Diary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, November 23, 1851

Sumner takes his last dinner with us. In a few days he will be gone to Washington for the winter. We shall miss him much. He passed the night here as in the days of long ago. We sat up late talking.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 258

Diary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, November 30, 1851

We had a solitary dinner, missing Sumner very much. He is now in Washington, and it will be many days before we hear again his footsteps in the hall, or see his manly, friendly face by daylight or lamplight.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 258

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to Senator Charles Sumner, December 25, 1851

Your farewell note came safe and sad; and on Sunday no well-known footstep in the hall, nor sound of cane laid upon the table. We ate our dinner somewhat silently by ourselves, and talked of you far off, looking at your empty chair. . . As I stand here by my desk and cast a glance out of the window, and then at the gate, I almost expect to see you with one foot on the stone step and one hand on the fence holding final discourse with Worcester.¹

__________________

¹ Author of the "Dictionary of the English Language,"—a neighbor of Longfellow, and a good friend of Sumner.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 258

Senator Charles Sumner to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, November 26, 1851

DEAREST LONGFELLOW, — I could not speak to you as we parted, — my soul was too full; only tears would flow. Your friendship, and dear Fanny's, have been among my few treasures, like gold unchanging. For myself, I see with painful vividness the vicissitudes and enthralments of the future, and feel that we shall never more know each other as in times past. Those calm days and nights of overflowing communion are gone. Thinking of them and of what I lose, I become again a child. From a grateful heart I now thank you for your true and constant friendship. Whatever may be in store for me, so much at least is secure; and the memory of you and Fanny will be to me a precious fountain. God bless you both, ever dear friends, faithful and good! Be happy, and think kindly of me.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 259

Senator Charles Sumner to Samuel Gridley Howe, November 26, 1851

DEAREST HOWE, Three times yesterday I wept like a child, — I could not help it first in parting with Longfellow, next in parting with you, and lastly as I left my mother and sister. I stand now on the edge of a great change. In the vicissitudes of life I cannot see the future; but I know that I now move away from those who have been more than brothers to me. My soul is wrung, and my eyes are bleared with tears. God bless you ever and ever, my noble, well-tried, and eternally dear friend!

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 259

Diary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, April 24, 1851

A pleasant dinner, at the close of which we heard the news of Sumner's election. In the evening came Lowell and Gurowski and Palfrey, and Sumner himself to escape from the triumph and be quiet from all the noise in the streets of Boston. He is no more elated by his success than he has been depressed by the failure heretofore, and evidently does not desire the office. Не says he would resign now if any one of the same sentiments as himself could be put in his place.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 245

Diary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, April 25, 1851

The papers are all ringing with Sumner, Sumner! and the guns thundering out their triumph; meanwhile the hero of the strife is sitting quietly here, more saddened than exalted. Palfrey dined with us. I went to my Don Quixote at college, leaving the two Free Soilers sitting over their nuts and wine.¹

_______________

¹ Sumner's first use of a senator's frank was upon documents to promote Palfrey's re-election to Congress. With his large correspondence, he valued the privilege, and parted with it reluctantly when it was finally discontinued in 1870. He wrote a public letter urging Palfrey's election ("Commonwealth," May 22, 1851), but it did not avail.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 245-6

Diary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, April 27, 1851

Sumner brought a pocket-full of letters of congratulation and good advice which he has received since his election.¹

_______________

¹ The writer may be permitted to state how he received the news. He was one of the half-dozen Free Soil students of the Law School out of one hundred or more attending it, and the rest of the one hundred were nearly all bitter against the Free Soil party. On the 23d of April he had heard that Sumner was elected, and was greatly disappointed an hour later to learn that the report was untrue. When hearing the second report of his election the next day, he distrusted it, and hastened to Boston. He was rejoiced to find this one true, and then sought Sumner in vain. On the evening of the day but one after, he found a scrap of paper in the keyhole of his room, No. 1 Divinity Hall, which proved to be from Sumner, with "Sorry not to see my valued friend" written on it. He sought Sumner at Palfrey's, near by, and found him there. The two walked, after leaving Palfrey's, along the railway track then existing, across the Common, to Longfellow's. The writer said to Sumner on the way, "This is too good; I fear you will die before taking your seat." He replied, "Perhaps that will be the best thing for me." The writer expressed the hope that his first speech in the Senate would be on foreign affairs. The two entered Craigie House,—the writer's first meeting with the poet and his wife; and leaving shortly, he walked, thoughtful, and never so happy before, to his lodgings. With much joy and hope the youth of Massachusetts greeted the election of the new senator.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 246

