least they are not turning their backs on their own people. Like Papa, he means, and so many others.”
“I wrote to David and asked him why he can’t study medicine here next year. But he doesn’t want to. He says he cannot live in a place where human beings treat other human beings so cruelly.
“One would think that people here sat around thinking up ways to torture their servants! Aunt Emma and Papa are always so kind. They gave a wedding for the cook’s daughter last month, with a white veil and a big cake. All the people in the house are very fond of them. They buy beautiful new clothes forMaxim and Chanute, who are always joking with each other. If they were so miserably treated, would they always be joking?
“I asked Fanny whether she was happy and she said she certainly was. She likes the dances in New Orleans. You know, colored people love to dance, she said. And she was so pleased with the hat Aunt Emma gave her for Easter. I asked her whether there was any place she would rather be and she was quite alarmed. ‘You’re not going to send me away?’ she asked. ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I am going to teach you to read.’ I go over my own lessons with her on the upper piazza after school. She is learning quickly, she is very smart, I think.”
“I got a letter from David in which he says he met Gabriel Carvalho.
New York, November, 1841
Dearest Sister,
I do not know why you have been in my mind more than ever today. I am sitting here in front of my lamp and a pile of textbooks, three big, fat ones, to be exact, and I cannot open them without first writing this to you.
Oh, I do know why you’ve haunted me all day! Last night I met Gabriel Carvalho—we don’t see each other much—the law school and the medical school are on different planets—but when we do, it’s always so good. We have some gay times in New York, theater, dancing, interesting people. Last night we went visiting on Washington Square. That’s where “old” New York lives, very elegant, a little bit like your Place d’Armes, but not much. The houses all have “stoops,” a highflight of steps up to the front door. Gas lights, of course, and fires in every fireplace—it’s terribly cold here, the way it was in Europe. Can you still remember how we shivered?
Anyway—I’m wandering, it’s past midnight and my half-sleepy thoughts come crowding—anyway, there was a young girl in the house who looked so much like you, or the way I imagine you must look now that you’re almost fourteen, and it’s because of seeing her that I’ve been missing you all day. Gabriel, too, remarked on the resemblance. I was surprised that he remembered you so clearly after all this time, but he did, and we talked about the day Gretel fell overboard and how you cried and thanked him so prettily.
Sometimes it seems as if all that was yesterday, so I must remind myself that you are no longer that eager little girl. I suppose they will soon be getting you ready for marriage. Whoever the man may be, I hope he will be exactly right for you, a kind man with the right thoughts.
You will at once interpret that as meaning the “right politics,” I’m sure, but believe me, I am realistic enough to know that would be expecting too much, living as you do, where you are. So I’ll merely hope you will love each other well, and let it go at that.
As to politics, you would be astounded—at least I always am, although I should be used to things here by now—at the number of people who talk like southern planters and have never been in the South at all. One finds them mostly among the Washington Square and the stock market crowd. In the medical school there’s a mixture of opinions, ranging all the way to fiery New Englandabolitionism, with which, you must know, I find myself most at home.
Funny thing—when I’m with Gabriel, I hold my tongue about politics most of the time, and he does the same, because we don’t want anything to come between
“I wrote to David and asked him why he can’t study medicine here next year. But he doesn’t want to. He says he cannot live in a place where human beings treat other human beings so cruelly.
“One would think that people here sat around thinking up ways to torture their servants! Aunt Emma and Papa are always so kind. They gave a wedding for the cook’s daughter last month, with a white veil and a big cake. All the people in the house are very fond of them. They buy beautiful new clothes forMaxim and Chanute, who are always joking with each other. If they were so miserably treated, would they always be joking?
“I asked Fanny whether she was happy and she said she certainly was. She likes the dances in New Orleans. You know, colored people love to dance, she said. And she was so pleased with the hat Aunt Emma gave her for Easter. I asked her whether there was any place she would rather be and she was quite alarmed. ‘You’re not going to send me away?’ she asked. ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I am going to teach you to read.’ I go over my own lessons with her on the upper piazza after school. She is learning quickly, she is very smart, I think.”
“I got a letter from David in which he says he met Gabriel Carvalho.
New York, November, 1841
Dearest Sister,
I do not know why you have been in my mind more than ever today. I am sitting here in front of my lamp and a pile of textbooks, three big, fat ones, to be exact, and I cannot open them without first writing this to you.
Oh, I do know why you’ve haunted me all day! Last night I met Gabriel Carvalho—we don’t see each other much—the law school and the medical school are on different planets—but when we do, it’s always so good. We have some gay times in New York, theater, dancing, interesting people. Last night we went visiting on Washington Square. That’s where “old” New York lives, very elegant, a little bit like your Place d’Armes, but not much. The houses all have “stoops,” a highflight of steps up to the front door. Gas lights, of course, and fires in every fireplace—it’s terribly cold here, the way it was in Europe. Can you still remember how we shivered?
Anyway—I’m wandering, it’s past midnight and my half-sleepy thoughts come crowding—anyway, there was a young girl in the house who looked so much like you, or the way I imagine you must look now that you’re almost fourteen, and it’s because of seeing her that I’ve been missing you all day. Gabriel, too, remarked on the resemblance. I was surprised that he remembered you so clearly after all this time, but he did, and we talked about the day Gretel fell overboard and how you cried and thanked him so prettily.
Sometimes it seems as if all that was yesterday, so I must remind myself that you are no longer that eager little girl. I suppose they will soon be getting you ready for marriage. Whoever the man may be, I hope he will be exactly right for you, a kind man with the right thoughts.
You will at once interpret that as meaning the “right politics,” I’m sure, but believe me, I am realistic enough to know that would be expecting too much, living as you do, where you are. So I’ll merely hope you will love each other well, and let it go at that.
As to politics, you would be astounded—at least I always am, although I should be used to things here by now—at the number of people who talk like southern planters and have never been in the South at all. One finds them mostly among the Washington Square and the stock market crowd. In the medical school there’s a mixture of opinions, ranging all the way to fiery New Englandabolitionism, with which, you must know, I find myself most at home.
Funny thing—when I’m with Gabriel, I hold my tongue about politics most of the time, and he does the same, because we don’t want anything to come between
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