University of Virginia Library

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Your letter(the one to care of Westerman & Co.) reached me
this morning, I have sent a servant to Union Place Hotel for the
other. It gives me great pleasure to read your assurances of love
& remembrance, to think that there is one heart wh. beats for me,
tho' it be 500 miles off, while I am surrounded here by thousands
of strange faces, persons who know nothing & care less if possible
for your little husband, & who wd. not miss him, if he were suddenly
snatched from life. I have always thought the crowded city
a more gloomy solitude than the barren desert, just in the proportion
that the men who dwell in the former are superior to the
beasts who inherit the latter. The clerk just tells me he has sent
a letter to my room & I must stop till it come back & then see
what it contains. Ah! I see from the direction it is not from my
dear wife, but from Albort Hunt. He wishes to come, but my letter
did not reach him in time to allow him to answer me.

I spent yesterday partly at the Crystal Palace, & partly
down town. The former is pretty much as we left it. Many article
have been removed the most noticeable thing I saw was the Sevres
china, painted quite handsomely, but not as striking as I expected
& the tapastry from Gobelin-which is exquisite-the most beautiful
landscapes & figures worked with thread & from behind. Also a St.
John done in Mosaic, wh. is worth $60000 & wd deceive almost any
one into the belief that it is an old oil painting.

I have little to tell. I had a sleigh ride yesterday of
2½ miles for which I paid the exorbitant price of six and a quarter
(not dollars bu cents). Sleighd are jingling now right merrily.