Anna Dickinson, General Correspondence, Irish, Elias H. [Dec. 20, 1864-1866 + Undated]Pittsburgh Dec 20/64 Miss Anna Of course it would have been the simplest way. just to have crossed-out Pittsburgh and written Philadelphia on the enclosed letter which I have taken from the post office. But, "boys will be boys" you know, and I should consider myself unworthy of being [reckoned] reckoned of their number could I permit so providential an opportunity of renewing assurances of regard, to pass uninproved. Besides I have that to say which I fancy will insure my letter a welcome. It is this, Mr. Edwards, it turns out, is not married after all.++++ Ah, that was very pleasantlittle fiction of yours; and one which you managed with exceeding cleverness - but with all thy arts, with all thy plausable givings-out, with both thy little heels squarely on the truth of the story. - See, how that much abused Goddess (the evader of truthfulness of course) doth rise again. ... I saw Mr Shaw yesterday, and made my peace with him, and would have made thine for thee also, had there been any to make; but I found him so zealous in thy praise, so profound in his admiration of thy character, and so enthusiastic about all thy winning ways, as to drive the whole business I came about entirely out of my head. If Ellen knew I was writing I know she would send thee her love, and that dear old lady, who says we are such a shocking set of boys, would desire to be kindly remembered; and there are others who would leave more messages to transmit than I would care to undertake for them. Indeed there has been a world of sighing about this house since you went away. Have the goodness when next thou comest to Pittsburgh, to leave thy quiver of arrows at home. There, I have said my little say; Adieu, my dear, amiable, gentle, friend - mayest thou ever be happy wherever thou art, and always believe me Thy Friend Sincerely, E. W. Irish Miss Anna E Dickinson Phila PaPittsburgh March 14 / 65 My Dear Miss Anna Having just arrived at home from my trip to the East, my first wish is to express my regret at having missed seeing you at the Capitol on the last night of your stay in Washington. I am puzzled to know whether, under the circumstances, I owe you an apology or a scolding. But as I would not dare, though I owed you a thousand scoldings, to utter one of them, I may as well proceed on the hypothesis that I am the party at fault and humbly beg that you will listen to my explination. When I left you at Willards,it was with the most pleasant expectation; that I was to have at least an hours gossip with you at the capitol before the evening was over. How I looked for you among the many ladies who were on the floor of the house How eagerly I watched the advent of every new comer in the galleries! But alas, alas,,, in vain -You see I took it for granted that it was to the House you were coming, and waited there so long before going to the senate, that I presume, if you were at the Capitol at all, you must have been in the senate and had probably left it before I got over there. Now you will percieve why I am in doubt whether I owe you an apology or a scolding. If you did not go to the Capitol at all, of course, you deserve the scolding for breaking your promise, and if on the other hand you were really there and I, through stupidity failed to find you out, I shall never, forgive myself for being so stupid. Will you not enlighten me as to the facts? Frank was quite incredulous at first, when I informed him you had told me that you had sent each of us a photograph as per original agreement, but you will percieve by the note which he requests me to enclose herewith, that he now not only credits, but is delighted with the information. If it will not be asking too much, pray mail me another photograph : but do be careful as to whoes hands you intrust it for mailing.I spent a week very pleasantly after leaving Washington with my brother Nat in Western Virginia and managed to overstay my time so much that I found, greatly to my surprise and regret, on my return home that Dallas had been moved to the front during my absence and had left only an hour before my arrival. With Great Respect & in Great Haste Very Truly Your Friend E [W?] Irish Miss A E Dickinson} Phila..} Pa..}Pittsburgh May 25th 1865- My Dear Friend I felt very small indeed the other day, when I arrived home from the East, and met the family around the "tea table"--all eager to hear an account of my visit, and all plying me with innumerable questions, touching the persons I had met, the places I had visited, and the Anniversaries I had attended. "Did I see Miss Dickenson? Did I deliver certain messages? Did she send any word? Is the dear girl well? What does she say about a summer trip?" & the dear knows what else, untill I was obliged to interfere. Permit me, said I, a word of explination. You must remember (my dear) in the first place that, not knowing where Miss Dickenson was stopping, I had no opportunity of seeing her untill the evening of her lecture - that the crowd prevented my obtaining more thanthe merest glimpse of her that evening-- that she was not at home when I called next day, and as I left the city the same evening for Albany had no opportunity of seeing her again - in short that the perverseness of the fates denied me. "Well, said they all, this is news indeed, - rare news - here is tact, here's enterprize here's cleverness for you - You are a friend & brother worth parting with, you bring back such thrilling accounts, such delightfull descriptions - we will send you again - you are such a clever