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 274 know of. I have no consolation to offer beyond the expression of my sincere sympathy,—an oblation that I need nearly as much as you do. It will doubtless occur to you, without your being reminded of it, that you have been wonderfully passed by the hand of fate during the whole course of your married life, amounting to about forty-five years, I think. When you think of the few, the very few, who have carried their cup of happiness over the rough paths of life for such a time with so little loss, you may be surprised into self-gratulation rather than be weighed down by this calamity, great as I feel it to be on you and on myself. You are wonderfully blessed in your children. Do you know any one with whom you would exchange, maternal ties being severed, and you free to choose? Take me from the list, and do you know another? Verily, no! It becomes you, then, to accept this visitation of Providence without a murmur, or the appearance of one. Mourn we must, and may, and be forgiven.

"For myself, I feel like some hoary obelisk, with a circle of desolation steadily widening, but few, if any, of the contemporaries of my early manhood surviving. Not one remains, I think. ...

"You have no plans at present, I suppose. Should you elect, at any future time, to return to this State, you will remember that my door, equally with that of your children, will be open to you." . ..

, 13th August, 1878.

"That you and Ida are quite able to take care of yourselves I entertain no doubt, but still it does me good to find you asserting the fact with so much boldness. Of all the principles developed by the late war, I think the capability of our Southern women to take care of themselves by no means the least important. With ten to twelve years of nominal peace, however, the necessity for exemplifying that principle might be supposed to be at an end; but so long as such men as Governor —— have it in their power to control and