Senator Charles Sumner to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, May 8, 1851

I cannot repress my delight in what I hear of Emerson's utterance at Concord. For an hour and a half he laid bare our evils and their author.¹ I have more satisfaction in this voice on our side than in that of any politician. So little am I prepared for my new fellowship!

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¹ Mr. Webster. This address of Mr. Emerson was not published; but he followed the same line of thought in his treatment of the Fugitive Slave law and Mr. Webster at the Tabernacle in New York, March 7, 1854. Emerson's Works, vol. xi. pp. 205–230.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 252

Charles Sumner to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, January 24, 1850

[January 24, 1850.]

DEAR HENRY,

Whittier is here on a short visit. I go to-night with Miss Bremer to hear Wendell Phillips, and to-morrow evening dine out, or I should insist upon taking him [Whittier] to you. He is staying at the Quincy Hotel, in Brattle Street.

I regret the sentiments of John Van Buren about mobs, but rejoice that he is right on slavery. I do not know that I should differ very much from him in saying that we have more to fear from the corruption of wealth than from mobs. Edmund Dwight once gave, within my knowledge, two thousand dollars to influence a single election. Other men whom we know very well are reputed to have given much larger sums. It is in this way, in part, that the natural antislavery sentiment of Massachusetts has been kept down; it is money, money, money, that keeps Palfrey from being elected. Knowing these things, it was natural that John Van Buren should say that we had more to fear from wealth than from mobs. He is a politician,—not a philanthropist or moralist, but a politician, like Clay, Winthrop, Abbott Lawrence; and he has this advantage, that he has dedicated his rare powers to the cause of human freedom. In this I would welcome any person from any quarter.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 212

Diary of to Amos A. Lawrence: November 17, 1858

President Walker, Chief Justice Shaw, Judge G. T. Bigelow, Rev. Dr. Putnam, Professors Agassiz and Longfellow, Messrs. David Sears, W. Appleton, E. Rockwood Hoar, Jared Sparks, and J. A. Lowell dined here at four o'clock. They had an agreeable meeting. Chief Justice Shaw took Mrs. Lawrence in to dinner, though I asked Dr. Walker to do so; the former (who is seventy-eight) being more active than Dr. Walker, who is lame. The dinner was cooked by our own cook, Marion, and they all were cheerful and even gay; nor did they leave the dining-room until they went away. Mr. Agassiz sat next to me and talked all the time. I asked him whether some anecdotes about him in the newspapers to-day were true, but he had not seen them. Then I repeated one about his replying to a person who offered him a large sum for some lectures, “that he was too busy to waste his time in making money;” and this he pronounced to be true.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 158-9

Samuel Gridley Howe to Senator Charles Sumner, July 4, 1852

Boston, July 4th, 1852.

Dearest Sumner: — I got your note yesterday, and read most of it to Carter;¹ afterwards I sent it to Parker, to be used with care. I have done what I could in a quiet way to inspire others with the confidence I feel in the final success of your plan. I received this morning a note from Parker (written of course before I sent yours) which I think it best to send you. A wise man likes to know how the wind blows, though he may have determined not to vary his course, even for a tempest. I wrote to Parker saying that he was lacking faith, and I feared beginning to lack charity — things in which he had abounded towards you.

I think the crying sin, and the great disturbing force in the path of our politicians is approbativeness; they let public opinion be to them in lieu of a conscience. So will not you do.

