Senator Henry Clay to Susan Allibone, July 19, 1848

ASHLAND, July 19, 1848.

If I have not before written to you, my dear Miss Susan, I pray you to believe that my silence has not proceeded from any want of regard to you or from any insensibility to the kindness which you have displayed toward me, in your obliging letter of the 4th March last, and in presenting me with the valuable writings of Archbishop Leighton.

With perfect truth and candor I say that I have rarely ever made a visit to any individual in my life that afforded me higher satisfaction than that which I derived from seeing you. Your physical misfortunes, your resignation to the will of our Maker, your gentle and intelligent countenance, and your interesting conversation, all combined to give to the short interview I had with you a thrilling interest. I have oftentimes thought of it, and have frequently described the touching scene to my friends.

I have looked enough into the volume which you kindly sent me to be convinced that it merits your high commendation of it; and I intend to give the whole of it an attentive perusal.

I am very thankful, dear Miss Susan, for the friendly manner in which you allude to the domestic afflictions with which it has pleased Providence to visit me. I have had a large share of them. Since my return home another has been added to the former number in the death of a most promising grandson, at New Orleans, under circumstances which greatly aggravated our grief. I am happy, however, to tell you, on the other hand, that the sweet little granddaughter, whose case of spinal affection I mentioned to you, is much better, runs about with the free use of her limbs, and we hope will have her strength and health fully re-established. In behalf of her I thank you for the little book which you had the goodness to send her. She is yet too young to read it herself, but I trust that she will be spared to be able hereafter to peruse it. In the mean time her excellent mother will make her familiar with its contents.

Relieved as I am now from the cares, the troubles and the responsibilities of public life, I hope to profit by retirement in making those preparations for another and better world which are enjoined upon us by our highest and eternal interests. In these, your example of perfect submission and complete obedience will be constantly remembered by me, with great benefit and advantage. Instead of condoling with me, as some of my friends have, on account of my failure to obtain the nomination at the. late Philadelphia Convention, their congratulations on the event would have been more seasonable and appropriate.

I request you to present my respectful regards to your brothers and their families; and accept for yourself my prayers that He who has enabled you so calmly and cheerfully to bear up under the heavy privations which you suffer, may continue His watchful care over you to the end, and that we may both hereafter meet in the regions of eternal bliss.

SOURCE: Calvin Colton, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay, pp. 569-70