LETTEE OF 



PROFESSOR HENRY, 



REFERRED TO IX THE FOREGOING ADDRESS. 



Smithsonian Institution, April 12, 1878. 



My Dear Mr. Patterson: We have been expecting to see 

 you, from day t<> day, for two weeks past, thinking that you would 

 be called to Washington to give some information as to the future 

 of our finances and the possibility of resuming specie payment. 



I commenced, on two occasions, to write to you, but found so 

 much difficulty in the use of my hand, in the way of holding a 

 pen, that I gave up the attempt. 



The doctors say that I am gradually getting better. Dr. 

 Mitchell gave me a visit on his going South and on his return. 

 His report was favorable, but I still sutler a good deal from oppres- 

 sion in breathing. 



1 have learned with pleasure that and yourself intend to 



go to Europe this summer. Travel is the most agreeable way of 

 obtaining cosmopolitan knowledge, and it is probable that events 

 of great importance will transpire in the East within a few months. 

 You will have subjects of interest to occupy your attention. 



I have also learned that — - — is to be married next month; and 

 we shall be happy to receive a visit from him and his bride, when 

 they go upon their wedding tour. 



We live in a universe of change: nothing remains the same 

 from one moment to another, and each moment of recorded time 

 has its separate history. We are carried on by the ever-changing 

 events in the line of our destiny, and at the end of tin. 1 year we are 

 always at a considerable distance from the point of its beginning. 

 How short the space between the two cardinal points of an earthly 

 career! — the point of birth and that of death; and yet what a 

 universe of wonders is presented to us in our rapid flight through 



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