Part 20

MY DEAR MR. CORBIN:

Mr. Young, of the New York Herald, has been with us from the time we went on shipboard until we arrived here. His letters published in the papers are all good, and save me writing descriptive letters. Presuming that you have read them I will say nothing further than that my winter travels, in the Mediterranean, on the Nile, and in the Levant generally have been the pleasantest of my life. I should enjoy doing it over again next winter. We have been in Rome eight days. It is a city of great interest. But one should visit it before making the Nile trip. Here you see modern and comparatively insignificant ruins, not dating back many centuries before the beginning of the Christian era. On the Nile one sees grand ruins, with the inscriptions as plain and distinct as when they were first made, that antedate Moses by many centuries.

It was our plan on leaving Suez to go to Florence, Venice, Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, St. Petersburgh, through Sweden, Norway, back to Denmark, through Holland to Paris, reaching the latter place about the middle of July, and to spend six or eight weeks there to see the Exposition and the people that will fill the city. I think now I will change my plan and go from Venice, by easy stages, to Paris, reaching there early in May, and make my visit while the weather is pleasant. I will then go north in the summer, taking Holland first, Denmark next, and Sweden and Norway in August. I fear from present indications that Mr. Cramer and Mary will not be there.

It looks to me that unless the North rallies by 1880 the Government will be in the hands of those who tried so hard fourteen--seventeen--years ago to destroy it. B---- is evidently paving a way for re-organizing an army favorable to such a change.

I think now we will not return to the States until about a year from May. I have no idea where we will live on our return, and if we should go back in the fall we would have to determine the question without delay. We can go back in May and occupy our Long Branch house and have all summer to prepare for the winter.

I was getting some little mosaics--specialties of Rome--to-day and I bought, among other things, what I think a very pretty pin and earrings for Jennie. I have also got bracelets for Clara Cramer and Jennie Grant. If I see an opportunity of sending them home before going myself I will send them. I have written to Buck to come over and spend his vacation with us. I can send them with him.

Give our love to Mother, Jennie, Mary and the children.

Yours very truly,

U.S. GRANT.

P.S. It is very kind in Mr. Clark, and the gentlemen associated with him, to send the message you convey from them; but they must recollect that I had the harness on for sixteen years and feel no inclination to wear it again. I sincerely hope that the North will so thoroughly rally by next election as to bury the last remnant of secession proclivities, and put in the Executive chair a firm and steady hand, free from Utopian ideas purifying the party electing him out of existence.

Hotel Liverpool, Paris, May 25th, '78.

MY DEAR MR. CRAMER:

I am now for the first time able to fix approximately the time of my visit to Copenhagen. We shall leave here on Saturday, three weeks from to-day, or on the following Tuesday. We shall stop at The Hague three or four days. Jesse leaves for home so as to take the steamer of the fourth of June from Liverpool. Our party therefore will consist only of Mrs. Grant with her maid and myself. If your arrangements are made to be away from Copenhagen at the time mentioned above, I beg that you will not change your plans. Should you be there, we shall probably remain over about one week. Should you be away, we shall stop only a couple of days.

I have not heard directly from Elizabeth for some time; it is probably my own fault, for Mr. Corbin is very prompt in answering every letter; but Bucky writes regularly every week from New York, so I hear indirectly. When you write home give my love to all of them at Elizabeth.

Very truly yours,

U.S. GRANT.

P.S. I go from Copenhagen directly to Stockholm. I am not personally acquainted with our present Minister there, though I once appointed him to a South American Mission.

U.S.G.

Paris, France, June 3d, '78.

MY DEAR MR. CRAMER:

Your letter of the 31st of May is just received. I should have written to you within a day or two to inform you of a slight change of plan, which will bring me into Copenhagen from ten days to two weeks later than I wrote you I should be there, even if I had not received your letter. To save retracing my steps, as I should be obliged to do by the routes laid out in my last letter, I now intend to go from The Hague to Berlin and visit a few of the German cities before going to Denmark. From Copenhagen I shall go by water to Norway, thence to Sweden, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and to Vienna.

I shall be very glad indeed to see Mary and the children and hope they may be back by the time I reach Copenhagen, about from the fifth to the tenth of July.

Jesse sails from Liverpool to-morrow for home. He has been very homesick for some time.

With best regards of Mrs. Grant and myself, I am,

Very truly,

U.S. GRANT.

Hanover, Germany, June 25th, '78.

MY DEAR MR. CRAMER: