Monday, July 8, 2019

John L. Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, December 16, 1863

Vienna,           
December 16, 1863.

My Dearest Mother: I received your letter of 25th November a few days ago, and am delighted to find you giving a good account of your health. As you say that you can find satisfaction in my stupid letters, I send you to-day another little note. Pray don't think it affected on my part when I say that I have literally nothing to write about.

We had the pleasure of a brief visit last week of a couple of charming bridal pairs — Irving Grinnell (son of my excellent friend Moses Grinnell) and his pretty, sweet little wife, who was, I believe, a Howland; and Fred d'Hauteville and his bride, a daughter of Hamilton Fish of New York — very elegant, high-bred, and handsome.

It was almost a painful pleasure to us to see Fred, for it brought more vividly to our memories his beautiful and most interesting mother, whose life was ended so sadly, just as it might have been gladdened by such a daughter. Still, although our regrets for his mother were reawakened, we were most happy to see the son, and to find how manly and high-spirited, and at the same time modest and agreeable, he seemed to be. Ah, this war is a tremendous schoolmistress, but she does turn our boys into men. And if all this campaigning has caused many tears to flow, it seems to me I had rather my son had died in the field, fighting for the loftiest and purest cause, than that he had remained in the sloth and the frivolity which form the life of too many who stay at home. I am determined to say nothing of political matters save to repeat my conviction, firm as the everlasting hills, that the only possible issue of the war is the reconstruction of the Union and the entire abolition of slavery, and such a glorious consummation is as sure as that the sun will rise to-morrow. We are all well, and send much love to the governor and yourself and all the family. The little Schleswig-Holstein fuss is in a fair way of being settled.

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. 350-1

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