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Bashamville, near Columbia, So. Carolina.
My Dear Friend,
I received you last the week before I left home, and I have waited for [underline]quiet[/underline] before writing you again. I have regarded it as a task to write even to James since I came here. Agnes has the same feeling. It is a sort of stupor that we are unwilling to wake from, to find ourselves [underline]motherless[/underline] and [underline]homeless[/underline]. We seem to have no object in life, nothing to live for, "to have come", as Matthew says of himself, "to the natural end of life." We [underline]know[/underline] we shall not always feel so, but we do not see where the change will come from. If the hot weather when it shall come brings a favorable change in Matthew's health, I think then there will come a change in our spirits.
It is a week since I wrote what is above, but as it is still true I commence again below it. - How much I have thought of you since I came here, and how much we talk about you. How many incidents are treasued for your [underline]ear[/underline], not your [underline]eyes[/underline]. If our Lord prospers us and sends us [underline]comfortably[/underline] home next summer, as I pray he will, how many things we shall have to say, and yet no, for we shall only
repeat what we have always said, only with double stress and with a [horror?]! as if we had an experience in Tophet to relate. I do wrong, and [underline]contrary[/underline] to [underline]instructions[/underline], in saying this much, if it was known here we should, as Agnes says "be carried off on a stick." If Agnes were to see this my letter would share the fate of one I wrote the other week that assisted at an "auto da fe." - I wish I had written earlier so as to have heard from you. We are anxious to hear of Mrs Robinson, to know if her [underline]mis[/underline]fortune was really good fortune. If it should work a cure for her it would seem a most remarkable thing. We wish very much to hear from you. Now that we are quietly settled here the distance that separates us from you doesnt seem so great, so that I am hopeful of seeing you again soon, at least as soon as if we were still living in Hoosick. I had a letter from Home this evening, from our friend Mrs Ball. Father is getting on very well and is in good health. He is of course a very solitary old man, but he is no doubt more comfortable than he could be under any other circumstances, now that Mother is gone. When I miss her so much & regret her so much [underline[he[/underline] must be very unhappy.
Barhamville near Columbia, So. Ca. July 28th. 1854 -
My Dear Friend,
It is a long time since James wrote us that you were enquiring for us, and enclosed your note to him. I meant then to write you at once, and did after my usual fashion [underline]date[/underline] several sheets to you. But all sorts of things have prevented me, tho' I might any time have dropped you just a line to set your mind at rest about us, but I supposed James had done that, and I had a good deal to say when I shoud write. We had first an epidemic here malignant dysentary which broke up the school a month before the close of the term, one pupil died, two just escaped death, and lay sick here a long time, and were both finally carried off on beds. Then came preparations for the departure of the family for the North to spend the summer, Agnes and I sewed day and night to get them ready. When they were gone then came hot weather with its [underline]unutterable discomfort[/underline] to Agnes, and making me [underline]sick[/underline]. There are only three young ladies here through vacation, and the two Spanish young men, [Panaga?] who visited
[in left margin:]
Do not dear friend forget to have your Daguerreotype taken for me if you have strength, and save it till I come, I have set my heart on it. Dearest love, Jeanette Gordon.
at your house, and an acquaintance of his, both music teachers. Dr. Marks comes and goes, the family are still at the North, so the solitude and the heat depress our spirits more than tongue can tell, even Agnes yields to it. Mr. Wigfall, the chaplain, who is very much our friend - particularly Agnes's - is gone just now with his family into another part of the state. Mr. Miller who is so much our friend, and who was so kind to Matthew, accompanied him home &c., left at the close of the term, not intending to return again, we have lost so much in him. His health obliged him to leave. Our teacher of Drawing who was spending the vacation here, lost his health and left a fortnight since, in him we have had a [underline]double[/underline] loss, a dear friend to us both, and to me the loss of a master in Drawing who was carrying me straight on to perfection, I think; he was a master of the Art, and a young man of remarkable genius. I often thought of Rowland when I was in my class, and wished he could have the benefit of such teaching. Agnes and I are full of regret at this loss, we counted so much on my being able to teach it by another year. So goes the world in great as well as small affairs. - I am very much inclined just now to think that I
shall go North yet this summer. I would like to go the first week in Oct. just before the opening of the term, but Agnes says no, I cannot go from the heat of a summer here to the stormy autumn at home. I would be willing to risk it, for I am deathly sick of the South, and a Southern climate. Agnes says now very decidedly that we will not spend another summer here, and I say if I am here another [underline]winter[/underline] I'm pretty sure it will be the last, still I feel that I may be very glad to be able to spin out life yet by coming south winters, or worse, may not be able to do it. - Evening of the 29th. - How delightful must the home at Ferrisburg be tonight, with its large airy rooms, and this little moon looking in. But how is the gentle invalid? I can never think of her sick at home, I only see her going about the house making sunshine with her smiles, and ministering to every one's comfort. We are anxious to hear how she is. James tells us that Ann is still at home, I am glad of that. How much there is I long to hear of your affairs, and tell of ours. I wonder if you keep up your interest in Spiritualism? Much as I thought about it I neglected to write [of it?]. I was obliged to wash my hands of it,
