est that is quite indescribable. I have hitherto
always lived in the country, and mixing very little with the
Philadelphians have supposed that the mere civil formality at which my
intercourse with most of them stops short would lead necessarily to some
more intimate intercourse if I ever lived in the city. I now perceive,
however, that their communion with each other is limited to this
exchange of morning visits, of course almost exclusively among the
women; and that society, such as you and I understand it, does not exist
here.

Yet, of course, there must be the materials for it, clever and pleasant
men and women, and I had sometimes thought, when I foresaw the
probability of our leaving our country house and establishing ourselves
in the city, that I should find some compensation in the society which I
hoped I might be able to gather about me; ... but I am now quite
deprived of any such resource as any attempt of the kind might have
produced, by my present position in a boarding-house, where I inhabit my
bedroom, contriving, for sightliness' sake, to sleep on a wretched
sofa-bed that my room by day may look as decent and little encumbered as
possible; but where the presence of wash-hand-stand and toilette
apparatus necessarily enforces the absence of visitors, except in public
rooms open to everybody.... I have received a great many morning visits,
and one or two invitations to evening parties, but I do not, of course,
like to accept civilities which I have no means of reciprocating, and so
I have as little to expect in the way of social recreation as I think
anybody living in a large town can have. So much for your inquiries
about my social resources in this country. Had I a house of my own in
Philadelphia, I should not at all despair of gradually collecting about
me a society that would satisfy me perfectly well; but as it is, or
rather as I am, the thing is entirely out of the question.

Of the discomfort and disorder of our mode of life I cannot easily give
you a notion, for you know nothing of the sort, and, until now, neither
did I. The absence of decent regularity in our habits, and the
slovenliness of our whole existence, is peculiarly trying to me, who
have a morbid love of order, system, and regularity, and a positive
delight in the decencies and elegancies of civilized life.

God bless you, dear.

Your affectionate