Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 1

[183]

To George S. Hillard.

Quebec, Sept. 7, 1836.

my dear Hillard,—After long wanderings, I have at length arrived at this great castle. Never till now, wearied with travel and the state of perpetual unrest in which I have been kept, did I perceive the full weight of the curse upon the Wandering Jew. Alas, too, for this sinner, he had no steamboats to facilitate his movements, and no hotels to relieve the natural rigors of travel. I long for some of the rest afforded by long days, and late nights, of study.

You can have no idea of Quebec. If I thought Montreal was foreign, I think Quebec is more so. The upper part of the city, which is the court end, is entirely surrounded by a massive wall, over which cannons are bristling, and on which mortars are squatting in silent passiveness.

The citadel is an impregnable place of about five acres; but I will not weary you or myself by a description, for you may read many more faithful than I can pen in my present haste. Soldiers meet you at every turn.

Sept. 8. I have just returned from a visit to the Falls of Montmorency, nine miles from Quebec, a slender and rather beautiful single fall of water, said to be two hundred and forty feet high; but, to the visitor of Trenton and Niagara, Montmorency seems like a mill-dam. And yet I am glad to have seen it, for it has enlarged my standard of comparison of Nature's works, and has satisfied a curiosity which I can date back to the time when I first studied geography under a woman's tuition. The euphony of the name has perhaps lent some charm to the falling waters.

I have presented Judge Story's letter to Judge Sewall,¹ who lives about three miles from the city in a beautiful country seat, who treated me very civilly. I am engaged to dine with him en famille to-morrow. He is a very polite and sensible old gentleman. His conversation was very agreeable.

When I shall arrive at Boston I can hardly tell,—perhaps next Saturday. Who knows but I may be finally baffled, and run the race of Peter Rugg?² That I am ‘the missing man’ you are, I presume, ready to cry out.

I hope you have had comfortable weather; most delightful for travelling we have had, but cold. Perhaps here on the frozen loins of the North, the weather, herald of icy winters, has appeared sooner than with us, nearer the sun as we are. Remember me to my friends. I rejoice with you in the Harvard celebration of to-day, and shall drink a glass of wine to you and old Harvard and Judge Story at my dinner, the bell for which will soon strike.

Yours,

C. S.