FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

not complain of anything, but his thinness and paleness is proof enough that all is not
well with him. He went yesterday to spend a few days with Eliza [sister Elizabeth
Florian Jolly Talcott, 1795—after 1831] to try a change of air. I assure you that I am
very uneasy about him. My house is very quiet this morning. Laura and Henrietta go to
school every day and Florian sleeps ordinarily two or three hours . My little Azelia also
has a very quiet manner, so my mornings slip away very pleasantly. [<strong>The</strong>se are
references to the author’s children: Laura Margaret Bowers (1816-1893), Henrietta
Bowers (1817-1918), apparently to John Florian Bowers (1821-about 1823), and Azelia
Florian Bowers (12 May 1822 to about May 1823, only about two months old at this
point.] But my evenings are very dull.
My only company is Lambert Cooper, and he amounts to as much as not having any at
all, for you know that he does not possess even one large idea. Mr. B. [Bowers] does not
come home, ordinarily, until very late, and always very tired. He has also grown very
thin. I find that his fatigue is too much (according to his habits), and that he is very much
changed.
<strong>The</strong> Steamship will bring you probably a very exaggerated account of the sickness which
they already have here, but as it is probable that you will verify for yourself from the
papers from here by the lists of the internments, you will be able to judge for yourself the
state of health of the City. Madame Sajary [?] has died from Typhus Fever after having
passed a month with her family. She would have done much better, poor woman, to
remain in France than to return here at an impropitious season. <strong>The</strong> heat is terrible since
your departure. Not a drop of rain. So imagine the dust caused by the drought which we
have experienced, especially in the suburbs, where one can do nothing without raising a
cloud of dust.
How did you find your companions on the voyage? Joseph Gilbert I have no doubt was
very agreeable the first days, but it is so very rare that you find fine young men like him,
[who] make sacrifices of their own personal comfort to procure them for others,
especially on board the ocean, for I regard egotism as the inheritance of the Americans,
without wishing, however, to pay them a bad compliment.
A great many people leave on the Steamship, amongst whom are Madame West, Mrs.
Takes [?] and Madame Grunewalde. I believe they are mutually content, Madame West
to have tumbled upon the old lady, and she to have found a passage to the north. Wm
Bowers also leaves by the same ship. I wish very much that he would take Lambert for a
I fear very much that he would not survive through an epidemic. If he should really
happen to get sick, I would be tempted to have him placed in one of the rooms in the
courtyard, for (may the good God pardon me for being so wicked), I would be desolated
in having a case of fever so near to my children.
However, it is necessary to hope for the best. But you will be very fortunate, my dear
sisters, to be able to pass at least one tranquil summer, far from the Contagion which
menaces us.
129