ambassador, such an enterprising indomitable fellow." Pray, said I, consider the difficulties of the situation. My diffidence, my want of experience; but some people will not listen to reason -- they would not consider, and I am, consequently, in disgrace, under a cloud, or as Mr. McCawber would say, "a fallen tower." Now the decks are cleared for acknowledging the reciept of your kind favor of the 26th March. Do you know that you owe me the price of a quire of paper used up, and consumed in answering that letter. Why if I were to have the manuscript bound it would make a volume, and permit me to add, a very interesting & readable volume, one that would be mightily sought after in any circulating library; written in a sort of compromise between the Wilkins McCawber and Claud Melnot style. Still I did not consider it good enough to send to you--indeed, I found if I waited for that I should never answer your letter. Seriously, I was very sick when I received your letter; so much so that, at one time, it was doubtfull whether I would ever write any more letters. But these doubts happily soon passed away, although I did not get out of my room untill a few days before starting to New York. In the meantime however, during the long hours of convalescence, I did write you at length, and with all the romantic embellishments that fancy could suggest. But not being pleased with what I had written, & hoping soon to see you in New York, the said letter has beenSuffered to remain in my desk if to this very home, +++++++- I see by the papers that you are decidedly with the Phillips party in the division [th] which has lately occured among Abolitionists. Indeed, I was made aware of this fact before I saw it in the papers. Thus: I was a delegate to the Freedmen's Aid Union, and after the adjournment of our sessions on Wensday afternoon (the 10th Inst) I went with a friend to see the winding up of the Anti Slavery Anniversary meetings at the Church of the Puritans. I had not been there long until one of the speakers asserted, among other curious statements with regard to the Freedmens movement, that Judge Bond the President of the association was bitterly opposed to extending the night of suffrage to the colored people of the south, and that the status of the Association might be judged from that fact. Having been associated with Judge Bond for the previous two days in committee, and in the Freedmens meetings, I knew this to be an error, and that he is a warm advocate of that measure and had just voted for Resolutions to that effect. I felt it my duty therefore to inform the meeting that the gentleman was altogether mistaken, and to make a statement of what were the real facts in the case. But the gentleman to whom I have referred was incredulous. There was evident doubt in some quarters as to the verity of my statements. Finally another Richmond enters the lists, and with an air and manner as he would say- "now behold good people, how I will put this young man down utterly", proceeded to assert that there could be no doubt about it (that is, as to my being mistaken) & reserving his hardest shot for the last, concluded by adding that Miss Dickinson had been there that morning & had said that just the reverse of what I claimed was the true state of this case, whereupon I merely said to myself "Et Tu Brute" & "subsided like a summer wave". There, you have it in extenso, how I learned you had joined the Philistines (the Phillips party) in giving the cold shoulder to the Freedmens movement. Perhaps I had as well conceed that I am deplorably given to exageration (though I know you will not believe it) & that I have said more in the foregoing paragraph for the sake of making a story than is altogether discreet. I protest too that I have great respect & admiration for the Phillips: he played his cards in the convention with great clevernessbut I do not like some of his whippers in. I very much deplore that a period has been put to the era of good feeling which existed in the society, (& especially between mr Garrison & Mr Phillips) for so long, during the good old times of mobs and persecutions and slanders. In my opinion, as an instrumentality for the over throw of slavery the society has run its course,- "no sound can awake it to glory again". Still I have no disposition to quarrel with those who think differently, provided they do not misrepresent & belittle the Freedmens Aid Movement. As Hamlet says to Horatio, "Something too much of this". I very much fear I have been prosing terribly, "so without more circumstance at all" I humbly take my leave, with the assurance that I am, What you must always take it for granted I shall be Your Friend Sincerely, E H Irish [*terrific*] Miss A E Dickenson Phila PaPittsburgh, Sunday, Aug 20th 1865 My dear Anna I am almost afraid to trust myself to write you a letter this morning. I have a presentment you will write "spooney", on the back of it, though I were to write like an angel, which indeed I intend to do. For it is the naughty way of a certain naughty girl, to abuse, misrepresent, and wrong in every way, the best friend she has in the world, and every thing he may do or say. Hell, I care not; if anything I can write will give the said naughty, but dear girl, one moments pleasure, she is a liberty to utter just whatever naughty words may occurto her about it, and write whatever she pleases on the back of it. Tis strange, tis wonderous strange, how kind we grow on paper; ... yet if thou wert here, then shoulds't not have one pleasant word - no not one - not if they were as pleanty as black berries on the