Senate Chamber March 7^th 1849
My Dearest Frances,
I have only just now received your recent
letter by which I learn with much regret that your indis-
position still continues. If the weather is as dismal
at Auburn as here you will hardly get well in some
days. I am too far off to minister medicine or even com-
fort. But I feel perfectly now that there is no cause for the
sadness which the illness brings with it.
There is a world of care and strife a-
round me, and I need your kind and cheering letters, to
console myself with. They would be only one out of a thousand –
full of selfishness are all that thousand ^but yours^ . It is like the
opening of the Whig Administration at Albany so many years
ago.
The crowd thins out but the most important office
seekers remain. One insists on driving me, and another
has offered to employ me as Counsel.
Since Monday I have seen none of the fashion-
able world. We are in Executive session and I turn from
the dull debate around me to speak with you although
I have nothing to say.
I think the question of General Shields’s election is
likely to keep us here all next week.

You do not tell me how my little boy and my little
girl are. They promised to write to me immediately
but they have forgotten me.
Your own Henry
Henry March 7
1849