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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