mountain slopes of Fayette Springs. That reminds me, I rode out to see Annie the other evening, partly to bid her good bye, as she was to leave the next day, and partly to be where I could hear a certain name mentioned freely and syllabled kindly; for next to the pleasure of seeing and hearing a certain gipsey talk, it is the pleasantest thing in the world to talk, and hear others talk about her. It was my privilege on this occasion to explain, when they related how they had all gone out and watched for the cars, how they had all held aloft their snowey scarfs and waved them in the breeze, how they had signaled and waved and waved in vain untill the train had swept by, leaving them with a feeling that they had missed their aim - though it seemed as if some one had noticed and pitied their frantic efforts to attract attention, and had compassionately, timidly, feebly, ventured to half return their salute; but it lacked, they thought, the decided, wicked little movement which would have characterized it, had it been Anna's hand. I repeat, it was my privilege to explain, that with my usual stupidity I had shown you a seat on the wrong side of the car, and that owning to the crowded state of the4 car, it would have been next to impossible for you to have returned their salute, even if you had known when and where to look for the house; with much more to the same effect, all of which was accepted as entirely satisfactory. Tell us, said they, all about it; of course you saw heroff. I replied that, yes, I suppose I might say I did - or rather, to speak precisely, I saw her fist off :- for as I gazed, sadly musing, the last thing I beheld as the train moved away, was a certain little fist shaking defiantly at me from the car window. Ah, you little dream what a narrow escape you made where you did that.. How near it came to bringing you to grief. How nearly I trembled of the brink of dashing all restraining considerations to the winds, and of mounting guard over you (and keeping order too) like a grim gens Dearme over a prisoner of war all the way to the Quaker City. Moral. Beware lest thou shake that little fist once too often. Consider, when next thou sowest the storm, whether thou art prepared and ready to ride the whirlwind - - - - 5 Thou canst not guess what I hold in my left hand, whilst the pen capers with my right. It is a pretty trifle. One that I came by honestly too. It is an item of booty - a part of the spoils captured from my fair enimy on the accasion of our last cavalry expedition. Dost think thou wilt ever see that handkerchief again? Thou wilt have to be a better girl first. That calls to mind a most singular chain of associations, one of my earliest experiences in the way of theatre going. How clearly the scenes of that night stand out before me now. I visited the Smokey City, a verdant country boy, as fresh and green as the hills and groves of out New Lisbon home whence I came. Falling into the hands6 of a dear old city friend, some dozen or score of years my senior, a man too of the rarest culture and of a most sweet and gentle nature withal, we drifted naturally to the theatre – to the fools paradise, it may be some times, but to us on that occasion, a real paradise. I remember well the play. It was Scotts Bride of Lamermoore. I had never read it, but before the curtain rose my friend had unfolded the story in so kind and skilfull a manner as to have imbued me [with] as fully with the spirit of the story as though I had read the book. I need not relate how I admired, envied, almost worshiped the dashing fellows in the comedy which preceeded the play, as they said their little say, made their little speeches, & flourished their little moment on the stage ere they play fully receeded & finally vanished from my admiring gaze. 7 What I chiefly remember [is] was the scene in the succeeding play, where Ravenswood comes back to Emily; long after they had been plighted, long after he had supposed her faithless, long after he had been tossed on a sea of troubles touching the seeming decay in her affection. Just as she is about to be enveloped in the toils which were spread for her, just as she was about to surrender herself to the hated nuptials, and submit to the embrace of one she [lothed] loathed more than she dreaded death, Ravenswood, the man whom heaven had made for her, presents himself. I have witnessed the same scene since, but it never moved me, or seemed to resemble the acting of that night. It was a quiet scene, yet intensely dramatic. Ravenswood, wrought to the verge of dispair, bursts upon the scene at the critical moment, detaches Emily8 from her party, and leads her slowly forward to the footlight. He is unutterably sad, the House is very still, she is pale, nay very pale. He questions her very tenderly! Asks her whether she is not enforced, whether she is taking this step of her own free will & accord, whether she has indeed dismissed the dear old fond love for him from her heart? He must hear it from her own lips. When timidly and feebly informed that such is indeed the case, he requests her to return a certain memento, a silver trinket, which had been given her as a symbol of his love on the occasion of thier betrothal. Lifting her hand to her throat she essays to draw it from her bosom. Her hand rests upon the chain which binds it to her neck, but the one fraught heart is still, the troubled but unconscious head droops upon his shoulder. He lifts the chain from her neck & withdraws the token from her heart. Supporting her with one hand and lifting this badge of a lost love with the other, he says