CAMBRIDGE, March, 1880.

Dear L.,—­I love to write to you; my thoughts run away with me, my pen flies like a bird over the paper.  You need not remind me of the fact that my handwriting is execrable.  I know it, therefore don’t waft it across America.  Spare me this mortification.  Tear the letters up after reading them, or before, if you like.  When I see the stacks of never-looked-through letters being dragged from one place to the other, tied up in their old faded ribbons, I feel that I do not wish mine to have the same fate.

I read the other day H.’s lively letters full of dash, written in her happy girlhood, and think of her as she is now, the tired mother of six children, without a sparkle of humor left in her, and nothing more spicy in her epistles than a lengthy account of the coal bill or the children’s measles.  All the life taken out of her for ever!  Just deadly dull!

I feel in the above pathetic mood whenever I look out of my window and see the veteran Washington elm facing wind and weather, bravely waiting the end.  With what care they bolster up its weary limbs, saw off its withered branches, and deluge its old roots!  They spend days belting and tarring its waist, trying to destroy the perverse caterpillars; but with all this they can never give it back its fresh and green youth.  It goes on patiently year after year putting forth its leaves in spring and coquetting in its summer garb with its younger rivals.  In autumn the pretty colored leaves fly away, and it remains bare and grim under its coating of snow and ice.  Some day it will blow down, and nothing but the monumental stone will be left on which future generations will read, “Under this tree George Washington first took command of the American Army, July 3, 1775.”

If I stay in Cambridge long enough I shall become a beacon of wisdom.  Every one is so learned.  If I happen to meet a lady in the street she will begin to talk of the “old masters” as if it were as natural a subject of conversation as the weather.

Washington, March 23, 1880.

Johan has this moment received the news that he is transferred to Rome.  We feel dreadfully sad to leave Washington and all our dear friends.  Our good Schloezer would say “Que faire?  La diplomatie a des exigences qu’il ne faut pas negliger.”

The Queen of Denmark writes, “I hope that you are sure that I never omit to name your husband when a change is coming on in diplomacy, and I hope soon to see something advance to fulfil my wish.  Alas, no great benefit to me personally, as you will not live in Copenhagen, but you would come here in an easier way, and you would be in Europe.  Farewell, dear Lilly, farewell, and think of me as I of you.  Yours....  Louise.  The King’s best compliments.”

From this I fancy it was the gracious Queen whose finger pointed to the post Rome.  This will be the last letter you will get from me from this side of the Atlantic, as I am going to be very busy—­as busy as the bee I only hope that people will let the busy B.