I want you to raise your voice and enter your protest, not because it is for your interest to do so, but for the sake of the cause, and of the good it will surely do. The present is yours, the future may not be; you may never go back to Washington even should you be spared in life and health. Again, it may be imprudent to wait till the last opportunity, for when that comes you may be prostrated by illness. Mann made a remark in one of his late letters about you, which I think I have more than once made to you, viz: that you yield obedience to all God's laws of morality, but think you are exempt from any obligation to obey his laws of physiology. You will have a breakdown some time that will make you realize that to ruin the mental powers by destroying that on which they depend is about as bad as neglecting to cultivate them.

However, what I mean to say is this: that though you would not heed all the world's urging you to speak if you thought it your duty to be silent, yet believing with all your friends that you ought to speak, you must not vista everything, in the hope of doing so at a particular moment, when you may be disabled by sickness.

Downer said to-day: “I don't see how it is to be, yet I have great faith that Sumner will come off with flying colours.” He would say so, even if you were prevented from speaking at all this session, and so should I, but so would few others.

Julia has returned and is well; so are all my beautiful and dear children. We go to Newport next Monday to stay awhile in the house with Longfellow, Appleton, etc.² No news here. Daniel [Webster] is determined to show fight; he has much blood, and it is very black. . . .

S. G. H.

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¹ Robert Carter

² At Cliff House. The party consisted of my father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow and their children, George William Curtis, Thomas G. Appleton, and two or three others.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 382-3

Diary of Amos A. Lawrence: November 3, 1856

The newspapers advertise Mr. Sumner's reception to take place to-day: that he will be received by a committee at my house, thence taken to Boston, where he will be received at the Roxbury line by the Mayor and city authorities and a cavalcade of citizens, and an address to be made to him by Josiah Quincy, Sen. (eighty-six years old), thence to the state house, where he will be welcomed by the Governor.

I went to Boston as usual. Came out at one. Found Mr. Sumner here, with Mr. Longfellow, Rev. Dr. Huntington, Dr. Perry, his physician, and his brother George.

He lunched, conversed with a reporter for the press, and gave him his speech in manuscript, after which I sent the reporter to town. He appears well when sitting, but is feeble when standing. I gave him a parlor to himself, and shut him up to avoid fatigue and enable him to prepare his speeches. He was here an hour and a half. I gave him some wine before starting, then delivered him over to the committee, who were in barouches. They had reserved a seat for me by the side of Mr. Sumner, but I declined to go. I thought the committee were disappointed, and also at seeing a Fillmore flag flying at the side of my house. But they had told me the reception was to be without distinction of party, and I took them on their own ground. After dinner I drove to town with Sarah and the children. Saw the procession from Mr. Appleton's. A long cavalcade, music, then carriages with Mr. Sumner and his friends.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 142-3

Samuel Gridley Howe to Senator Charles Sumner, March 15, 1852

Boston, Thursday, March 15, 1852.

Dearest Sumner: — I write you from my house, to which I have been confined by a more than commonly severe attack of neuralgia. I have been indisposed four days, or else I should have studied the land question in order to be able to give a reason for the faith that is in me. I have a sort of instinct that you are in the right, but that you do not go far enough. This whole matter of ownership of God's earth, whether by individuals or by nations, has got to be ripped up and readjusted upon principles and considerations different from those ever yet entertained by any except those who are pooh-poohed down as visionaries.

I do not think the press can make much impression by their outcry against you; besides, that will cease now that Daniel, in order to make a little capital, has followed in your wake. However, I shall be out to-morrow, and will see what I can do.

Some of your friends, and good judicious ones, have been alarmed by the onslaught made upon you for your silence about slavery;¹ and all Hunkerdom shouted “a hit! a capital hit!” when Judge Warren quoted something of yours about the effect of Washington atmosphere upon our Northern representatives &c. Some friends say that you cannot altogether get over an impression (if such should get abroad) that you had wavered, even by your being ever so firm afterwards. I do not share their alarm — not as yet. I do not much regard any temporary and passing policy got up by the daily press; by and by it will not be asked how long was Sumner silent — at what precise moment did he speak — but it will be asked did he speak out and speak bravely? I do think it important, and more than a matter of taste, that your speech should be well-timed, and seem to be called for. There are great and vital questions yet to come up about the Territories, and about California. However, I know nothing about the how, the why, the when — but this I know, you are true and brave—the Bayard of politicians, sans peur et sans reproche.