with a face on which is written forsaken, forsaken, and with an accent I shall never forget, "and she could wear it thus", I know it must have been the perfection of art, to have produced an effect so lasting that the perfume of those long vanished hours comes o're me even now as I recall and recount the scenes of that evening. Now when next thou art in the 9 mood to speak a speech, or play a play, let thy nimble fancy teach thee what fantastic thing on over fond man would probably do with a trifle of cambric, nicely hemed stitched and embroidered, which he prizes above rubies for its dear owners sake. When thy fancy shall have solved this problem, take thy attitude, place thy hand upon thy heart, utter with piteous accent the words, "he could wear it thus", burst into a flood of tears, sob as though thy heart would break, and we shall have as fine a piece of acting as ever was seen. Dear Anna, forgive this idle prattle, I trust I shall write better when I shall feel happier, which I fear however will not be untill I am permitted to see the gipsy who10 who makes me write so badly. it would be very weak and very silly to confess how much I miss thee, how strongly I am impelled to to go where thou art, and to be with and pursue thee, like thy own shadow. The impulse was not stronger upon Jane Eyre to go to Rochester, when she imagined herself called in spirit to do so, than it has been upon me to go - thou canst best guess where. Please write and tell me when it shall be! Please write, and remember Emersons injunction to friends, "let there not only be truth but perfect candor between ye." Please write, for although I said I did not care for thy letters, I told a story. Write thy worst, and I will press it to my lips. Strike & I will kiss the rod. Adieu, greatest, dearest & best of girls. Receive my blessing & believe me ever and always thine sincerely E.H.I.Pittsburgh Wensday Oct 4/65 Dear Anna It has been my darling hope these several days to take you by the hand this morning at your house in Phila. It is a project indeed which has been uppermost in my thoughts in some form or an other, this many a a day, and since my return from the west on Friday last has been my chief and leading purpose, to which every thing else was secondary. But this is beginning in the middle of my story. Your favor of the 25th was not received untill Saturday last, oweing to my absence (of between two & three weeks) in Minnesota and Iowa, from whence I returned on Friday evening last. I had lots to do on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, but resolved that by 4.30 yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon I would somehowhow manage to be on board the Eastern train. But when the time arrived I found myself a prisoner and in chains- if not visible veritable clanking chains, - none the less potent and irksome in that account. I have come to learn there are worse jailors than Wirtz - we have three of them about this house. I need not mention names. This is my offence: On the night before I started home from Iowa, I managed to take a pretty severe cold, which has occasioned an annoying cough for the past four or five days, and which has not yet entierly left me. Now did you ever hear of anything more absurd and unreasonable? Although I am feeling very well, and about most of the day attending to out door business, these people have taken it into their heads that a ride to Phila. at this time would [aggravate] aggravate my cold and possibly cause the said cold & cough to hang about me all winter. The consequence is that I have either to assume that I know more about these things than every body else, including that medical fraternity, or submit to being tethered to this spot until such time as it may please thier soverign highnesses to let the oppressed go free. My ticket is purchased- my trunk is ready- my heart is ready- every thing is ready- but they have put up the bars to stay me. The chief jailor however while contending that it would be imprudent to start to day, conceedes that I can doubtless go well enough in a day or two. I will hope therefore to have the pleasure of paying you a visit at home before you take leave of it for the winter. It will go hard if I must give up those contemplated horse back rides of bright October afternoons, which you remember we so recently laid out and projected. I thought you said when you were here that you would not leave home untill the middle of Oct! How does it come then that you are taking snap-judgment on us by leaving home on Monday next. Do you really go so soon? If such isthe case, and I find I can not get off in time to spend a day or two there before you go, I can just inform Phila. and every body in it that they need not look for me at all. I have no other business East, and if I had I would go round the treacherous place rather than to it, or through it, if I am to be mocked with the sight of an empty cage, when I do come, (Figure of speech you see- better than calling you[?] bridge[?] outright) Still I hope to be in time. I have a thousand things to tell you, to discuss, to talk over, & to laugh over- especially the reception of "I've eaten the Canary" and the sport we had over that most palpable hit- besides some good grounds of quarrel I have with you, which sooner or later you must answer. If so be, that you do not start so soon as Monday, please let me know at once. If there are a few days of grace left you, we will have our rides[?] yet and our [quarrels too] quarrels too. Bye Bye & may Heaven[?] take care of you Your Friend[?] as ever E.H.J.