Transcription
*Original spelling retained throughout work, content appears exactly as written.
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I send you a few/ little keepsakes, by / Mary, which I hope/ you will wear for/ my sake. Aunt Mary/ sends her best best love, and all the chil/dren send you kisses by the wholesale/ Added/ to Posey’s and Fred’s kisses/ they send you a bundle / of Helen Tate seeds,/ which they have themselves / done up. Plant them / and send the children/ word when they grow. Your’s ever/ Mary [R] / Do not forget to write/ to Phil and to [Andrew],/ this.
Hell Gate Jine 24th/ 1838
My Dearest Emma,/
Although you [are me] with a diminu/ tion of love towards [inserted: you] still I will not believe that you/ would think so but that you only felt a little out / of spirits and melancholy and therefore imagined/ that my not having written to you for so long was/ the [unrecovered] as if I had sent an express mail/ to [London] to assure you that I had ceased to/ love you. I forgive you the expression. You used with/ all my heart and will only consider it as a lastly/ word but which remember Miss Em, must not be/ [updated]. You know that I love and that I al/ways will love you most dearly. And I know / your heart too well not to feel certain that/ you will always love me. I intended to have/ written a letter to you last week to have had/ ready to send by morning on Wednesday, but / was prevented writing it until today, and it/ is never so late that you will receive but a / third epistle. I received and took the liberty / of expecting a letter from you to Phil dated/ May 24th. Phil sailed the first day of May,/ and has therefore now been gone nearly / two months. I am just beginning to be used to his absence. I have heard from him/ twice already. The first which I received by the/ Sirius, was written the evening before he/ landed. And the next, which I received/
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by the Great Western, was written from Liverpool. / He was in excellent spirits, and had had a long/ but delightful voyage. He was established in / Liverpool for two or three days. He has his [roads] / for the summer marked out and if he pur/sues the one that he now intends he will / have a delightful summer’s campaign. He intends/ to remain in England, Scotland and Ireland/ until the Coronation and then take his de/parture for Germany. Visit the German watering/ places at their admirable seashore and then/ return and pass the winter in Paris. Farther/ than that, he has not decided upon. I/ cannot bear to think that it will be/ eighteen months or perhaps two years before I / see him again. Before I forget it, I will/ tell you how to direct you letters to him,/ “Care of Baring, Brothers and Co: London, Eng:.”/ Do write to him soon. I have written five times since he left. I write every Packet. / I hear from hims so often now that the steamer/ Packets have commenced running, between England/ and this country, that I hardly feel as if / he is was really so far away. The steam Pack/ets make their trips in 14 days; so that if/ writes regularly I shall hear from him/ every fortnight. THe Sirius and the “Great Western” / are the names of the two now on the route/ and in September a new one the “British/ Queen” takes her place, and then again in/ the Spring another “City of New York.” So/ you see my dear Emma, they have come / so plenty and they all go with such rapidity/ that when you come down again from civilized / lands to pay me a visit we can take/ a trip to Europe, stay there two or three/ days, and return all in one month, What/
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a pleasant time we will have. I am very sorry to/ see by your letter, that you have all been sick, but I/ hope that you will soon- all be well. I am glad to see/ thatt you despise fashion enough not to follow it, in that particular. You ask Phil, if he is engaged to/ Elizabeth Barns[well]. I can safely answer no positively / no… Not by that, that I do not wish it so. For I / do not know any young lady that I admire, or love more/ nor one whom I would rather dear Phil’s wife. SHe is in the first palace beautiful and second place as good/ a friend as beautiful. Her mother died about two/ months since, and left her the care of 6 children one/ of them an infant. Her elder sister is following her/ mother, to the grave, with the consumption and therefore/ [unrecovered] has no assistance; to that the care of her father,/ sister, the house and all the children devolves on/ Elizabeth. And most admirably has she fulfilled/ her duty. Such a change for her having been/ the admired belle in society, for a winter to lay/ all [a ride], and willingly and cheerfully undertake/ such heavy responsibilities for a young girl. Phil has/ seen her very often this winter, and has been very atten/tive to [unrecovered] [own] [eldest] I suppose his attentions to her have/ been more noticed. And this is what has given/ rise to the report which reached Belvidere/ and now my dear Emma, to talk not of possible engagements, but actual ones; / do you recollect/ upon what occasion I was to send you a / plain gold ring? I send it to you now by Fanny/ who, if you do not recollect upon what conditions / you were received it, will refresh your memory./ If Emma, you may as well make up your mind to/ call him [cousin]. And I intend that you shall/ soon have an opportunity of doing it in “proper/ fashion,” for as Fanny will inform you I am ag/itating in my mind as to what probable [unrecovered] / I can invent to get you [some more] here among/ us. As I am sure going to write to you regularly/ we will arrange it between us. But since you mention / I have seen Julia but once this winter one evening at Miss Gratz in Philadelphia, where I stopt on/ my way to Washington this winter. She is now/ at Fishkill. I have not seen Chalres for more/ than a year. I cannot possibly imagine why he/ has not been to see me. George has gone off/
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[engrad]ing to the western part of Pennsylvania, I believe. I saw/ him when I was in town and I never saw him looking better./ I suppose that you have heard all kinds of reports about Uncle/ Ogden and Miss Southard. When I saw him in Washington/ this winter, he assured me solemnly that there was no truth/ in it, but I have heard two or three times since I have/ been home that they are positively engaged. And I positive/ly believe it. And I would confess that when I saw the/ young lady, I thought that it was the most likely thing/ in the world. She is really delightful. Beautiful/exceeding/ly, very intelligent, agreeable, and with the most fasci/nating manners I have ever know. The very person/ I would think Uncle Ogden will fall in love with. / as yet he has not acknowledged it to me. She is / now in town. I started to call upon her the other/ day, but was prevented by hearing of the/ death of Mrs. Dr. Walker. Harriet King, you know/ she was. She had been ill for two or three weeks./ She was an old friend of mine, but I have not/ seen her much since her marriage. She has/ left two little children. Did you, out there in the “Far/West” hear of the loss of the steam Packet Howe from/ Charleston last fall? We had a most horrible / expectation of the accident last week. Most horrible / to us because those we knew were on board./ The steam Packet “pulaski,” form Charleston, was/ wrecked on Thursday last off Cape Fear. She had / on board 180 passengers, 50 of whom were ladies./ Out of the whole [manifest] only 17 were saved, / and among them only 2 were ladies. Mrs Nightingale/ John King’s Eldest sister, was one of the ladies / saved. She had lived in the South since her/ marriage, about two years ago. And was now/ on her way home to pay her parents a visit. / Her husband on account of his business could not leave his plantation, so that she was traveling/ with a gentleman, named Js Cooper. He was / saved as was also her child and servant. But / of 180 persons only 17 saved and cannot be/ too thankful that those three were of the numbers. / The only other lady who was saved was named Mrs / Fraser. I do not see how people can trust/ themselves to those Southern Packets. I have no time/ to write any more, and with best love your / Mother, Matilda, the children, and my compliments/ to Js Whitman, and with all assurances of love for/ yourself believe me ever sincerely/ attached cousin Mary C R
[END OF LETTER]Transcriber
Kathryn AlexanderLanguage
English