You will, I doubt not, give due weight to those considerations which your friends urge as calling for a speedy manifestation of your principles.

Vaughan is here, upon Kossuth business principally, but this is entre nous.

I have seen much of him; he is a very intelligent man and I think an honest one as politicians go.

I saw Longfellow at his beautiful home a few days ago.

I saw Palfrey too — growing rapidly into an old man; thin, wan and sad. He is a noble and beautiful spirit.

At the State House our friends are fighting for freedom in every way that seems to them likely to redound to their own credit and continue them in power.

They talk, you know, of violating the common law of custom, and running Rantoul into the Senate — but they will hardly venture, because they do not feel strong enough, and a defeat would be very bad. I am sorry they ever put out any feelers about it.

Your description of your genial days makes me sigh; to-day we have a cold easterly storm and the ground is covered with snow and sleet.

I had fully determined to leave on the first of April when my vacation at the Blind begins; but I have to look out for the Idiots.

Seguin² has been here two months, and proves to be a man of great vigour of intellect, and full of resources; he has done wonders — but we can hardly keep him; he is full of self-esteem and exigeant to the uttermost; one of his conditions is that the Trustees shall not be allowed to hold any meetings without his being present. Another that neither the matron nor any teachers shall hold any communication with the parents of the pupils, &c., &c. Besides, he is choleric, not benevolent, and not very high in his motives.

C'est la gloire — la gloire.

But I must close. Ever thine,

s. G. H.

_______________

¹ See post, p. 382.

² Dr. Edward Seguin, author of “De l'Idiotie,” etc., came in 1852 to “take charge of the school for Idiots long enough to organize the classes, and introduce his method of training.” This gentleman . . . was at the head of the first public institution (for the teaching of idiots,) organized in France.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 365-8

Thomas Wentworth Higginson to Louisa Storrow Higginson, July 10, 1859

July 10, 1859

Dearest Mother:

Emerson says, “To-day is a king in disguise”; and it is sometimes odd to think that these men and women of the "Atlantic Monthly," mere mortals to me, will one day be regarded as demi-gods, perhaps, and that it would seem as strange to another generation for me to have sat at the same table with Longfellow or Emerson, as it now seems that men should have sat at table with Wordsworth or with Milton. So I may as well tell you all about my inducting little Harriet Prescott into that high company.

She met me at twelve in Boston at Ticknor's and we spent a few hours seeing pictures and the aquarial gardens; the most prominent of the pictures being a sort of luncheon before our dinner; viz., Holmes and Longfellow in half length and very admirable, by Buchanan Read (I don't think any previous king in disguise ever had his portrait so well painted as this one, at any rate); also, by the same, a delicious painting of three Longfellow children — girls with their mother's eyes and Mary Greenleaf's coloring, at least three different modifications of it. . . .

In the course of these divertisements we stopped at Phillips's and Sampson's, where we encountered dear, dark, slender, simple, sensitive Whittier, trying to decide whether to "drink delight of battle with his peers" at the dinner-table, or slide shyly back to Amesbury in the next train. To introduce him to Harriet was like bringing a girl and a gazelle acquainted; each visibly wished to run away from the other; to Whittier a woman is a woman, and he was as bashful before the small authoress as if she were the greatest. Cheery John Wyman was persuading him to stay to dinner, and on my introducing him to my companion turned the battery of his good-nature upon her, pronouncing her story the most popular which had appeared in the magazine — “Oh, sir,” she whispered to me afterwards, “he spoke to me about my story — do you suppose anybody else will? I hope not.”