[?]Monday Nov 13th / 65[?] My Dear Anna I have been waiting several days since recieving your kind and welcome favor of the 5th, hoping that on some fine day or other before long I should find myself in a sufficiently genial and chatty humor to enable me to entertain you with a few pages of passably readable gossiping trifles. But, alas, alas, I have waited in vain. In vain have I invoked the invisible spirit of pleasantry to nestle in my brain! In vain have I besaught the pert and nimble spirit of mirth to enliven the slugish current of my thoughts xxx[?] I therefore invoke thy clemency! I conjure thee, in the language of my first venture at public declamation, "not to view me with a critic's eye,"But gently pass my imperfections by." Besides, I have not yet got over my disappointment of the 2nd Inst. Had I not set my heart on it! And would nothing do, but thou must get sick, and rend our hearts with anxiety and disappointment? That little dispatch "arrived home today- too ill to travel farther"- went right to my heart. "Poor child," said I. "She must be sick indeed- tis not her way to stop at trifles." "Pooh, Pooh," says that incorrigible foe of yours, my big brother. "It is nothing," quoth he - "nothing but sheer perverseness - it is mere make-believe, or if she be sick at all, she has got sick on purpose to disappoint us." Ah! you should have seen me resent this slander "Let your merriment," said I, "take any shape but that - Wrong, abuse, slander who else you will but know, that this is forbidden ground - Know that, whoever offends in this direction had better make thier peace with Heaven"! At length, my indignation raising with the occasion, I exclaimed, "Unsay those words, or by Heaven we will have a play, a tragedy, right here in this Quaker Mansion which shall eclipse all the MeloDrama's ever put upon the stage! Then I strode across the room! then I strode back again. Now, I would go on with this story, but that I know I shall, sooner or later, be found out, and be inevitably brought to grief for it. Let me then, confess in advance that it is all a fiction. Let me assure thee, My Dear Kitten, that no one had a monopoly of the disappointment occasioned by thy absence, nor of the sympathy & regret expressed at the cause of thy absence. All participationin their feelinks - Every heart harbored them; and I am any thing you may be pleased to call me for telling such a story about the matter. Indeed my only excuse for inventing the fiction at all, was to show thee, how like a roaring Lion I would devour any body who should dare to utter the "likes of that" which I have attributed in my romance, to my broad shouldered brother. I have only time to say further that my health is still slowly improving. I have had a most tedious and disheartening time, but am doing very well now. I am so far recovered that I can again mount my chestnut sorrel and when the sun is bright canter for a few miles over the hills, though I do not yet venture so far nor ride so fast as of yore For goodness gracious sake do not let it be so everlasting long between times here after in writing. [Send] Send along those little make-believe sheets of yours though there should be nothing on them but your initials. I have a deal more to say [?] that I have neither the time nor the room to say it. Lay the forgoing injunctions, about writing [?] & often to heart & accept assurances of my fondest love & believe me as ever E. H. I.Sunday Dec 17 / 65 My Dear Naughtiness You are the most provoking girl in the world. As poor little Jenny Wren would say, "What do you mean by it"? I broke the seal to your letter saying to myself - "Now we shall know all about it - Now I shall know the day - the train - the very hour, we may expect her." - Oh, you naughty, wicked, creature!You will lecture me will you! Very well! It is the way of some people to carry on their hostilities at a safe distance - and carry them on too, in a way they would not dare to as, if they were present, instead of away off out of harms way; In this, we must confess, they display that better part of valor, called discretion. Ah well - I have an answer ready for all your scoldings. It consists (thank Heaven in restored health, a rounded form, and an athletes strength. Pray sit down, on receipt of this, and give me your programe for this week. Where and what evening do you give your last lecture before Christmas? What day shall we expect you? Come at the earliest moment, in order to give yourself all the rest that is possible. You will find an abundance of rest, such as it is, aboutthis house - the only difficulty being, that I fear you will consider it a little too much after the fashion of such rest, as a toad is supposed to get under a harrow. If you tire of the rest, there are other attractions: for instance, there are certain rods in pickle for you, which you may have a curiosity to investigate: besides innumerable crows to be plucked which will claim a large share of your attention. Seriously & soberly, [*answer my questions! May we not expect you during the present week? Remember that we are not going to be trifled with again - we will take no Longshore excuses this time: & we insist on your making up the time now, which you cheated us out of then. Be good & believe me thine E. H. I. My Dear Goosey, I think I said when you were here that I would send you when published the then forth coming speech of my old friend and colleague Mr Williams, one Member of Congress from the Allegheny side of the River. Whether I did or not, the speech is now in print and I send you a copy of it by todays mail. Do not be dismayed at