I cannot let this birthday pass without a memorial of its sun's rising and setting on flower-gifts from these my girl-friends: a wreath hung on my door in the morning, and a bouquet left in my room at night. It brings spring to my spirit earlier than I expected; pleasant it is to receive any token of love; and gifts like these come so seldom, that when they do come, I am sure they mean love. And with them comes the assurance of a deeper summer-warmth, the arousing of all high and holy feelings in the deep places of the soul yet winter-sealed. "My shriveled heart" shall yet "recover greenness." I could not feel this "deadly cold" that sometimes pierces me, if incapable of warmth. It may not be in an earthly clime that my nature shall blossom out freely and fully into heavenly light; but the time will come. Yesterday was the inauguration: we have a President, a country: and we are "the Union" still, and shall so remain, our President thinks. But I doubt whether the pride of slavery will ever bow to simple freedom, as it must, if the self-constituted aliens return. There is a strange new chapter in the world's history unfolding to-day; we have not half read it yet.
SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, “Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary,” pp. 86-7
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