I have received your letter of the 21st on returning from Chicago. I had heard nothing before of the Sweeney project. At first sight, it strikes me [200]as having many advantages. But I do not see, if, upon reflection, no serious objections should appear, that I could have anything to do with it publicly, as you suggest. First, it is Vaux’s affair officially and you know I am most averse to do anything that can be suspected to imply a willingness to be brought in the slightest degree into rivalry with him. The more so that Green has been anxious to produce the impression that I am so; second, Sweeney has sought in a mean and tricky way to get the better of me and to humiliate me; third, he is officially responsible for the perfectly ignorant, impudent, and absolutely barbarous treatment of the Central Park. I have not the slightest feeling of resentment and am quite ready to think that all that I refer to is the result of accident, pressure of business, lack of reflection and so on, and I am ready to take your view of his character, but I can but feel that it will, to say the least, be in bad taste for me to volunteer any public assistance to advance a project of public improvements of which he is the author.

Always Cordially Yours