Thursday, October 12, 2023

Senator Henry Clay to Mrs. Mary Mentelle Clay,* September 26, 1851

WASHINGTON, December 25, 1851.

MY DEAR MARY,—I received to-day your letter of the 19th instant, and I was very glad to get the details contained in it about yourself, your family, and affairs at Ashland. And I am under very great obligations to you and to Thomas for the kind offer which you have made, to come either one or both of you to Washington, to attend me during my present illness. If there were the least occasion for it, I should with pleasure accept the offer; but there is not. Every want, every wish, every attention which I need, is supplied. The hotel at which I stay has a bill of fare of some thirty or forty articles every day, from which, I can select any for which I have a relish, and if I want any thing which is not on the bill of fare, it is promptly procured for me. The state of my case may be told in a few words. If I can get rid of this distressing cough, or can materially reduce it, I may yet be restored to a comfortable condition. That is the present aim of my physicians, and I have some hope that it has abated a little within the last few days. But if the cough can not be stopped or considerably reduced, it will go on until it accomplishes its work. When that may be, it is impossible to say, with any sort of certainty. I may linger for some months, long enough possibly to reach home once more. At all events, there is no prospect at present of immediate dissolution. Under these circumstances, I have no desire to bring any member of my family from home, when there is not the least necessity for it. With regard to the rumors which reach you from time to time, and afflict you, you must bear with them, and rest assured of what I have already communicated to your mother, that if my case should take a fatal turn, the telegraph shall communicate the fact. I occupy two excellent rooms, the temperature of which is kept up during the day at about 70°. The greatest inconvenience I feel is from the bad weather, which has confined me nearly a fortnight to my room, and I can take no exercise until the weather changes. My love to Thomas and all your children, to your mother, and to all others at Ashland.
_______________

* Wife of Clay’s son, Thomas Hart Clay

SOURCE: Calvin Colton, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, p. 623

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