Lovingly
Clara
I thought I couldn’t write any more, but I find it so funny to write with my eyes shut, as if I were playing blindman’s buff, that I think I must do another sheet. I was afraid to commence to tell you how nice I thought your picture gallery was; indeed, I think it was splendid. How could you think of it all? How did you get up your ideas? I laughed till I cried again and again; indeed, I am not sure but that hurt my eyes some. I wish you had told me more about it. I wanted all the particulars. I related it one evening at tea at Madame General de Freystadt’s, and you should have seen the merriment of those German Court ladies—they have a great deal of fun in their heads. They were especially amused at the old hoop and line, as I explained to them our bold President swinging around the circle to gain popularity. Miss Margot has not been initiated into the mystery of your gallery yet, as she is at Lyons with her people, but is expected to return any day now to resume her studies here. I will make her full explanations as soon as she is back. She caricatures me sometimes, to her great amusement. She would not be bad help for you on such an occasion, as she would be in the seventh heaven if she could do it.
No, I didn’t think of the 17th of September as being the day of Lake City. How well I remember that day, and how anxious a day it was, but after all, not unhappy. We thought that we had gained so much; our experiment had not failed and it did not fail in the end; it accomplished just what you say it did. Our dear boy lived to feel that he had done his work and was ready to go; a little life it was, but full and had in it much more than many another of fourscore and ten. I had not heard of Lizzie Learned’s last affliction. Can this be so? Where did Lizzie get such a complication of maladies, and is there anything in the new remedy? I have heard of it. The Grand Duchess asks me about it. Her first maid of honor, Mademoiselle de Sternberg, of whom you must have heard me make mention, is supposed to be dying of a cancer, but she also seems to have a multitude of illnesses. I called on her a few weeks ago. She was a mere skeleton and is too sick now to see any but her nurses.
Does Nancy do the work at home, and are she and Uncle John all there are? I cannot think how it would seem there without—“Bamma”—poor dear, honest, faithful, Christian, guileless Bamma! who worked faithfully up to the last day without complaint and lay down bravely with the harness of life about her, without a murmur.
Do you have much fruit this year? I am out of patience with Europe. I never find fruit here,—it is always a “scarce year,” they say. Indeed, there was none in all the Rhine Valley. Little gnarly apples are two and three cents apiece; prunes, which are only the plums which grow here, dried, are fifty cents a pound, and I have searched the town over without success for a little dried apple. All oranges here are always either sour or bitter. I have nearly forgotten, but it seems to me that we had better fruit arrangements at home. You see by this that I am quite hungry, don’t you, or I shouldn’t write of it. Now I think I have finished for this time. I have let my letter wait two days and my eyes are better.
Ever your Sis
Clara
Returning to Carlsruhe, she continued her oversight of American relief for French destitution by correspondence, though still suffering greatly with her eyes. She passed “some very dull weeks, very green and shady, with exceedingly long nights”; after the acute pain was over, she learned to write with bandaged eyes, and wrote a good deal.
Her friends Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon were in London and were not satisfied to have her in Germany alone. They sent her peremptory orders to be ready to accompany them when they came, as they were presently to come, down the Rhine. She went with them, left Carlsruhe, visited Strassburg on her last tour of inspection, and set out for London by way of Paris. On reaching Paris, they encountered an American family by the name of Taylor, friends of the Sheldons, who had just left London for a tour of Italy and besought Miss Barton to accompany them. Hastily she changed her plans, and, after six weeks’ travel in Italy, she came to London. She had dropped her diary altogether, and her correspondence with her relatives had nearly ceased on account of her impaired eyesight, but in London she wrote the story of her wanderings to her sister Mrs. Vassall. The last page is missing and the letter ends abruptly, leaving her in Venice. The Italian tour was finished, however, and in the early summer she arrived in London.
No. 5 Hewson Street—Wanrey Street
Walworth Road
London, July 5th, 1872
Dearest Sister: