Transcription
CATALOG NUMBER HF 3037 AL
OBJECT NAME Letter
DATE January 31, 1842
AUTHOR Julia Hoffman
RECIPIENT Emma Nicholas Maloney
MEDIUM Paper, ink
PEOPLE Elizabeth Spencer, Charles Spencer, Olive Lane, Rebecca Lane, George [Semler] (Rebecca's husband), Matilda Nicholas Whitman, Emma Nicholas Maloney, Charles Fenno Hoffman, Phil Paulding, Catharine (Kate) Irving,
PLACES Elm Lake,
EVENTS Emma returns to IL after visit to NYC, thinks of plan for Spencer and Elizabeth to come to IL, Phil Pauliding engaged to Catharine Irving, Charles' amputated leg needed medical care,
Jan 30th 1842/
I had heard of your safe arrival my dearest/ Emma through Mrs Gaylord’s letter which she was kind enough to send/ us, a few days before I received the one to myself. you must indeed have/ had a terrible journey but I hope your baby and yourself have grown/ quite fat and strong again and that you will have no more cause to/ regret your unfortunate jaunt. I am glad to hear that you are comfortably/ settled at board I should think that in a place where it is so difficult to/ get a good servant it would be more agreeable and convenient than kee/ping house, though to be sure it is wearisome to be among so many people/ continually as one find in a hotel or boarding house. I think your plan of / having Spencer’s family among you is not a judicious one, in the first place / Spencer and Elizabeth though altogether excellent and capable in the work/ to which they have brought up would be almost useless to you, Spencer is a/ first rate waiter but has no idea of out door work, I don’t believe he has ever even/ sawed a stick of wood in his life. they are neither of them strong either and I believe / it would be quite impossible for them to do the labour country work requires, Olive/ whom Matilda proposes to take, is an excellent girl and beautiful seamstress which/ is the trade she been brought up to, she has lived out here as child’s nurse but is/ excessively delicate, and I think a stout irish or country field would be of much/ more use to her, as to Rebecca she os one of the most indolent creatures I ever saw/ she does nothing in the world but take care of her baby, her mother says “she haint/ got no ambition,” and her husband is not much better he is a sailor and goes/ to sea in the summer season but is too lazy to go out to look for work on the docks/ which he could get if he chose and even objects to assisting Elizabeth by going for/ her clothes which she washes, I try to persuade her to send him off to find his /own living instead of allowing him to be dependent on her, I think to take/ them out West would be about as unwise a thing both for yourself and them/ as you could do, they will get along much better here, where they can all get/
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the kind of work that suits them. I shall try to go and see Mrs Gaylord this/ week I have intended to do so long ago but have been unable to pay any/ visits this winter, Charles has been shut up since early in December and I/ have spent most of my time in his room, he slipped in the street and gave/ himself a strain and at the same time a bruise from the top of his artificial/ leg paid not attention to but for some days and took cold in it when it became / so serious that the Dr was afraid of an abscess forming and he has been leeched/ and blistered and poulticed and burnt with caustic and has all sorts of severe/ afflictions, he is now a great deal better but cannot get near his artificial / leg and walks only a little way on crutches, so that he is still the greater/ part of the time in his room, he has only been to his office two or three times / in a cab, he suffered very much at first and the confinement brought on/ {?} headaches so that it was quite impossible for him even to read/ {?} he has been able to take the air though he has got rid of those and is/ able to occupy himself again. He has been writing a poem of about six/ hundred lines which will be published next week it is an Indian story, the/ scene is laid on Long Lake up in the Elm Lake country you know, the name / is “The Virgil of Faith,” iti is very good I think and I hope will put some/ money in his purse which it is sadly in want of at present, but he has been/ so many times disappointed in his hopes of making money by books that I am/ almost in despair about it. George is at Binghamton and well should the {?} go on he will be there probably for some years but should not which/ I much fear he will be out of employment in the Spring./ Mrs Storrow Sarah Paris, writes word from Paris that she sees Mary King / constantly she is in the highest spirits every night at the opera to hear Grisi/ and enjoying herself very much I feel as if Mary were quite cut off from her mother’s family forever, nothing appears to cause such a complete separation// as health. Phil Paulding is engaged to Catherine Irving and will take her to/ his marble palace in the spring, of course both families are pleased./ {?} {?} I have not seen at all except passing in the street, David was very busy when Lord Morpeth was here giving him dinners and going about with/ him next week Boz Dickens will be here and I believe he is on a committee/ who intend to get up a grand hall for him with “tableaux vivans” from his/
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works, the times are bad they say but little business doing so the people/ appear to spend most of their time in parties the city has never been so/ gay before. Miss Gratz speaks of you affectionately in her last letter indeed/ I rarely get a letter from her without something benign said about you and/ Matilda in it, the love she bore your mother she has transferred to her children/ and takes the greatest interest in you both/ She has had much affliction/ this winter her sister Mrs. Bea Gratz of Kentucky has died and her nephew / Horatio Etting has lost his wife having three children the youngest only three / days old. Miss Gratz wishes me much to come on and pay her a visit and I hope to be able to do so in the spring when Charles is quite well, I never / expect though to stay any length of time with my friends again four years/ was quite enough for me to live among them and I consider myself now/ settled in this boarding house, I was quite enough for me to live among them and I consider myself now. Settled in this boarding house I can be perfectly content here, though it was/ {?} irksome to me at first to be among so many strangers I feel quite at/ home now and have so agreeable a companion in Mrs Pierre M Iriving that / {?} I do sit in the parlor in the evening I find it very pleasant. Matilda/ may remember her as Helen Dodge of Johnstown, she often speaks of your mother/ and your uncle Phil, retains the most delightful recollection of them./ Charles sends his love so does Katy and Elizabeth. Give my best love to Matilda/ I don’t believe she ever means to write to me again I should have written to/ her a good {?} this winter but my pen has been a great deal employed / {?} charles not only in copying but in writing to his dictation when he is/ able to go out I shall have more time to myself, I cannot occupy myself/ in my own room for I have no fire there and when driven out of Charles’ room / by sisters to him I generally take refuge with Mrs Irving so as you may well/ imagine I have really been compelled to spend my time idly and {?}/ {?} I had formed plans for my occupations of reading drawing and sewing/ and now one have I been able to accomplish my pencils have not even been/ taken out and I have read only [trifling] books should I remain in town/ next {?} {?} though as is not improbable I shall have long quiet mornings/ enough. Remember me affectionately to the Doctor I hope he is well and that / his practice and pay increase let me hear from you as often as your {?} able to write and just try and make Matilda get over her laziness/ Ever your attached/ Julia H
[END OF LETTER]Transcriber
Kathryn AlexanderLanguage
English
