CONCORD, May 3, 1861.
MR. BLAKE,--I am still as much an invalid as when you and Brown were
here, if not more of one, and at this rate there is danger that the
cold weather may come again, before I get over my bronchitis. The
doctor accordingly tells me that I must "clear out" to the West
Indies, or elsewhere,--he does not seem to care much where. But I
decide against the West Indies, on account of their muggy heat in the
summer, and the South of Europe, on account of the expense of time and
money, and have at last concluded that it will be most expedient for
me to try the air of Minnesota, say somewhere about St. Paul's. I am
only waiting to be well enough to start. Hope to get off within a week
or ten days.
The inland air may help me at once, or it may not. At any rate, I am
so much of an invalid that I shall have to study my comfort in
traveling to a remarkable degree,--stopping to rest, etc., etc., if
need be. I think to get a through ticket to Chicago, with liberty to
stop frequently on the way, making my first stop of consequence at
Niagara Falls, several days or a week, at a private boarding-house;
then a night or day at Detroit; and as much at Chicago as my health
may require. At Chicago I can decide at what point (Fulton, Dunleith,
or another) to strike the Mississippi, and take a boat to St. Paul's.
I trust to find a private boarding-house in one or various agreeable
places in that region, and spend my time there. I expect, and shall be
prepared, to be gone three months; and I would like to return by a
different route,--perhaps Mackinaw and Montreal.
I have thought of finding a companion, of course, yet not seriously,
because I had no right to offer myself as a companion to anybody,
having such a peculiarly private and all-absorbing but miserable
business as _my_ health, and not altogether _his_, to attend to,
causing me to stop here and go there, etc., etc., unaccountably.
Nevertheless, I have just now decided to let you know of my intention,
thinking it barely possible that you might like to make a part or the
whole of this journey at the same time, and that perhaps your own
health may be such as to be benefited by it.
Pray let me know if such a statement offers any temptations to you. I
write in great haste for the mail, and must omit all the moral.