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
