my dear Charles,—I write in haste, to give you notice of a plan which has been settled a couple of days, and by which I embark with all my household gods for
Europe, early in June, to be absent three years, or perhaps four.
The immediate cause is
Anna's health.
We had been talking for many months of the possibility of going two or three years hence; but, as
Anna said yesterday, it always seemed so remote and uncertain, that she had never for a moment regarded it as a reality.
But all winter she has failed. . . . . We were, therefore, arranging everything to go to the
South, and the
West, and anywhere for four or five months. . . . .
There was nothing against it [the
European tour] but one or two unfulfilled plans of my own, and the wish to have the children a little older, that they might more profit by it. Such things yielded at once to the state of
Anna's health, especially as it has failed considerably during the last three weeks. We go to live in different places in
Europe, in the quietest and most domestic way,. . . . but to go through as vigorous a course of improvement as we can, by an industrious use of the advantages we may be able to enjoy.