Duly at three we appeared at the Revere House. You are to understand that this was a special festival — prior to Mrs. Stowe's trip to Europe — and the admission of ladies was a new thing. Harriet was whirled away into some unknown dressing-room, and I found in another parlor Holmes, Lowell, Longfellow, Whipple, Edmund Quincy, Professor Stowe, Stillman the artist, Whittier (after all), Woodman, John Wyman, and Underwood. When dinner was confidentially announced, I saw a desire among the founders of the feast to do the thing handsomely toward the fair guests, and found, to my great amusement, that Mrs. Stowe and Harriet Prescott were the only ones! Nothing would have tempted my little damsel into such a position, I knew; but now she was in for it; to be handed in to dinner by the Autocrat himself, while Lowell took Mrs. Stowe I Miss Terry was at Saratoga and Mrs. Julia Howe suddenly detained; so these were alone. But how to get them downstairs — send up a servant or go ourselves? — that is, were they in a bedroom or a parlor; an obsequious attendant suddenly suggested the latter, so Lowell and I went up. In a small but superb room the authoress of “Uncle Tom” stood smoothing her ample plumage, while the junior lady hovered timidly behind. . . . Mrs. Stowe was quietly dressed in a Quakerish silk, but with a peculiar sort of artificial grape-leaf garland round her head which I could not examine more minutely; she looked very well, but I thought Harriet looked better; she had smoothed down her brown .curls, the only pretty thing about her, except a ladylike little figure, robed in the plainest imaginable black silk. . . .

Down we went: Dr. Holmes met us in the entry; each bowed lower than the other, and we all marched in together. Underwood had wished to place Edmund Quincy by Harriet, at his request, she being on Dr. Holmes's right — the Autocrat's right, think of the ordeal for a humble maiden at her first dinner party! but I told him the only chance for her to breathe was to place me there, which he did. On Dr. Holmes's left was Whittier, next, Professor Stowe, opposite me, while Mrs. S. was on Lowell's right at the other end.

By this lady's special stipulation the dinner was teetotal, which compulsory virtue caused some wry faces among the gentlemen, not used to such abstinence at “Atlantic” dinners; it was amusing to see how they nipped at the water and among the ban mots privately circulated thereupon, the best was Longfellow's proposition that Miss Prescott should send down into her Cellar for some wine, since Mrs. Stowe would not allow any abovestairs! This joke was broached early and carefully prevented from reaching the ears of either of its subjects, but I thought it capital, for you remember her racy description of wine, of which she knows about as much as she does of French novels, which I find most people suppose her to have lived upon — she having once perused “Consuelo”!

Little Dr. Holmes came down upon her instantly with her laurels. “I suppose you meet your story wherever you go,” said he, “like Madam d'Arblay" (and indeed the whole thing reminded me of her first introductions into literary society). . . . I seized the first opportunity to ask whether she and Mrs. Stowe had any conversation upstairs. “Yes,” said she meekly; “Mrs. Stowe asked me what time it was and I told her I didn't know.” There's intellectual intercourse for a young beginner! . . .

When the wife of Andrew Jackson Davis, the seer, was once asked if her husband, who was then staying at Fitzhenry Homer's, was not embarrassed by being in society superior to that in which he was trained, she replied indignantly that her husband, who was constantly in the society of the highest angels, was not likely to be overcome by Mrs. Fitzhenry Homer. And when I reflected on the entertainments which were described in “In a Cellar,” I felt no fear of Harriet's committing any solecism in manners at an “Atlantic” dinner, which she certainly did not, though a little frightened, occasionally, I could see, at the obsequiousness of the waiters and the absurd multiplicity of courses. . . .

I don't care so very much for " Atlantic " dinners — Professor Felton says they are more brilliant than London ones, but I think that Mary and I get up quite as good ones in Worcester — but Dr. Holmes is always effervescent and funny, and John Wyman is the best story-teller the world ever saw, and indeed everybody contributed something. The best thing Holmes said was in discoursing on his favorite theory of races and families. “Some families,” he said, “are constitutionally incapable of doing anything wrong; they try it as boys, but they relapse into virtue; as individuals, they attempt to do wrong, but the race is too strong for them and they end in pulpits. Look at the Wares, for instance; I don't believe that the Wares fell in Adam!”

