But
yesterday, when he went to Boston and found out this, the lion was
roused in him. He says it is a cowardly attack upon his character,
done in such secrecy; and that he shall use his pen now in a way he
never has done, and expose the lie, addressing the public. Your child,
SOPHIA.
June 17.
MY BLESSED MOTHER,--Your most welcome and beautiful letter of the 11th
I very gladly received. You take our reverse of fortune in the way I
hoped you would. I feel "beyond the utmost scope and vision of
calamity" (as Pericles said to Aspasia), while my husband satisfies my
highest ideal, and while the graces of heaven fill the hearts of my
children. Everything else is very external. This is the immortal life
which makes flowers of asphodel bloom in my path, and no rude step can
crush them. I exult in my husband. He stands upon a table-land of
high behavior which is far above these mean and false proceedings,
with which a party of intriguers are now concerning themselves, and
covering themselves with the hopeless mud of Dante's Inferno. The
more harm they try to do, deeper down they plunge into the mire; and I
doubt if ever in this world some of them will be able to wash their
faces clean again. My husband supposed he was removed because he was a
Democrat (and you know very well how he has always been a Democrat,
not a Locofoco--if that means a lucifer match). Therefore he took it
as a matter of course in the way of politics; though it surprised me,
because General Taylor had pledged himself not to remove any person
for political opinions, but only for dishonesty and inefficiency.
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