for accommodation, or even common comfort, my
habitation and mode of life in our Philadelphia boarding-house have been
so far removed from any ideas of comfort or even decency that I ever
entertained, that the whitewashed walls, bare rooms, and tumble-down
verandas of my present residence are but little more so.... I suppose
there was something to like in Mr. Webster's speech, since you are
surprised at my not liking it; but what was there to like? The one he
delivered on the laying of the foundation-stone of the monument (on
Bunker's Hill, near Boston) pleased me very much indeed; I thought some
parts of it very fine. But the last one displeased me utterly.... Pray
send me word all about that place by the sea-side, with the wonderful
name of "Quoge." My own belief is that the final "e" you tack on to it
is an affected abbreviation for the sake of refinement, and that it is,
by name and nature, really "Quagmire."

Believe me always
Yours truly,
F. A. B.

YELLOW SPRINGS, July 12th, 1843.
DEAR GRANNY,

The intelligence contained in your letter [of the second marriage of the
Rev. Frederick Sullivan, whose first wife was Lady Dacre's only child]
gave me for an instant a painful shock, but before I had ended it that
feeling had given place to the conviction that the contemplated change
at the vicarage was probably for the happiness and advantage of all
concerned. The tone of B----'s letter satisfied me, and for her and her
sister's feeling upon the subject I was chiefly anxious. About you, my
dearest Granny, I was not so solicitous; however deep your sentiment
about the circumstance may be, you have lived long and suffered much,
and have learned to accept sorrow wisely, let it come in what shape it
will. The impatience of youth renders suffering very terrible to it; and
the eager desire for happiness which belongs to the beginning of life
makes sorrow appear like some unnatural accident (almost a personal
injury), a sort of horrid surprise, instead of the all but daily
business, and part of the daily bread of existence, as one grows by
degrees to find that it is.

His daughter's feeling about Mr. Sullivan's marriage being what it is,
the marriage itself appears to me wise and well; and I have no doubt
that it will bring a blessing to the home at the vicarage and its