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 106-10

Journal of Amos A. Lawrence, January 6, 1857

Very cold and windy. Rode an hour and a half. Called at the United States Hotel on Captain John Brown, the old Kansas hero. Found Governor Robinson of Kansas at the Emigrant Aid rooms. Spent most of the forenoon with him. He has resigned his office, and the plan is to give Governor Geary, now a United States official, the popular vote, and so help on the “Free State” movement. Bought a fur coat for Robinson. Met Captain Brown; he is trying to raise a company to be ready in any emergency that may arise in Kansas. He looks a little thinner than when he went to Kansas with his sons. He fought the Missourians at Osawatomie in such a style as struck terror into the whole body of marauders. To Professor Longfellow's in Cambridge with my wife and Mary. A party mostly of young people. Played whist with Mr. Nathan Appleton, Mrs. Lothrop Motley, and Sarah. Home at half past ten, very cold. Deep drifts on the cross roads, Cambridge.

SOURCE: William Lawrence, Life of Amos A. Lawrence: With Extracts from His Diary and Correspondence, p. 123-4

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, December 5, 1851

Boston, Dec. 5, 1851.

Dearest Sumner: — I had a hasty note from you just as I was closing my last. In neither of your notes do you mention having received one from me in answer to your touching words from N. York. I hope that mine¹ was not lost; not that it would be of consequence to any one, but what was consecrated to your eye of friendship I would not have looked upon irreverently by another.

I miss you, more even than I supposed I should: it makes me sad and almost sick at heart to think that you are where I cannot reach you, be my need of sympathy ever so great. But I have my usual poor resource to drive away thought — regret — sorrow — by work.

I have the whole Idiot School on my shoulders, and enough to do beside that.

We had the pleasure of your sister's company on Wednesday, and as usual found her full of earnest life and joyousness. Julia is fond of her, and knows she can give me no greater pleasure than by kindness to your sister.

We went to hear Felton again last evening. His lecture was better than the first, and better delivered. On the whole it was successful. I was pained, however, to find he indulged in flings at good and high things; for instance, speaking of the agglutinated languages, he made some quaint remarks in ridicule, and then said eagerly, “but don't suppose I have any reference to a late electoral law of this State.”

I saw Longfellow to-day, and as usual saw much that is lovely in him.

His Golden Legend I have read, and shall read again; it is very beautiful.

We had a pretty good meeting here (my office) yesterday about Kossuth's reception: we shall move publicly early next week. Do let me hear from you, if but a line.

Ever thine,

S. G. Howe.

_______________

¹ This note is missing.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 347-8

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, September 7, 1850

Marienberg, Boppart, Sept. 7, '50.

My Dear Sumner: — Here I am at last where I ought to have been two months ago. This is a most lovely place, and Julia and I have been enjoying walks upon the banks of the Rhine, and rambles upon the hillsides, and musings among the ruins, and jaunts upon the waters as we have enjoyed nothing since we left home. We could well spend a whole summer between Coblentz and Mayence and not exhaust all the resources of the country. It is well said that no one sees the Rhine who only sails up and down the stream in a steam-boat. Yesterday we drove from this to the St. Goar; explored the vast mines of the Rheinfels; crossed over and clambered up to the picturesque castle nicknamed the Cat, and wandered about in ravines and valleys which are now filled with the clustering vines.

Though I have visited the Rhine twice before and explored some of the ruins, I never had before a sense of the exquisite charm of the scenery, simply because I was always in a hurry. This is my besetting sin, you know. Now I have time enough; I take my early bath, and then with Julia wander off to some picturesque spot and enjoy the changing beauties of the scene to my heart's content. I return in time for my evening bath, and so the days go by. I have been here about a week.

As for the Water Cure, I do not think much of it; the water is not the best; not so good I think as that of Brattleboro, and as for the physician he is nothing. However, as I am doing pretty well here I shall bide the arrival of Crawford¹ and his party and go on with them to Basle, perhaps to Geneva. Thence they will go to Lyons, Marseilles and Rome. Julia will accompany them, and I shall turn my face westward. I hope to sail from Liverpool on the 5th October at the latest, possibly a week earlier, so as to be back at my post at the end of my four months' furlough.

