[Lydia Maria Child] ALS to Louisa Loring, October 1844

New York Oct. 1844

Dear Louisa,

Many thanks for your kind letter, though
it was a little bit jealous and unreasonable, in imply-
-ing that I love you and Ellis less than I used to.
I cannot imagine how I could love you better than I do.
But I may as well confess the unsentimental fact, as not;
in my present circumstances, and with my present means,
I do not love anybody well enough to travel about for
them. If by any imperious necessity I should be separa-
-ted from David, and John, and my cozy little parlor,
as I have been from you, and Ellis, and Cottage Place, I should
never go to New York to see them, be the inducement what
it might. David has teased and teased me to go to
Northampton with him; and three of the wealthiest
families there have sent me most cordial and earnest
invitations to come and stay a month with them; but
I did not go, and probably never shall. The world does
not know how busy I am; for the world does not know
half I do. The demands upon me, in one way or another,
are incessant; but I have the satisfaction of knowing

{written perpendicularly in the left margin}

Speaking of sea-mosses, Maria White has sent me a most exquisite set of sea-mosses
beautiful in themselves, and bearing the graceful impress of her fairy touch.

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{written upside-down in the top margin}

I am glad you all like my son. Everybody likes him, except those
who are brought in collision with his energetic abhorence of all
oppression and mean ness. But those who know him intimately can guess
his thousand daily acts of kindness to the despised and poor.

{end upside-down writing}