MEMOin OF DAXIEL TREADWELL. 475 



For mc, T have but little to look to l)ut to okc out my short remnant in the most comfortable 

 way. I shall now most likely reach the scvcntietli milestone, as it is in ])lain siiiht, and all tliat 

 is beyond that "threescore and ten" is, according to the Psalmist, as translated by Dr. Watts, 

 "sorrow, toil, and pain." Well, I hope not, '• but what must be will be." I am greatly obliged 

 to you for your pressing invitation to us to make you a visit. The truth is, I have been thinking 

 of it, and lioping that Mrs. T. would be well enough to enable us to accomplish it for several 

 months past ; and now, without promising to do it, I lay out, after the hot weather is over, say 

 about the 1st of September, to take the steamer to New York, and, after resting a night or two 

 in the city, go out and have a day or two with you and Mrs. Swcetser. But I will see, and of 

 course write to you again about it wlien the time comes. You see that I have thus far filled my 

 letter all about " I, me, and us." Now for you and Mrs. Sweetser. It gives me great pleasure 

 to see, from the tone of your letter, tliat you are about as happy as one ouglit to expect to be. 

 With good health, a pleasant retirement, and, if witliout great riches, without any pressing anx- 

 iety for being assured the comforts of life, what more, but a philosophical spirit, which you have, 

 can you desire ? Jupiter retgneth, and will take care of all as he must. 



1 hope you will not worry yourself about the war, and wliat is to come out of it. I finished 

 my lamentations for the country mouths, if not years ago. We have been going in political de- 

 moralization and corruption for forty or fifty years, and now the end cometh. Sooner indeed 

 than I expected, but I have always said it could not be very far off. Great communities must 

 have masters other than the people, and we are but going over the old story, — liberty, corrup- 

 tion, anarchy, despotism. We are now passing from the second into the third stage of our 

 progress. You seem to be out of temper with the South, or the Southern demagogues. Rascals, 

 you call them. Perhaps, if a trial were made for showing the greatest number of rascals, we 

 could beat tliem all lioUow. Tliis state of things was, in my mind, brought on bj' the Abolition- 

 ists (and I look upon all, or almost all, the Republicans, here in Massachusetts at least, as 

 Abolitionists in substance) more than by the Carolinians. We threw the first stone at the 

 Constitution. But mad, mad, is the word for both sides, and by this the country is divided, 

 and never to be joined again. Mr. Longfellow is recovering from his severe burns, ])ut 

 Cambridge yet shudders at the thought of the poor lady. 



My very best regards to Mrs. Sweetser, and Mrs. Treadwell's to both of you. I remain 

 ever faithfully yours, 



Daniel Treadwell. 



To Dr. William Sweetser. 



Cambridge, January 25, 1862. 

 My dear old Friend, — I have suffered a great deal for some time from the reproaches of my 

 conscience for having neglected to write to you, and thank you most sincerely for not reproach- 

 ing me for it in your letter that I received yesterday. I could not have blamed you if you had 

 given me a soimd scolding for my mo.st ungrateful neglect. But I assure you that, if I have failed 

 to write, and said to myself to-morrow and to-morrow, I have not failed to think of you very often, 

 and always with the best wishes and hopes for j-our continued life, healtli, and happiness. For 

 you alone are now about the only man " under the wide canopy of heaven," as Homer says, that 

 I think cares much about me, or jjerhaps I ought to say most al)out me. It was therefore a great 

 pleasure to me to find, as I did by your letter, that you are well, and enjoying life in the same 

 quiet way that you were in at our most pleasant visit last autumn. For me and Mrs. Treadwell 

 we have been, since then, in our usual uncertain health. I was much down soon after my return 