its length, for it is a great speech. Since Webster gathered the Senate about him in 1833 & in his reply to Hayne, vindicated the power & majesty of the general Government, & stamped with indelible English his theory of the constitution upon the Nation, Congress has seldom if ever listened to a more powerfull brilliant and scholarly argument.To Mr Williams belongs the honor of arraying congress squarely against the plans & policy of the executive. It was this speech which precipitated the war, [to] which so long impended, between congress and the President & for that reason as well as for its intrinsic merits is by all odds the greatest and most important speech of the session. Poor Dick Steele used to say that nothing ever makes the town so fond of a man as the production of a succesfull play. In our day it would be better to say, a succesfull speech. Why, were our gallant little Hercules to show his face in Pittsburgh, the people would fairly carry him in thier arms, the town is so proud of him. Read it. Read it, & if you can find nothing to admire in its classic allusions, its scholarly ring, its strain of fervid patriotism, its bursts of glowing eloquence, which, meteorlike light up the progress of the argument, you are not the "Cloie" I took you for I blush to say, after all the noise & flourish of trumpets I made about going south, that I am still here. But as Mr Lincoln said to Montgomery Blair - "the time has come". My knapsack is packed & strapped & ready. I go today, & merely drop you this to say so. Good Bye & Believe me with Kindest Regards Yours Sincerely E. H. I. Feb 26 / 66New Castle Nov 10 / 66 Dear Anna, I am in reciept of a most beautifull luscious and superb box of grapes from you. Nothing was ever so kind & thoughtful. I have no words to thank you I only recieved your note of the morning you left here. Would it were in my power to write you something! But it is many months since I attempted to write anything with my own hand. I do not know whether I am better or worse, I only know that I think of you very often, and that I am as ever Yours Sincerely E. H. I.1 Chapter I My Dear Anna This is my third attempt, since your departure to prepare and send you, what I hoped would be an acceptable budget of talk. On each occasion I have written you from one to two hundred pages of the finest high-flown sentiment you ever read in your life. I have also at the conclusion of each attempt watched these luminous effusions blaze and burn as I regularly committed them to the fiery flames. I scarcely know which I enjoyed most, writing them out, or seeing them burn. 2 You will percieve from this not only how desirous I am of pleasing you but also how I hesitate to disclose the fact, that I have gone "clean daft" about you, since your late raid on the smoky city. Still I am not sure that with all my pains I shall be able to keep this secret from you. This tendancy to break into Heroics, alarms me. Tis a bad symptom, and betrays a greenness that will surely bring me into contempt. Kynde Heaven cure me of this - restrain my youthfull ardour - teach me, as Friends would say, plainness of speech, and I will promise faithfully to weed-out [any] every ambitious or aspiring [thought] sentance that shall dare to spring up in the pathway of my thoughts. (3) Chapter II Do you know that in one way or another you are keeping this whole family by the ears continually? We scarcely get through fighting over one bone of contention untill you throw us another. We were scarce through with our pitched battles over "The Annals of the Stage" untill along comes a most tempting box of candy to be fought over and contended about from Sunday morning till Saturday night. The candy battle however has been mostly carried on between Frank and Ellen. Frank contends that his name being on the outside of the box entitles him to the lions share of the spoils, & is demanding that a division of the contents of the box be immediately made on that principle.4 I notice you talk very glibly - on the lid of a candy box - about calamity, the uses of calamity, the compensations of calamity & cet. All very well as far as it goes - but where is my compensation? & why is it not forthcoming? Do not imagine you can cancel all the mischief you have done me by any thing that can be put up in papers. Or sent in a box. Candy will not suffice in this instance. [There is but one remidy for my cure] "Not poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy sirups of the East" can medicine my heart or bring back my ancient piece of mind. In all the world there is but one compensation for my calamity. - that thou must keep for me through every trial and risk and danger and sacrafice which fate may require at thy hands :- and may I add, something whispers and assures me, [that] thou wilt keep it - & keep it for me - bravely, truly, fondly to the last. In this conviction 5 I rest with a trust and confidence which is sweeter and better than all the compensations beside, which this world can offer. Chapter III I find I am the victim of a conspiracy. Certain suspicious consultations and mysterious whisperings, which I have been half concious were going on about the house, have at length culminated in a family decree. By this decree I am a banished man. From house friends & country I am to be ruthlessly sent adrift to try the world anew among strangers in strange lands. The meaning of which is, that some months ago when I was seriously out of health I meditated spending some of the6 winter months in the south. Since that time, & especially of late, my health has so much improved