My Dear Mother—I have told Livy all about Annie’s beautiful house, & about Sam & Charley y, & about Charley’s ingenious manufactures & his strong manhood & good promise, & how glad I am that he & Annie married. And I have told her about Alice & her blue eyes, & about Annie’s excellent housekeepingⒶemendation, & also about the great Bacon conflict; (I told you it was a hundred to one that neither Livy nor the European powers had heard of that desolating struggle.) And I have told you her how beautiful you are in your age & how bright your mind is with its old-time brightness, & how she & the children would enjoy you. And I have told her how singularly young p Pamela is looking, & what a fine large fellow Sam is, & how ill the lingering syllable “my” to his name fits his port & figure.

Well, Pamela, after thinking it over for a day or so, I came near inquiring about a state-room in our ship for Sam, to please you, but my wiser former resolution came back to me. It is not for his good that he have friendsⒶemendation in the ship. His conduct in the Bacon business shows that he will develop rapidly into a manly man as soon as he is cast loose from your apron strings.

You don’t teach him to push ahead & do & dareⒶemendation things for himself, but you do just the reverse. You are assisted in your damaging work by the tyrannous ways of a village—villagers watch each other &Ⓐemendation so make cowards of each other. After Sam shall have voyaged to Europe by himself, &Ⓐemendation rubbed against the world & taken & returnedⒶemendation its cuffs, do you think he will hesitate to escort a guest into any whisky-mill in Fredonia when he himself has no sinful business to transact there? No, he will smile at the idea. If he avoidsⒶemendation this courtesy now from principle, of course I find no fault with it at all—only if he thinks it is principle he may be mistaken; a close examination may show it is only a bowing to the tyranny of public opinion.

IⒶemendation only say it may—I cannot venture to say it will. Hartford is not a large place, but it is broader than to have ways of that sort. Three or four weeks ago, at a Moody &Ⓐemendation SankeyⒶemendation meeting, the preacher read a letter from somebody “exposing” the fact that a prominent clergyman had gone from one of those meetings, bought a bottle of lager beer &Ⓐemendation drank it on the premises (a drug store.) AⒶemendation tempest of indignation swept the town.

OurⒶemendation clergymen &Ⓐemendation everybody else said the “culprit” had not only done an innocent thing, but had done it in an open, manly way, &Ⓐemendation it was nobody’sⒶemendation right or business to find fault with it. Perhaps this dangerous latitude comes of the fact that we never have any temperance “rot” going on in Hartford.

I find here a letter from Orion, submitting some new matter in his story for criticism. When youⒶemendation write him, please tell him to do the best he can &Ⓐemendation bang away. I can do nothing further in thisⒶemendation matter, for I have but 3 days left in which to settle a deal of important business &Ⓐemendation answer a bushel &Ⓐemendation a half of letters. I am very nearly tired to death.

I was so jaded &Ⓐemendation worn, at the Taylor dinner, that I found I could not remember 3 sentences of the speech I had memorized, &Ⓐemendation therefore got up &Ⓐemendation said so &Ⓐemendation excused myself from speaking. I arrived here at 3 o’clockⒶemendation this morning.Ⓐemendation I think the next 3 days will finish me. The idea of sittingⒶemendation down to a job of literary criticism is simply ludicrous.

A young lady passenger in our ship has been placed under Livy’s charge.Ⓐemendation Livy couldn’t easily get out of it, &Ⓐemendation did not want to, on her own account, but fully expected I would make trouble when I heard of it, but IⒶemendation didn’t.Ⓐemendation A girl can’t well travel alone, so I offered no objection. She leaves us at Hamburg. So I’ve got 6 people in my care, now—which is just 6 too many for a man of my unexecutive capacity. I expect nothing else but to lose some of them overboard.

We send our loving good-byes to all the householdⒶemendation & hope to see you again after a spell.Ⓐemendation