Blue Star Letter
Item
Creator
Blue Star
Date
1859
Description
A letter that has a blue color to it.
Format
Letter
Identifier
BlueStar133
Coverage
Grap Valley, Nevada See all items with this value
Rights
In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted - This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. In addition, no permission is required from the rights-holder(s) for educational uses. For other uses, you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/
Subject
Title
Blue Star Letter
Type
Text
transcript of
Grass Valley, Nevada Co. Cal.
July 15, 1859
My dear Miss Esther,
I expected to hear from you by the last steamer, but was disappointed. I perhaps should not say “disappointed,” for you said in the last letter I received that you would be at leisure after the 1st July, when you should be able to attend more fully to my cravings. You have perhaps found out ere this the capacity of my stomach for large doses, and have perhaps concluded that you would make me wait a little. I confess when I am sick to favoring the homeopathic regimen, infinitesimal doses of medicine — but when I am _____ why away with homeopathic doses, and let me have my filo. I repeat the cause may be as above why you prefer making me wait one steamer or so, while you in the meantime are taking lessons in “the management of a family,” ??? In the respect you are acting very prudently, and I commend you for it. I have thought too, that probably I might have given some offense in my last letter in reference to the French extracts in Shirley. The suggestion was made in the very best feeling, and I should regret if it were not received in the same spirit in which it was given. But I will not anticipate anything of the kind as I deem it praiseworthy rather than otherwise, in a lady to obtain all the accomplishment in her power. But as I have said before, I will not anticipate, and therefore, please when you do write let me have a good long letter… never missed what you say, or what you just … you can call me anything and everything you please, and turn me about any way you please — but only give me a good long dose of it, for I’ll read every world you write over and over again. You, perhaps, will think I am getting crazy in writing this way — but I ain’t. I confess I feel fidgety — feel as if I can’t rest satisfied — feel a kind of all overfish feel that no steamer ought to be allowed to come to California without a letter from you to me on board. If i were the Government at this moment, I feel as if I would make just such a law, viz., that one steamer should be allowed to land in California, or enter the post from the Atlantic States, or I was going to say from any where else, that has not on board a letter directed thus:
To: Edwin F. Delancey
Grass Valley
Nevada Co
Cal.
and signed thus:
Your affectionately
E.F. Dimond.
[page two]
I say I feel as if I could make this the supreme law of the land, and for the least violation of which I would declare bath vessel and cargo forfeited and ???? the crew and passengers into slavery. I write perhaps in excited terms, or what you may perhaps think as harsh terms, but just think, I have not had a letter so long, that I have been compelled to begins at the beginning and read over every one of your letters, for I really believe the fiftieth time; and now just let me tell you what I have made up my mind to do, and you needn’t laugh, for I’ll do it. I won’t put you in the “Nand ?? Book of Excuses” no, indeed I won’t do anything of the kind. but I’ll just read your letters over so often that I’ll get every word at my tongue’s end, and then where we meet and our first k___ is over, but step out and repeat to you very face every world you have written, yes, every word, including dates, signatures and every thing, and I’ll do it as sure as your name’s Esther, or as sure as that a names ake?? of your was once a Royal Queen. Now don’t this make you feel dreadful, don’t you feel as you hadn’t ought to, for if you do you feel just as I do, and that is, I’ll be hangd?? if I can tell how. I feel that something is going to make me glad or miserable soon, and what it is I can’t guess — but it makes me fidgety and fussy — and bids fair to make me, what I really thing I am getting to be, a devilish fool, for pestering you to read such stuff as this. But dear Esther, I can’t help it, and you are just as much in fault as I am — you’re just been as bad as I have and it is no more than right that you should feel just as I do, and I hope you will, for then like me you won’t know or be able to find out what the deuce is the matter, only that you want something, you feel must have something, you expect to get something, and you don’t know whether you will get it or not, yet have it you must and have it your will, or “feathers will fly.” But I must not write in this strain any longer, for if I do so, the next thing will be to throw off my hat, and shouting “Here’s for Salisbury,” ??? for SanFrancisco, and aboard of the steamer and let business go to the dogs.
I do not think I can answer your last letter as very great length this time. I made an attempt at answering it before which you have ere this received no doubt.
