Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

My dear Aunt Lucia,—Pray do not be alarmed on receiving this letter for fear that you must answer it. I have not hoped such a favor, but am content, however much I should be delighted to hear from you, to write you occasionally without the hopes of an answer, thinking & knowing you would be as happy to receive a letter from me as any of my dear friends. I received a very entertaining letter from Anne a few days since. Henry says ‘Anne's letters have some pith to them.’ Pray urge her to write us often, & I shall take just as much interest in hearing about her family affairs as if I was in Brunswick.

And so you have made a visit in Boston, & have been upon railroads, to balloon ascensions, theatres & I know not what. After such a quiet life as you have passed for several years, it must be quite a pleasant little incident, & I know that you must have enjoyed your visit much. But, after all, do you not think that the pleasure of travelling is greatest when it has been all passed, & you are seated once more in your quiet home,—& retrace in imagination your wanderings? It must be so—I think—then you remember only what is agreeable, & the thousand little inconveniences, one must suffer in travelling, are forgotten.