Livy darling, we got up at 7 this morning & traveled all day, arriving here an hour after dark. I did not feel tired, & do not feel w Ⓐemendation tired now, though I nearly always do feel tired after a reading. However, I suppose I am tired, even if I don’t feel so.

I wish you & the children could hear that young man play the banjo (spoke of him in yesterday’s letter.) He is one of these jack-of-all-geniuses: is an electrician, a maker of banjos, a teacher of the guitar & the banjo, & an improvisatore on those instruments, & a composer of music for them. His banjo playing was something quite new & wonderful to me. He put no He put as many & as complext & brilliant variations to Sweet Home & other tunes as you would hear on the piano—some of them stirring & triumphant, many of them soft, & rich, & full of poetry & sentiment. His name is Cable—but no kin. Sometimes it seemed to me it was almost the most inspiring music I ever heard; & his Way Down upon the Swanee River, with soft, fine variations was singularly tender & beautiful. He is self-made, self-taught. I liked his “Golden Slippers”—in fact I enjoyed everything he played, & he must have played forty & fifty pieces in our rooms. Sometimes Cable accompanied him on the guitar, & the combination was excellent. In this man’s hands the banjo beats Miss Morgan’s harp-music to pieces.—they are not to be mentioned in the same day.

Ich habe dich sehr lieb, mein liebchen. Jeden Tag denk ich an dich, stündlich, ja in einem fort geht ŭnzählbar Gedenken an dich durch meinem Sinn. Und wenn ich Kinder sehen, dann aŭf einmal drängt sich das holdselig Bild, unsere Kinder, so hold ŭnd schön, aŭf meinem Gedäctniss; ŭnd abermal kommtⒶemendation es, und doch abermal, ŭnd wird nicht fort; ŭnd lob’ sei Gott, sage ich, ŭnd gesaegnete sind we bin ich, dass dies so ist. Wahrlich, aŭf dich ŭnd mich sind die Gnaden des Lebens ŭnd die Liebe reichlich gegossen. Ich küsse dich.