that I now feel there is no sort of occasion for my going south a single inch on that account, & had about given up the project & dismissed the subject from my mind, when mother having taken it into her dear kind little head that nil-le wil-le, whether or no, I must spend a couple of months in the sunny south, succeeded in carrying the aforementioned decree against me. They have kindly maped out a tour for me, as follows - Down the Mississippi to New Orleans, thence to Galveston Texas, thence to Mobile, thence to Pensacola, thence to St Augustine, thence home by way of Charleston and Richmond or Cuba & New York which [ever I may prefer] 7 ever I may prefer. As I go forward in emagination over the windings of my prospective journey, and wander through strange cities, & behold new scenes :- as I fancy myself at evening, inhaling the balmey air of the tropics, and treading, beneath a starry sky, the high-crested deck of a southern steamer as she ploughs the waters of the gulf, I pause and ask, whether amid such scenes, [and surroundings] and surrounded by such alurments and pleasures, I shall even then be half so happy as when a few short months ago the careless hours went swiftly by as I gathered berries and rolled ten-pins and galloped gaily by the side of a matchless black-haired Gipsey over the highways8 of nameless ranges of the Alleghenies? Contented & happy as when upon certain summer evenings, [of blessed memory] evenings new to memory dear, I trod, not the proud deck of a southern steamer, but the creaking floor of a rustic porch, at a certain indifferent & dilapidated watering place; and listened to the voice of the syren who walked by my side "while the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees & make no noise", untill the pale old moon waned in the heavens, & the strains of the "flute violin & bassoon" drifting through the open doors, and the sounds of the "dancers dancing in time" coming to us on the still air of night, seemed like the sounds from another, and a far-off world - listened, listened, listened, while my silver-tongued enchantress builded castles [in the] in the air, and beguiled, enthralled my fancy, enthralled my heart, my 9 Soul and fancy, through many a golden hour. "Still o're those scenes my memory wakes, And fondly broods with miser care! Time but the impression deeper makes, As streams thier channels deeper wear." Did I but know of a journey which could make such sunshine in the heart, or promise such pleasures as those, by Heaven, I would set out on it this very hour. Did I but know of an enchantress so rare, or a syren so sweet, by all the subtle influences [that] which clip us round a bout (and that is not swearing) I would go round the world to meet her. But why go round the world about it? Is there no overland route by which to intercept her on her winding way? Seriously and soberly will10 it be asking too much to request you to send me a list of your engagements until about the 10th or 12th of Febuary, that I may if possible manage to light down on you, like a hawk on a chicken, some fine day before I leave. I trust you will not so regard my request. I trust you will give me leave to come, and say good bye. Promise me, sweet, a kind farewell, a parting smile, a fond adieu. Thy parting blessing too I'll crave To cheer & charm, to guide & save. Grant but this oh rarest of girls & "The mind I sway by & the heart I bear Shall never sag with doubt or quake with fear" "Then give me leave to come & hinder not my course. I will be as patient as a gentle stream And make a passtime of each weary step That brings me to my darling." 11 Chapter IV Fourthly and lastly, as the preachers used to say in their sermons, provided there was not a fifthly or a sixthly - fourthly and lastly, we propose, whether you like it or not, to go on with our gossip to the end of another [chapter] and perhaps and for what we know now, a still longer and stupider chapter than ever. It is idle to squirm & shrug your shoulders thus at this announcement. Know that you are in my power. This is my platform. I have you now where you have your audiences - God help them poor inocent souls - when you come out & scowl at them, and say, soto voce, to the Billey Edwards'es "what a horrid [horid] looking set of people", ere you proceed to pitch into them. Even thus have I you at my mercy now: and having undertaken to give you four12 chapters, I am determined you shall have them with a vengance; as they used to say of lashings in the south: you shall have them "well laid on". This is a just retribution on you for treating me so shabbily. It is a judgement on you for turning up your nose at me - and since your highness would not then deign to listen to the oral expression of my fine-spun sentiment, you shall now have a double potion of the written article. You shall have it dinned in your ears, paraded before your eyes, thrust under your nose continually. You shall be steeped in it to the very lips, but I will have satisfaction for my pangs - the pangs, mind you, of despised love. But do not be misled. Do not infer because we make our sorry little jest at all this, that your slights did not sting, or your indifference grieve, or your coldness chill, or your metaphorical kicks and cuffs hurt past all human indurance, or that we especially enjoyed being left out in the cold like a poor little "orphing". No, let us confess it, we did feel as bad as bad could be. Let us confess too that it was 13 very, very weak, to allow ones feelings to be so easily played upon - to allow the heart to leap so for joy at the thought, that