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Date
5-22-1862
Keywords
letter, McIlvaine, Bedell
Recommended Citation
McIlvaine, Charles Pettit, "Letter to Bishop Bedell" (1862). Charles Pettit McIlvaine Letters. 318.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/mcilvaine_letters/318
Transcript
London May 22, 1862
My dear Bishop,
On getting to Cologne last Monday the 19th I received your welcome letter from Cleveland I had previously written you that I had concluded to sail in the first week of July. Notwithstanding the kind expressions of your letter about my staying longer * not returning during the heat of summer, I have since concluded to take the packet of the [?] [Lune], the Alma from [?] of June 4th in order that I may attend the Commencement & Convention. That of the following week would make it difficult to get there in time. My daughters & I will stop on our way to Cincinnati going out by Pittsburgh.
Expecting to see you or soon after this will reach you I need not write about any matters in your letter, except that concerning Grace Ch. Cleveland. I am very much gratified with Mr [Cater’s] spirit & will be quite ready to [?] it, as a [?] me. So far as I understand your account of what is proposed to do with the [corp], I make no objection to it, though my private opinion is against such things. But had it been in such a place originally, I should have made no objection. I am not so sure that I understand what is proposed as to the [?]. I should much prefer that all the panels be open, but if it be desired to have one enclosed or that it may have the letters I.N.D. I hope it will be but once.
[?] shall rejoice to get home again. Great as have been the [?] & kindness to us here, England never seemed less attractive to me, as during these troubles of our beloved country.
I had written the above before receiving your letter by the [?] which brought a second from Mr. M. on the subject of our time of departure, unless after she had heard your news & indicating cheerful concurrence. I am exceedingly obliged to you for your kind consideration of my health. But my daughters entirely agree with me that we had better act as mentioned above. The great [?] is the Convention. I could not find it in my heart to stay till September * my friends would not allow me. To stay as we had intended late 1st of July would be in gain as to hot weather, & would cause [me] to lose the Conv. My friends here on all attentiveness, & then kind requests & urgencies that I will spend two with them, can pass in [?]. But I feel a call to go home. My conscience will be better satisfied. The Bp. of [?] is expecting me to preach at his ordination in June, but I must disappoint him. [?] [?] goes by the Penn tomorrow, & I shall try to get this * those letters to her at Queenston or else it will go in the usual way. I have seen nothing in him but what I liked & we have led a great deal of pleasing [?]. His views are [modest] & my own about the [?] of the country. This good cause, [?] acquaintance with no affairs & history plain unpretending & get dignified [?], great diligence & [?] have enabled him to be very useful here. He has been rec’d much in the highest circles & very much [?] to & confided in. We have workers in perfect harmony. But Mr. Weed cannot [write] speech & once I had to do it for him.
I expect to reach N.Y. about the 15th. The Alma is a fast ship. I shall spend a day or two there, one in Phil[adelphia], take Washington to course my way, & expect to reach Gambier for the Commencement. I will thank you to have a letter awaiting me, care of B.R. McIlvaine, N.York, saying what day the Commencement is, as I have forgotten the arrangements [?] at the last Convention. I will thank you also to write Dr. Brown & ask him to send me to the same address, the usual annual ticket or the Sandusky Mansfield & Newark Road, unless it has been already sent, & if he in consideration of our [?] can get a special one also for the one trip [?] my daughters I will be glad. I write in in haste as the change of plans causes much work to get ready.
Yours very Affectionately,
C. P. Mc.
Of course, I need not now write about the [?] [?] your last.