326 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



much. I fear that my humor for the outside world grows less with added 

 years. ... I expect to close up everything here so that there will be no 

 need of repeating the journey. 



MADISON, WISCONSIN, April 18, 1883. 



The appointment at Helena, Montana [the occasion of this visit was to 

 attend a mining suit], is postponed, so I spent the day here to complete 

 my task. I hope to start back about the fifth. Be sure I shall make good 

 fight with space and time. The people here have been most kind. Yet with 

 all my skill in dodging I have had to make three speeches and have been kept 

 in a whirl. Fortunately two days of silence are coming and of them I shall 

 make good use. 



CAMBRIDGE, Thursday, , 1883. 



The train (I came by way of Rutland, Vermont) was as usual three hours 

 late. I dined in the Vermont fashion, on a wet-flannel sandwich and a piece 

 of white-pine pie, all out of a brown-paper parcel. I have supped on some 

 bad ice-cream and a sort of degraded ginger-snaps (neither ginger nor snap). 

 You will know that I am well when I tell you I am none the worse for it all. 

 House seems all right. Cambridge, by contrast, as still as a mountain-top. 



STAUNTON, VIRGINIA, June 19, 1883. 



I have had two red-hot days in the woods and am over the worst part of 

 my task. I go to-day with Hotchkiss to a place called Roanoke to see some 

 iron properties for future consideration. ... I have found the woods very 

 restful despite the heat and bad food. If you were here I would gladly stay 

 all the summer. I am satisfied that in a camp one could have perfect summer 

 conditions in the mountains. 



CAMBRIDGE, Sunday, July, 1883. 



I got back here last night in time for the worst continuous cat serenade 

 I have ever heard. Summer war begins. I shall hope to extinguish the spe- 

 cies. ... I wish you were here, Cambridge never seemed so pleasant, 

 almost cold and, cats excepted, quiet. ... I am looking forward to some 

 sort of rest with great longing, for in fact I am very tired. I have my doubts 

 about finding it at Saratoga. If not there we will go elsewhere. 



CAMBRIDGE, July 15, 1883. 



... I shall have to stop over a day at the Livingstone mine. ... I 

 mind your caution not to rush things : an inward monitor, too, tells me to go 

 slowly that I may go surely. ... I am more than ever convinced that a 

 change of house is desirable. It is lonesome here. I dined last evening at 

 M 's. They seem as happy as two old parroquets. . . . 