perhaps after all it was but make-believe displeasure under which we were languishing. Is it not wonderous how quickly even the tintiest little grain of love will permeate the sadest and sorest [recesses] receses of the heart, and instantly cause it to pulsate with thoughts and emotions the sweetest and dearest in life! Oh love, thou sweet, thou young and rose-liped Cherubim - how dost thy smile illuminate the hemisphere - how dost thy slightest touch electrify the soul - how gently and tenderly dost thou lead us up to Heaven! Chapter V I am sorry now, that I promised14 that my fourthly should be my lastly. There is nothing for it but to break my word - I must have my fifthly. I am so captivated with this invention of chapters that I am like a man on a Hobby Horse. I find they are to letter writing, much the same that stage tricks are to acting. They serve a purpose. How else would one get down out of the clouds sometimes, but for chapters to break the fall? Let me tell you it is often one of the nicest and most delicate proceedings in the world to glide from theme to theme, like the Bee that sports from flower to flower - to pass like a train of cars, or an ardent river, or a streak of lightning, or what you will from subject to subject, "from grave to gay from lively to severe" [and all that], without ripling the current of thought or loosing the sympathy or cooling the interest 15 of those who wait upon your words. And hardest and nicest of all the delicate windings of a letter, is the winding-up. To kiss our hand and vanish. To fade like the glimering landscape at evening, leaving, as it were, a pensive twilight in the heart. Tis a fine art to which I do not pretend - Then in homely phrase, good-bye. Give me thy spiritual hand, and keep me, dearest, in thy kind remembrance. Farewell, a kind farewell, my darling - may the kindlier stars smile on thee and the better angels guard thy footsteps wherever thou mayest wander. Keep thy heart and spirit bright, and let thy thoughts turn kindly back to me, very, very, often. Believe, and doubt not, that my anxious kind solicitude follows thee ever, and that my great love is around thee always. - - - as ever. E. H. I Sunday Jan 21 / 66 -Dear Anna I hasten to acknowledge the reciept of "Annals of the Stage" in two volumes, which came to hand last evening, and to return thanks on behalf of the Household for your kind remembrance of us in the selection of so choice a book. I have at the same time a question to ask on my own account. Do you mean to corrupt the morals of this family? Some of them I grant you are past praying for already. Frank Nell & Nathaniel my body knew would be delighted with just such reading. But Mother, theDear old Lady as Nat calls her, has been looking leisurely through the book, and I blush to tell it, is beginning to talk knowingly of Prologues and Epilogues; of play authors and play actors; of scenes & acts; of farces comedies & tragedies; of Colley Cibbers, Bettertons, Garricks, Keans, Kembles, Siddons, & the dear knows who all else with a familiarity [of] becoming a member of the Histrionic art rather than so plain "a friend". Do you see what you are doing? Will you give over your wicked ways? I have just read the foregoing to the family & have come to grief for it. Mother has cruelly boxed my ears, and Frank is raging about at what he calls my assurance - asserting that he is the gentleman of superior Dramatic taste and talent referred to in your note, and that consequently the duty of returning thanks & making the family bow devolvs exclusively upon him. But Nat, the up start, the Jackanapes, takes the start of the majestic world by coolly assuming that the books were for him & by announcing in Lordly style that he has written, returned thanks, & said all that it is proper to say on the occasion. But you will see Franks version anon - then judge for yourself. Adieu. Pardon these pencellings. Do not say I am pouting because I do not write you a longer & a better letter, Goosey. I will write you one twice asgood & four times as long very very soon. Do not let that hinder you from sending me a line in the meantime. I am just perishing to hear from you. I shall devote the first leisure hour I can command to thee, sinner, or rather to writing thee a letter, for all my hours are pretty much thine one way or another & it is pure folly to talk about devoting one to the object upon whom they all are bestowed. Anon I will tell thee more E. H. I Sunday Jan 7 Saturday Oct 14 Dear Anna Your brief little note-let of Monday was very welcome - On pressing it delicately to my lips I found it to contain all the virtues of a tonic, as well as all the sweetness of a bouquet. I did not go to Phila; for the best of reasons. Chills and fevers have been the order of the day for me ever since I wrote you. They are the cropping out of Malaria brought with me from beyond the Missipippi. I think I have given them (the chills) thier quietus with quinine, though one can never be certain they will not, like Banquos Ghost, return again to plague us, untill long after the the last vestage of a symptom has disappeared. I only write this morning to send you my love, and to convince you that I can, when I make up my mind to it, write you a short letter. I have been counting the weeks - I shall here - after count the days, untill the time arrives when you are to take Pittsburgh in your winding way - - - - Haste, then, haste, ye ides of November - - - - Speed, O, Speed, ye tardy footed days and weeks that intervene. With much love believe me as ever thine Sincerely Elias Hicks Irish E.H.I.