I see an extract or rather a sentence in it reading thus — “Now don’t you feel flattered to think you have made a proselyte of me so easily.”
My answer to this is: “I don’t feel half as much flattered to think I have made a proselyte of you, as I would to think and know that I had made a something else of you.”
[page three]
Then again: “I must tell of how I went to a wedding XXXXX I wondered as I looked upon them if I ever could stand up and promise to love, honor and obey a man as long as we both should live together, and I come to the conclusion I could!” XXX
The beauty of reading, is to profit by our reading, and the sure evidence of your ??? by our reading is given or developed in subsequent action. The convicted felon, who had never received any tender rearing — but had been an outcast from his very birth, thus replies to a speech of?? a judge who was condemning him to death. Among other things society had done for him he said was this:
You taught me language,
And the profit, on’t
Is — I know how to curse!
Not so with reading — it opens up new ideas to the mind — gives it something to reflect upon — to improve upon — and if availed of will as surely improve the mind so occupied as surely as that that mind sympathies with matter??. Let me give an instance:
I wrote a letter once to a lady of my acquaintance. In answer she wrote something like this, “I had thought of taking your inexplicable letter to the Minister’s to have him comment upon it,” ??? In reply I expressed the wish that I had been there instead of the letter, so that she might have taken me to the Minister’s instead of the letter and have him comment upon us both, winding up his comments with, “and you Esther promise, etc. love, honor, etc, obey etc. etc. The answer to this was — “I don’t think I should be willing togo to the Minister’s and there promise to love, honor, and obey!” And again “When I am speaking with my friends I deny the existence of any such thing as thee love.” But this lady friend of mine subsequently perused a work which seemed to open up a new world of thought and among the beauties of that work she notes the following: “She speaks my mind when she says: “Did not I say I prefer as Master XXXX A man I shall feel it impossible not to love and very possible to fear.” Some time after my lady friend attends a wedding and says: “I wondered ?? if I ever could stand up and promise to love, honor and obey, a man xxx and I came to the conclusion that I could.” Thanks to Shirley and her talented authoress for her splendid work. Here is an instance developed in
[page four]
subsequent action of the benefit of reading and thinking properly. It makes me smile, too, when that lady writes me that she will not answer my letter on true love, while all the while giving sensible, tangible answer to it in her actions as just ??? for example.
But I have been reading another work lately which I would take the liberty of asking you to ?? for my sake. I do this because I think you will like it. The work in question is entitled
“Robert Graham,” and is written by Mr. ?? Lee Hentz.
But you must excuse me for coming to ?? ?? a conclusion. I said to you before that I expected to be able to get clear of my ??? claims for some other kind of property and perhaps in this way be enabled to reach home earlier than otherwise. The gentleman with whom I expect to negotiate has just arrived and I must therefore, though very unwillingly, ??? your pleasant society for business. Oh how I wish I had a likeness of you that I could set before me while writing to you, but never mind, I hope the day will come when I hope to have more than one likeness of you. In the meantime, may all the blessings of earth, air and sky be yours, while I remain
Yours, as ever,
E.F. Delancey
P.S. Please don’t make the shortness of this an excuse for a short answer. You know I’d write long if circumstances permitted.
In haste —
E.F.D.
July 15, 1859
My dear Miss Esther,
I expected to hear from you by the last steamer, but was disappointed. I perhaps should not say “disappointed,” for you said in the last letter I received that you would be at leisure after the 1st July, when you should be able to attend more fully to my cravings. You have perhaps found out ere this the capacity of my stomach for large doses, and have perhaps concluded that you would make me wait a little. I confess when I am sick to favoring the homeopathic regimen, infinitesimal doses of medicine — but when I am _____ why away with homeopathic doses, and let me have my filo. I repeat the cause may be as above why you prefer making me wait one steamer or so, while you in the meantime are taking lessons in “the management of a family,” ??? In the respect you are acting very prudently, and I commend you for it. I have thought too, that probably I might have given some offense in my last letter in reference to the French extracts in Shirley. The suggestion was made in the very best feeling, and I should regret if it were not received in the same spirit in which it was given. But I will not anticipate anything of the kind as I deem it praiseworthy rather than otherwise, in a lady to obtain all the accomplishment in her power. But as I have said before, I will not anticipate, and therefore, please when you do write let me have a good long letter… never missed what you say, or what you just … you can call me anything and everything you please, and turn me about any way you please — but only give me a good long dose of it, for I’ll read every world you write over and over again. You, perhaps, will think I am getting crazy in writing this way — but I ain’t. I confess I feel fidgety — feel as if I can’t rest satisfied — feel a kind of all overfish feel that no steamer ought to be allowed to come to California without a letter from you to me on board. If i were the Government at this moment, I feel as if I would make just such a law, viz., that one steamer should be allowed to land in California, or enter the post from the Atlantic States, or I was going to say from any where else, that has not on board a letter directed thus:
To: Edwin F. Delancey
Grass Valley
Nevada Co
Cal.
