[Paris—Sunday, 18 December 1859]
Sunday 18th Lissie does not come but instead a note. It is a sad day to us. We hear that Brown was executed on the 2d of December. I wept strong hot tears, not for him but for our country. The wound it makes in my heart is as deep as the love I bear her. Our lives have fallen in perilous times. May Heaven give us strength each to act bravely and avert the terrors of war! I believed and hoped it could not, would not be. May we wipe out this national sin.
This has been a sadly eventful week. The news of Washington Irving’s death and of DeQuincey’s reached us on two successive days and on the third—this last brave sacrifice.
