“
[
559]
this is my fate.
Hard! very hard!
I long to speak!”
And again, March 17, 1858: “I would give one year of life for one week now in which to expose this enormous villany,” --the Lecompton constitution.
Leaving
Washington December 20, 1857, he was absent the greater part of the time for five months, coming to the capital several times at the summons of his colleague to vote on questions concerning
Kansas, and leaving as soon as a vote was reached.
When absent from
Washington he was in
Philadelphia with
Mr. Furness, at the
Brevoort House in New York, at his home in
Boston, or at
Longfellow's in
Cambridge.
At this time he “turned to engravings for employment and pastime.”
His interest in them hitherto had been general, but it now became almost a passion.
He availed himself of such as were accessible in
Washington; private collections in
Philadelphia,
New York,
Boston, and
Cambridge were opened to him; he passed days in the
Astor Library ;
1 but the richest treasures of the kind he found in the library of Harvard College, where under the guidance of
Dr. Louis Thies he went through the remarkable
Gray collection.
He was so intense in this pursuit that he wearied out any one who joined him in it.
Longfellow wrote in his diary, Jan. 21, 1858:--
We again passed the morning with the engravings, and again brought Sumner and Thies home to dinner, which they left midway to go back to the portfolios.
Sumner is insatiable.
He will be the death of Thies, who is ill. For my part, I cannot take in so much at once; it fatigues my brain and body.
Again, January 26:--
Sumner comes to dinner.
He was last night at our neighbor C.'s, looking over his engravings; and this morning at Thies's house, engaged on his private collection.
Verily, he goes thoroughly through the work.
Sumner began at this time to collect engravings for himself,--those now preserved in the
Boston Art Museum.
To
Dr. Howe he wrote, March 17: “I wish you would be good enough to send to
Louis Thies, of
Cambridge, a check for one ZZZZ
2 ”