We have been long without American news; I am anxiously expecting our budget. The 30th ult. was a sad day to me. I could not by any effort keep my thoughts from Boston — the jail — the wretched criminal, and the dreadful and disgraceful scene there enacting.² I say disgraceful, without pretending to decide whether the time has arrived when we may safely do away with capital punishment — if we cannot it is to our disgrace. You and all Boston must have suffered dreadfully: whither could you fly to avoid thoughts of the scene, if one so far away as I was could not keep it out of mind? There was a terrible fascination about it: I calculated the difference of time, and — supposing the execution would take place between twelve and one o'clock at Boston, which would be between five and six here — I hurried up and down the streets until long past the hour and then went to dinner with what appetite I could.

I have nothing special to say touching our personnel. Julia and the children have been in the enjoyment of perfect and uninterrupted health: mine has been very precarious; sometimes I have been pretty well — then down at zero again. I trust that my brain at least has got rested, and that when I return to regular hours, regular habits, pure water and plain roast beef I shall be able to put on my harness, and at least die with it on my back.

Remember me kindly to all friends; tell Longfellow we think often of him and speak of him in our walks: when we come to a spot of choice beauty we say, no doubt Longfellow has often clambered up and rested here. Would he were with us to point out the beauties which a poet's eye so quickly sees!

Adieu, dear Sumner. I long much to see you and be with you; I hope (selfishly) you will not be engaged this coming winter.

Ever thine,

s. G. H.

_______________

¹ Thomas Crawford, the American sculptor, who married Louisa Ward, my mother's sister.

² The execution of Dr. Webster, a professor in Harvard, for the murder of Dr. Parkman

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 323-5

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, August 20, 1850

Paris, Aug. 20, '50.

My Dear Sumner: — I am always cheered by the sight of your “hand-o'-write” and that of your last letter was more than usually welcome. Notwithstanding your sad errand you seemed to be in an elastic and healthy tone of mind, and I know too well by experience of the opposite condition what a blessing that is: may my friend never fall from the one into the other! You will be surprised at the date of this, and exclaim, “Why are you not en route for Frankfort?” I'll tell you. I had concluded or been persuaded by your letter and other considerations to go and attend the Peace Congress. I left Paris for that purpose on Friday evening last so as to be in Frankfort on the 20th, but I had hardly got an hundred miles when I began to feel the sure premonitions of an attack of cholera morbus. I remained all night in a miserable inn, hoping to be able to go on by the early train; but it was too certain that the grip of disease was upon me; I therefore turned back with all speed to get properly attended here. I was quite ill Saturday and Sunday; yesterday better but unable to travel, and to-day not fit for a fatiguing journey. I must therefore give up the Congress. All I should have done would have been to move for an adjournment en masse to the seat of war in Holstein, and discuss war between the two hostile armies. I am sick of this preaching to Israel in Israel; the Gentile ought to hear. Peace men should go to Russia, and Abolitionists to the Slave States. Besides, this calling upon France and Germany to disarm while Russia has the open blade in hand is what I cannot do. Our combativeness and destructiveness are the weapons God gives us to use as long as they are necessary, in order to keep others less advanced than we are in quiet by the only motives they will heed, selfishness and fear; you may as well appeal to conscience and benevolence in babes and idiots as in Russians and Tartars, I mean en masse. Conscience and benevolence they have, ay! and so have babes and idiots, but they are (not) yet called into life and action.

You tell me to go about sightseeing and to enjoy the rare opportunity before me. I go to see nothing — I care little for shows. I want to be back in the only place in the world which is fit for me or has charm for me; in my own office with the harness on my back. I wish you had my opportunity and I had yours. So goes the world. . . .

Kind words to Longfellow, Hillard, Felton, &c. Tell Briggs my conscience has been continually smiting me about my neglect of that Frenchman in prison. I hope he is out.

Ever, dear Sumner, most affectionately thine,

S. G. H.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 322-3

Diary of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, September 12, 1860

The day has been blackened to me by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill in the House, Eliot of Boston voting for it. If we should read in Dino Compagni that in the tenth century a citizen of Florence had given such a vote, we should see what an action he had done. But this the people of Boston cannot see in themselves; they will uphold it.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 265