Abby Howland Woolsey to Eliza Woolsey Howland
8 Brevoort Place, Feb. 1, 1861.
My dear Eliza: As Charley was away at Astoria Georgy sent round for young Herdman, and she and I went with him to hear Wendell Phillips’ lecture. I never saw him before, and found it a perfect treat. A more finished and eloquent sketch I never heard, enlivened by telling anecdotes, and that quiet, shrewd wit which distinguishes the speaker. He made the lecture an indirect argument of course for the negro race; twice in the course of it mentioned John Brown’s name, which was received with a storm of applause, and once, in speaking of the courage of the blacks, he said: “Ask the fifty-two thousand of LeClerc’s soldiers who died in battle. Go stoop with your ear on their graves! Go question the dust of Rochambeau and of the eight thousand who escaped with him under the English Jack! and if the answer is not loud enough, come home!” and (dropping his voice) “come by the way of quaking Virginia!” There was a great crowd, but we went early and had excellent seats, and were perfectly charmed.
On Friday Rose Terry (who is at the Danas) and Dr. Bacon are to dine here. Rose wrote the “Samson Agonistes” it seems, –the fragment about John Brown in the Tribune which we all liked.