[postscript on back of page 1, in pencil:]
‸Dec. 30—Just got your letter & sketch
—thank you, dear.‸
Cleveland, Dec. 30. AM.
My dearest Livy, I feel like drawing near you & having your counsel & encouragement, this morning, for I need it. I have passed through another of those seasons when religion seems e far away & well-nigh unattainable, & when one feels grimly like jesting with holy things & giving up in despair. Why is it that godliness flies me? Why is it that prayer seems so unavailing & all my searching & seeking a mockery? I study the t Testament every night, I read anything touching upon religion that comes in my way, I keep myself wholly from wrong-doing—but sometimes a chilly apathy comes upon me at last. Last night, with a great effort, I compelled myself to do a disagreeable thing & make a sacrifice of my comfort to the comfort of others because I desired to do right. I thought it was a triumph over selfishness, & felt the better for it for a while, but it is all gone now that I perceive that I did not do right for the love of it, & so the spirit of the whole thing was wrong at last. I wish you were here to help me, for you are as strong in these things as I am weak & bewildered.
I wrote your father yesterday in answer to his letter about making haste slowly—but I wish I hadn’t written him that Christmas letter from Lansing, for I fear he does not know me as well as you do, Livy, & I am apt to pain him with my heedless way of writing, though you know I don’t mean any harm. I love him too well & reverence him too much to pain him wantonly.
No letter to-day, dear, none yesterday, none the day before. It seems an age, Livy. I fully expect one tomorrow—with the picture—& have written Dayton to see if perchance you have sent a letter [there. How ]my heart goes out to you this day! It seems to me that I could walk fifty miles to see you. Seems!—I know I could. You are a little bit of a piece of humanity—there isn’t anything of you, hardly—[ h ]scarcely an armful—but what there is is unspeakably precious, Livy!
Mrs. Fairbanks has been telling me something I like. She says one rational way of seeking Christ is to learn to put yourself out of sight when you are meditating an act, & consider how to do it for the comfort & benefit of others, & so take to itself a [Christ-like ]spirit—& that bye & bye when one has made this a habit & it has become a pleasure to consider the weal of others first, that religion will not then be far away. ‸It is like Henry Ward’s sermon—send some more, Livy, dear.‸ 1 It does not seem that that should be impossible—not at all impossible—& so I will make the trial. There are many that are good & true adding their prayers to mine—mine are not neglected on any day—& why should not I succeed, in time? Pray for me, Livy—but I know that you will & that you do. I shall be grateful—I am grateful.
Livy, one thing has been in my mind ever since I saw Miss Nye in Detroit. It is to [ ur beg ]you not to get up so soon in the morning. This is serious, Livy, & sensible. She says you are always sleepy when they call you for breakfast—& do not you know, dear, that the morning sleep is by far the most strengthening of all? It is, indeed. Sleep till you have no more desire to sleep, & you will be strong. You are wakeful at two in the morning, & you need to sleep late to make up for it. Livy, you who most need rest & renewing sleep of all the household, sleep less than any of the others. You make a sacrifice of yourself—you get up not because you want to, but because you know that ‸to the others‸ the breakfast would lose half its charm, its cheer, its sunshine [ if your if your ]dear face were absent—but Livy, it isn’t right. They don’t know that you rise sleepy, or they wouldn’t let you do [it. Please ]think of this, won’t you, & comply with my petition? Do, Livy.
The prettiest & in many ways the most attractive young lady that graced the reception given by Mrs Fairbanks for Charlie & I was dreadfully, perhaps fatally, burned, lately, by the a gas explosion in her father’s house. I remember her particularly, because I took her out to supper, & was more drawn to her during than to the others, during the evening, by the gentleness of her manners. Her hands are burned off, almost entirely, & her face is disfigured to ghastliness, it is said. It is terrible.2
You may have heard, by this time, that little Mollie Fairbanks broke her wrist while skating, some days ago. An awkward man ran against her, & as she fell she tried to save herself by throwing out her arm. Hence the disaster. She bears it bravely, & is getting on well.
Livy, it is jolly to be here. I was starving to hear somebody speak your name. And now I can talk to Mrs. Fairbanks as much as I please about you. She read ‸to me‸ Mrs. Langdon’s letter3—it could have been a severe one, easily enough, but it wasn’t. It was the reverse. We have talked a deal about Charlie, & Mrs. F., you may be sure, is glad to hear of his satisfaction in his new business, & of his re improved health & his safe passage over the awful chasm that lay between his love for Ida & his father’s knowledge of it.4 She spoke, with the a proud humidity in her eyes, of how Charlie used to leave repentant little notes in her stateroom when he had been rebellious. She [ say, says ]he is the best of all boys to repent, because he does it with such a conquering winning grace & with such hearty earnestness withal. I guess we have canvassed & complimented the family pretty thoroughly. I arrived just in time to keep this good woman from publishing my Christmas letter to her. However, since she only wants to print an extract or two because their reverent spirit is more to my credit than my customary productions, we’ll let her have her way.5
Livy, I guess that after all I shall become interested in this “Herald,” & then you shall be Managing Editor—that is to say, you’ll manage the editor. I think we’ll live in [Clevland], Livy—& then we’ll persuade Mr. Langdon to come & live in Euclid Avenue, so that we can have a goo place to go to & get a good dinner occasionally when we have got so hungry we can’t stand it any longer. But I don’t think we’ll live in the Avenue yet a while, Livy—we’ll take a back seat with Mrs. Fairbanks, in St. Clair [street.6 But], then, what of it?—it will be a pleasant back seat, won’t it? It couldn’t well be otherwise, with you there.
Solon Severance is coming early with a buggy, n New Year’s, & we are going to make calls all day long. He knows everybody—& we are going as a Temperance Phalanx, to shed a beneficent influence far & wide of ‸over‸ this town! Mrs. F. says that if Solon is in a good flow of spirits that day, he & I will make a rare team & not be very unwelcome [anywhere. She ]thinks we’ll relieve the dull stupidity of New Year formalities to some extent, & that we’ll be our progress through the city will not pass unnoticed. That is kind. I do wish Charlie were here to go with us. We mean to have fun—& he would enjoy it, too. But don’t I wish you were here, you Koh-i-Noor! you Golconda! you rival of the sun!—you beautiful, [ lovable lovable], darling Livy! I kiss your forehead, in deep gratitude to the Giver of all Good, for your priceless love. God bless you, always, Livy.
With loving devotion—
Yours,
Samℓ. L. C.
Of course Mrs. F. sends you her love.—if she didn’t I would cut her acquaintance. P. S. I do LOVE you, Livy!
Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Present. [docketed by OLL:] 18th 1868
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
It is devoted to dwelling-houses entirely, and it costs you $100,000 to “come
in.” Therefore none of your poor white trash can live in that street. You have to be redolent of that odor of sanctity
which comes with cash. The dwellings are very large, are often pretty pretentious in the matter of architecture, and the grassy and
flowery “yards” they stand in are something marvellous. (SLC
1868) The Fairbanks family had lived on attractive (but less expensive) St. Clair Street since 1857, briefly at number
139 and then at 221 (Boyd, 68; Cleveland Directory
1868, 155).
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L2, 363–367.
Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, pp. 515–16.
Emendations and textual notes:
there. How • there.— |How
h • [partly formed]
Christ-like • [possibly ‘Christlike’, if the hyphen is instead construed as the crossbar of the ‘t’]
ur beg • ur be beg [false start; ‘be’ over doubtful wiped-out ‘ur’]
if your if your • [possibly corrected dittography]
it. Please • it.— |Please
say, says • says , [‘s’ added over comma]
Clevland • [sic]
street. But • street.— |But
anywhere. She • anywhere.— |She
lovable lovable • [possibly corrected dittography]
