To Mrs. Anna Loring Dresel.
Wayland, February 13, 1866.
It takes Germans to make pictures of real, all-alive children, because they are an honest, child-like nation.
The French make graceful puppets and fashionable dolls.
I have laughed and laughed over that little book, and I dare say the sight of it will have a cheering influence all the year through, whenever I am inclined to be sad. It will be like having a play with children, with the great advantage of putting them away when I like.
The literary portion of it is not above my comprehension, with the exception of three or four words which I suppose to be baby lingo.
I thank your dear mother very much for the beautiful statuette.
The more I look at it, the more I am impressed with the genius indicated by the conception and execution of the group.
That craving for beauty lies too deep in my nature ever to be uprooted.
Speaking of beauty, I wish you could have seen our great elm-tree, one morning, when a cold night had completely incrusted it with the frozen vapor of the preceding warm day. Such great branches of pearls and diamonds lifted up high in the air, with the darkest and clearest blue sky for a back-ground.
I am a great admirer of winter scenery, but never in my life have I seen anything so beautiful as that.
I shouted again and again, and I would have run two miles to have caught a poet to come and shout with me. David admired it greatly, and made divers superb comparisons in a quiet, philosophic way, but I could n't get him up to the shouting point. 