Washington, May 4, 1851, eight A. M.
MY DEAR SIR,—We have a great change in the weather, the mercury being now twenty-five degrees higher than yesterday morning at the same hour. The wind is south, and not unlikely to bring rain. There were frosts in various places in this neighborhood on the nights of the 2d and the 3d; but I think we shall now have summer upon us.
I am steadily engaged in my official duties, and make progress in some things which require despatch. There are but few people here, and it is a good time for work.
I have given up my professional engagements, both in New York and Boston. This has been done at a great sacrifice, three thousand dollars at least, but I felt it to be my duty. For the next two or three months I may calculate on good health, after which my annual visitation of "hay fever," or "catarrh," may render me incapable of doing much of any thing for the residue of the summer. I feel, therefore, that I owe it to my place, and to my duties, to let nothing interfere for the present with close attention to public affairs.
There never was a time, I think, in which our foreign relations were more quiet. There seems no disturbing breath on the surface. All the diplomatic gentlemen here are amicably disposed, and our intercourse is quite agreeable. I think Mr. Hülsemann is the most satisfied and happy of them all.
An hour hence I receive my mail, and then go to church, always expecting a good sermon from Dr. Butler.
By the way, if you would see something in the prophetic books of Scripture, remarkably applicable to our days, turn to the second chapter of Nahum, and the fourth verse.
Yours, always truly,
DAN'L WEBSTER.
P. S. For something to remind you of telegraphic wires, see Job, xxxviii. 35.
SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 441
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