ek! To be sure it is
beautiful for situation as Mount Zion itself, but one can't live on
beauty; one must have life and action, and stimulus; in other words,
human beings. They're all horrid (except you), but we can't do without
'em. What I went through at lonely Genevrier!

"Oh Solitude, where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face!"

We took it for granted that you would settle in some German city, near
old friends; it is true, they mayn't be all you want, but anything is
better than nothing, and you would stagnate and moulder all away at
Vevay. What is there there? Why, a lake and some mountains, and you
can't spend a year staring at them. Well, I dare say light will be let
in upon you. I hope A. will behave herself; you must rule it over her
with a rod of iron (as if you could!), and make her stand round. Her
going plunges us into a new world of care and anxiety and tribulation;
we have thrust our children out into, or on to, the great ocean, and are
about ready to sink with them. If I could sit down and cry, it would do
me lots of good, but I can't. Then how am I to spare my twin-boy, and my
A. and my M.? Who is to keep me well snubbed? Who is to tell me what to
wear? Who is to keep Darby and Joan from settling down into two fearful
old pokes?

Your husband suggests that "if I have a husband, etc." I have had one
with a vengeance. He has worked like seventeen mad dogs all summer, and
I have hardly laid eyes on him. When I have, it has been to fight with
him; he would come in with a hoe or a rake or a spade in his hand, and
find me with a broom, a shovel, or a pair of tongs in mine, and without
a word we would pitch in and have an encounter. Of all the aggravating
creatures, hasn't he been aggravating! Sometimes I thought he had run
raving distracted, and sometimes I dare say, he thought I had gone
melancholy mad. He persists to this day that the work did him good, and
that he enjoyed his summer. Well, maybe he did; I suppose he knows.

How glad I am for you that you are to have the children go to you. It
seems to be exactly the right thing. I hope to get a copy of Katy to
send by the girls, but can't think of anything else. As A. is to be
where you are, you will probably be kept well posted in the doings of
our family. I do hope she will not be a great addition to your cares,
but have some misgivings as to the effect so long absence from home may
have upon her. What a world this is for shiftings an