[10] cultivating charity with all men. My wife is rather more an invalid than when you left us, but loves you yet, and sends her affectionate regards. May the Lord preserve you, and bring you back in safety in His own good time!Judge Story wrote, Aug. 11, 1838:—
I have received all your letters, and have devoured them with unspeakable delight. All the family have heard them read aloud, and all join in their expressions of pleasure. You are now exactly where I should wish you to be, among the educated, the literary, the noble, and, though last not least, the learned of England, of good old England, our motherland,—God bless her! Your sketches of the Bar and Bench are deeply interesting to me, and so full that I think I can see them in my mind's eye. I must return my thanks to Mr. Justice Vaughan for his kindness to you; it has gratified me beyond measure, not merely as a proof of his liberal friendship, but of his acuteness and tact in the discovery of character. It is a just homage to your own merits. Your Old Bailey speech was capital, and hit by stating sound truths in the right way. Oh, for the coronation! the coronation! and you in your Court-dress! We all shouted hurrah! and Mrs. Story was so gratified by your letter, that she almost determined to write to thank you for it. I do it now as her proxy. . . . I envy you all your literary talk and literary friends, but still more your judicial friends of the Bar and Bench. What you state of their rank in the profession is exactly what I had supposed, either from reading the Reports, or from rumors abroad.1Again, Jan. 16, 1839:—
Your sketches of the judges have been deeply interesting to me; and I look for the residue of the portraits with increased curiosity. I am truly glad to find that I had not greatly mistaken the relative rank and character of them. . . . How I should have rejoiced to be with you in your travels through England on the summer Circuit, and in your delightful visits to Lord Brougham, Lord Wharncliffe, Earl Fitzwilliam, and the Earl of Leicester! Oh, for a month at Holkham, among the books and manuscripts of Lord Coke! What a treat to gaze upon the books handled by so eminent a man, three centuries ago!
