Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

88 LETTERS.
TO DAVID LEE CHILD.
WxAYLAND, January 7, 1857.
When will my dear good David comne? I stayed
nine days in Boston, AMedford, and Ccambridge, and
returned here New Year's Day. I had a variety of
experiences, nearly all of them pleasant; but they
are better to tell than to write. I shall have a great
budget to open when you come. I received a letter
and a Berkshire paper from you.
Charles Sumner called to see me and brought me
his photograph. We talked together two hours, and
I never received such an impression of holiness from
mortal manl. Not an ungentle word did he utter concerning Brooks or any of the political enemies who
have been slandering and insulting him for years.
He only regretted the existence of a vicious institution which inevitably barbarized those who grew up
under its influence.
Henry Wilson came into the anti-slavery fair, and
I talked with him an hour or so. He told me I could
form no idea of the state of things in Washington. As
he passes through the streets in the evening, he says
the air is filled with yells and curses from the oyster
shops and gambling saloons, the burden of which is
all manner of threatened violence to Seward and Sumner and Wilson and Burlingame. While he was
making his last speech, the Southern members tried
to insult him in every way. One of them actually
brandished his cane as if about to strike him, but he
ignored the presence of him and his cane, and went
on with his speech. IHe says he never leaves his room
to go into the Senate without thinking whether he has
left everything arranged as he should wish if he were
never to return to it alive.