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

58 LETTERS.
and clear; so acute that my sources of pain and
pleasure are increased tenfold. I am a great deal
more alive than I used to be.
I live in the same quiet, secluded way. I am never
seen in public, and the question is sometimes asked,
" Where on earth does she pick up all she tells of
New York in her letters to the'Courier?' for nobody ever sees her." Willis saw my "cap," though,
on one occasion. A bit of lace outside of my head
was as much as I should expect him to see of me. I
suppose you have seen his announcement to the public in what box I sat at Niblo's; a fact doubtless of
great importance to the public, fashionable and literary. If you have seen the paragraph in his paper,
you will know what I mean by the " cap."
TO PROF. CONVERS FRANCIS.
NEW YORK, December 6, 1846.
About once a fortnight I go to a concert, mlusic
being the only outward thing in which I do take much
pleasure. Friend Hopper bears a testimony against
it, because he says it is spiritual brandy which only
serves to intoxicate people.
We had quite a flare-up here about a fugitive slave,
and I wrote the " Courier " an account of it. I have
been much amused at the attacks it has brought on
me from the papers. The pious prints are exceedingly shocked because I called him " a living gospel
of freedom, bound in black." It is so blasphemous
to call a man a gospel! The Democratic papers
accused me of trying to influence the state election
then pending. The fun of it is, that I did not know
there was an election. I could not possibly have told
whether that event takes place in spring or fall. I