Shady Hill, 23 September, 1862.l
My Dearest George:
— God be praised! I can hardly see to write, — for when I think of this great
act of Freedom, and all it implies, my heart and my eyes overflow with the
deepest, most serious gladness.
I rejoice with you. Let us rejoice together, and with all
the lovers of liberty, and with all the enslaved and oppressed everywhere.
I think to-day that this world is glorified by the spirit of
Christ. How beautiful it is to be able to read the sacred words under this new
bight.
“He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at
liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
The war is paid for.
Dearest George, I was very glad to see that your brother was
safe, and to hear of his gallantry in the late actions.2
Love and congratulations from us all to all of you.
Ever yours
C. E. N.
1 The day after Lincoln read the Emancipation
Proclamation to his Cabinet.
2 At Antietam, where Lieutenant J. B. Curtis's regiment
was cut to pieces and driven back, he seized the colours, and shouted, “I go
back no further! What is left of the Fourth Rhode Island, form here!” For the
rest of the day he fought as a private in an adjoining command. See Cary's Curtis.
p. 161 n.
SOURCE: Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters
of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 256-7
