. . .  What can I say to you of cis-Atlantic things?  I am almost ashamed to be away from home.  You know that I had decided to remain, and had sent for my family to come to America, when my present appointment altered my plans.  I do what good I can.  I think I made some impression on Lord John Russell, with whom I spent two days soon after my arrival in England, and I talked very frankly and as strongly as I could to Palmerston, and I have had long conversations and correspondences with other leading men in England.  I have also had an hour’s [conversation] with Thouvenel in Paris.  I hammered the Northern view into him as soundly as I could.  For this year there will be no foreign interference with us.  I don’t anticipate it at any time, unless we bring it on ourselves by bad management, which I don’t expect.  Our fate is in our own hands, and Europe is looking on to see which side is strongest,—­when it has made the discovery it will back it as also the best and the most moral.  Yesterday I had my audience with the Emperor.  He received me with much cordiality, and seemed interested in a long account which I gave him of our affairs.  You may suppose I inculcated the Northern views.  We spoke in his vernacular, and he asked me afterwards if I was a German.  I mention this not from vanity, but because he asked it with earnestness, and as if it had a political significance.  Of course I undeceived him.  His appearance interested me, and his manner is very pleasing.

I continued to receive long and interesting letters from him at intervals during his residence as Minister at Vienna.  Relating as they often did to public matters, about which he had private sources of information, his anxiety that they should not get into print was perfectly natural.  As, however, I was at liberty to read his letters to others at my discretion, and as many parts of these letters have an interest as showing how American affairs looked to one who was behind the scenes in Europe, I may venture to give some extracts without fear of violating the spirit of his injunctions, or of giving offence to individuals.  The time may come when his extended correspondence can be printed in full with propriety, but it must be in a future year and after it has passed into the hands of a younger generation.  Meanwhile these few glimpses at his life and records of his feelings and opinions will help to make the portrait of the man we are studying present itself somewhat more clearly.

          Legationof the U. S. A., Vienna, January 14, 1862.

My dear Holmes,—­I have two letters of yours, November 29 and December 17, to express my thanks for.  It is quite true that it is difficult for me to write with the same feeling that inspires you, —­that everything around the inkstand within a radius of a thousand miles is full of deepest interest to writer and reader.  I don’t even intend to try to