[Lydia] Maria [Child] ALS to Louisa Loring, August 14, 1843

New York Aug. 14th 1843

Dear Louise,

I thank you very cordially for your kind
invitation to come to West Beach. I should enjoy a visit
there better than to any other spot. But stay-at-home ed
-ness grows upon me every year. You have for so many
years had plenty to wait upon you, that you can hardly
realize how much there is to when one cuts, makes,
and mends everything, and has no one to mend a stocking,
dust a chair, or sweep a carpet; and has their own board
and clothing to earn beside. Nor can you easily imagine
how indifferent one becomes to society and amusements,
after fourteen years of uninterupted adverse fortune,
(with the constantly increasing conviction that the cause
is incurable.) The prosperous know not how pale life
becomes under such circumstances, nor how the inclina-
-tion for repose and seclusion strengthens with each
discouraging year. I rarely go out of my room, except
when impelled by the necessity for exercise and air.
My days are very peaceful and contented. My little museum
of shells and mosses, and plaster-casts, and engravings,
supply the place of society, while they never retain me by

{written perpendicularly in the left margin}

Love to dear Ellis, and Anna, and believe me ever most gratefully and affectionately yrs, Maria.

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