We have not heard from or of you since I last wrote. No material change here. In fact I should describe my own condition precisely as I did week before last. With practice I gain a little more power of locomotion and am just today venturing to seat & unseat myself. In an emergency I could dress myself &—crutches at bed-head—get up, but still wear a splint and am tightly bandaged from toe to hip, & the knee not in the least better. A stiff knee is a very great inconvenience. I can not sit in a chair or turn over in bed—and the stiff leg is greatly in the way. While necessarily using crutches, I should do very much better if it were off altogether. There has been too much wind & dampness for me to go out much, but whenever it is tolerably pleasant I am toted about on the litter chair.

Mary rather worse—pretty constant sharp or sick headache. Took advice of doctor yesterday—simply ordered to be quiet & take it easy. Only wants strength. Children very well & getting on most satisfactorily with their two hours’ schooling from Miss Centayne, whom I find a most excellent teacher for such young ones at any rate. It is a regular school business, with silence, order & discipline for two hours, which order & discipline is the best of it for them. They have music & dumb-bell exercise & ten runs across the court for “recess.” They take to it kindly, & make obvious progress, so I think Charley may be expected to learn to read, after all.

The prince was hurried through the park with admirable celerity and precision. The whole stoppage for the tree-planting, speaking & walking to & fro with a strong crowd pressing and many carriages hurrying up the road, did not exceed five minutes. From the moment he entered until he left, none of the party were jostled, crowded or delayed an instant by the crowd. I arranged & superintended all the police arrangements; but neither Vaux or I were taken any notice of. Only as they were leaving, some one pointed me out to the Prince & [275] he turned & bowed to me several times until he caught my attention and returned his salute.

I am too much confined to hear much talk of politics. I see only symptomatic straws of Lincoln’s strength & believe New York city must be going better than will be generally expected.

I have much confidence in Garibaldi & am surprised the Times (Eng.) should (with Tray & the rest of course) think it need to be barking doubtfully at or about him. He & all Italy is undoubtedly indebted to the Mazzini or at least [to the] original republican revolutionary societies & committees, who in great danger & with great courage & persistence have been really opening the way which he has had the wisdom & courage to take to free the country. He has been in correspondence with them, has moved in by their invitation, has been acting under their advice. All this no one doubts, yet no one of the papers seems to see that the temporary government must be mainly administered & directed by them. They were always to have been esteemed rash—at least audacious & impracticable men. Must not the Garibaldian policy now more than ever appear to the world audacious? The whole movement has had its strength mainly in revolutionary men. Can a revolutionary quality be wholly avoided in its success? Would not Garibaldi be foolish as well as ungrateful if he took no counsel of them, if he employed or acknowledged them only for war purposes?

Kapp has just here published “a History of American Slavery”, in German, (published also, and simultaneously, in Germany) which is dedicated in a most complimentary manner to me.

A thorough inspection of the park by a Swiss Engineer who has been employed in European parks, is now being made by order of the Investigating Committee of the Senate.

The doctor comes to me now but twice a week. He says that at one of the consultations he told Parkers that if he cut off my leg I would not live through the night; if he did not, I might live a week. The chances were not one in a hundred that I recovered. Well, I hope I shall have been worth saving against odds.

I have just received your letter dated yesterday.

I have received no delegation of the Keepers. Captain Renwick inquired of me, if they would be allowed to wear their uniforms on a target excursion, to [277] which I replied that they would not. He subsequently asked if I would allow my name to be used for a target company. This I declined. I have received no other application or enquiry on the subject, except your note of invitation. I expressed to Captain Renwick my objections to any portion of the keepers parading in such a manner as would cause them to be recognized as keepers of the park. I added (addressing Captain Renwick and not sending word to the keepers), that they would need a year’s training to enable them to make a creditable exhibition of themselves with muskets, and if they would undertake such a training it would be worth something and I would do all I could to assist them.

As I wrote you, the first information I had, in a distinct form, of your intention, was conveyed to me by your note inviting me to be your guest.

You assume that in reproving you for proceeding in “an obviously improper undertaking,” I apply those words to the character of the excursion. This I thought I had been careful not to do. What was obviously improper, and indicative of anything but habits of discipline, was the neglect to apply for leave of absence and going on with an undertaking which could not have been carried out without a general absence of those who took part in it from their regular duty.

You entirely misunderstood the purpose of my letter if you supposed it a reproof of the design of a target excursion. I only reproved the ill-considered proceeding upon that design. If I stated my judgment upon the design, it was by no means in the way of reproof. Your modest reminder therefore that I should have excused your difference of opinion with me, on account of the difference of our “stations in life,” and the lack of advantages from “travel” and “education” on your part, are uncalled for.

The phrase “stations in life” is ordinarily used with a meaning the propriety of which I am not accustomed to recognize. That I have enjoyed greater advantages of education in some respects than most of the keepers is true; but so far as this means book-education, there is no man among you who has it not in his power to obtain a better education than mine, during the ordinary period of reserve duty, within a very few years. As for my education in other respects, I mean in those respects which if anything entitle me to my present position, I have obtained it by reason of no advantages which many of you might not have had. The best of my traveling has been done on foot at a cost of 70 cents a day, or working my passage as a common seaman. My practical horticultural education, I mean that not gained by reading, was in part acquired while engaged as a laborer, looking to working men as my masters & teachers. It is then impossible for me to have any hearty or habitual respect for the superiority of one man over another, in station in life, except as superiority of station means higher responsibility & larger duty.

My own higher responsibility & larger duty must be respected by you. I require exact and formal marks of that respect, but I require this no more for my own station, than I require it for yours from those who are officially below you in station. But this is wholly official. It may render familiar intercourse, on equal terms, inconvenient & therefore infrequent, but I no more expect my opinions, [278] my judgment, my wishes, to be respected & taken as a guide to action in matters unofficial by the park-keepers, than I do by the Commissioners of the park. If I did, I certainly should not trouble myself to make these explanations to you.

I am delighted with the expressions of respect for the park, as a field of duty, and of respect for, and satisfaction in, their own stations upon it, which you assure me are common with the keepers. Nothing on the park has given me more pain and disappointment than the contrary indications which have occasionally come under my notice. I am happy to believe that of the present force no man would remain a month after he felt the duty required of him to be unreasonable or degrading in the slightest degree to his true manhood.

Thanking you for the expressions of personal regard of your letter, which I cordially reciprocate,