Dear friend:
This letter is for the family. Poor as it will be, it will have to tell of all I would like to say to you, and for the thousand and one things I would like to tell of London and of the many kindnesses I have received. I had not expected to be here this winter, as you know, and ought not to be. The cold and the damp have developed rheumatism of a very severe type in my lame leg, and I suffer from pain and difficulty in walking… I could, of course, obtain some mitigation of these conditions, but the same reason that compelled my return to London, Mr. P.'s actual failure, has so encroached upon my income—without a prospect of even partial recovery for a long time to come—as to make it almost equally difficult to live either in Switzerland, where, at Schinznach-les-Bains, I could receive so much benefit; or in London, or New York. I wish, as I wished two years ago, that my accident had ended it, and saved all the pain and difficulty of solving a perpetual and insoluble problem… It seems sometimes as if there were only two kinds of people in the world—those who ride over others roughshod, and those who are ridden over. The cruel accident that shattered me on that June day shattered my world. Life since then seems in the nature of a resurrection; every day a special gift, and every pleasant thing an act of Divine Providence. Love to you all. This is about myself. Write soon and tell me all about yourselves.
Lovingly,
J.C.C.
From a Letter to Mrs. Christina J. Higley
LONDON, July—, 1899.
My dear friend:
… It seems as if everything had been taken from me but the friendship, the affection of women; and that manifests itself here as well as at home. God bless them! They have made all the brightness of my life.
Affectionately,
J.C.C.
From a Letter to Mrs. Catherine Young
LONDON, Sept. 3, 1895.