to go away from England, where I heard constantly opinions and sentiments
expressed about your country and its trials that were very painful to me. Our
government and our people are, I believe, sound; that is, the latter feel and
think rightly about your war, and the former will act rightly. But our upper
classes have shown that like will to like, and sympathize (as was perhaps to be
foreseen) with the aristocratic element in your constitution. I knew very well
that in the abstract they were sure to do so, but the experience of it has been
bitterly painful to me.
SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and
Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 51-2
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