LETTERS TO DR. JOHN GRISCOM. 113 



I cherish the memory of our early and constant friend- 

 ship, and should be very happy, if possible, to make an 

 excursion from Philadelphia to see you for a few hours. I 

 expect to be in that city in the last week of January, prob- 

 ably about the 28th or 29th. And now, my dear friend, 

 once more farewell ; we cannot meet many times more in 

 this world, and I pray God that we may be among the 

 accepted at the great day, and then meet to part no more. 

 With kind salutations to your wife and daughter, I remain, 

 as ever, your affectionate friend, 



B. SILLIMAN. 



I shall be happy to hear from you again. 



TO DR. JOHN GRISCOM. 



NEW HAVEN, January 26, 1852. 



MY DEAR FRIEND, I thank you very cordially for your 

 good, affectionate letter, so full of heart as well as head, and 

 so elegantly and beautifully expressed, withal, as to prove a 

 mind in full vigor, and social and moral faculties in lively 

 action, with no mark of old age but its wisdom. I am ex- 

 ceedingly gratified that my letter was acceptable. Being 

 so condensed a sketch of many events and places, I feared 

 it would stand before you as a dry skeleton, but your kind- 

 ness has clothed it with muscles and integuments. We 

 were indeed highly favored in our long and arduous journey- 

 ings ; and we went in a fortunate season, for Europe, if not 

 approaching a great convulsion, is more, even than when we 

 saw it, bowed down beneath an insupportable military des- 

 potism, rendered far more formidable by the late usurpation ; 

 and who knows whether Americans will now be safe, espe- 

 cially after the despots are informed of the manner in which 

 Kossuth has been received in this country, not only by the 

 people, but by the government. We were for two or three 

 months under Austrian, Neapolitan, and French military 

 despotism in Italy, and were made acquainted with frequent 

 arrests and imprisonments for the most trivial causes or no 