and signed thus:
Your affectionately
E.F. Dimond.
[page two]
I say I feel as if I could make this the supreme law of the land, and for the least violation of which I would declare bath vessel and cargo forfeited and ???? the crew and passengers into slavery. I write perhaps in excited terms, or what you may perhaps think as harsh terms, but just think, I have not had a letter so long, that I have been compelled to begins at the beginning and read over every one of your letters, for I really believe the fiftieth time; and now just let me tell you what I have made up my mind to do, and you needn’t laugh, for I’ll do it. I won’t put you in the “Nand ?? Book of Excuses” no, indeed I won’t do anything of the kind. but I’ll just read your letters over so often that I’ll get every word at my tongue’s end, and then where we meet and our first k___ is over, but step out and repeat to you very face every world you have written, yes, every word, including dates, signatures and every thing, and I’ll do it as sure as your name’s Esther, or as sure as that a names ake?? of your was once a Royal Queen. Now don’t this make you feel dreadful, don’t you feel as you hadn’t ought to, for if you do you feel just as I do, and that is, I’ll be hangd?? if I can tell how. I feel that something is going to make me glad or miserable soon, and what it is I can’t guess — but it makes me fidgety and fussy — and bids fair to make me, what I really thing I am getting to be, a devilish fool, for pestering you to read such stuff as this. But dear Esther, I can’t help it, and you are just as much in fault as I am — you’re just been as bad as I have and it is no more than right that you should feel just as I do, and I hope you will, for then like me you won’t know or be able to find out what the deuce is the matter, only that you want something, you feel must have something, you expect to get something, and you don’t know whether you will get it or not, yet have it you must and have it your will, or “feathers will fly.” But I must not write in this strain any longer, for if I do so, the next thing will be to throw off my hat, and shouting “Here’s for Salisbury,” ??? for SanFrancisco, and aboard of the steamer and let business go to the dogs.
I do not think I can answer your last letter as very great length this time. I made an attempt at answering it before which you have ere this received no doubt.
I see an extract or rather a sentence in it reading thus — “Now don’t you feel flattered to think you have made a proselyte of me so easily.”
My answer to this is: “I don’t feel half as much flattered to think I have made a proselyte of you, as I would to think and know that I had made a something else of you.”
[page three]
Then again: “I must tell of how I went to a wedding XXXXX I wondered as I looked upon them if I ever could stand up and promise to love, honor and obey a man as long as we both should live together, and I come to the conclusion I could!” XXX
The beauty of reading, is to profit by our reading, and the sure evidence of your ??? by our reading is given or developed in subsequent action. The convicted felon, who had never received any tender rearing — but had been an outcast from his very birth, thus replies to a speech of?? a judge who was condemning him to death. Among other things society had done for him he said was this:
You taught me language,
And the profit, on’t
Is — I know how to curse!
Not so with reading — it opens up new ideas to the mind — gives it something to reflect upon — to improve upon — and if availed of will as surely improve the mind so occupied as surely as that that mind sympathies with matter??. Let me give an instance:
I wrote a letter once to a lady of my acquaintance. In answer she wrote something like this, “I had thought of taking your inexplicable letter to the Minister’s to have him comment upon it,” ??? In reply I expressed the wish that I had been there instead of the letter, so that she might have taken me to the Minister’s instead of the letter and have him comment upon us both, winding up his comments with, “and you Esther promise, etc. love, honor, etc, obey etc. etc. The answer to this was — “I don’t think I should be willing togo to the Minister’s and there promise to love, honor, and obey!” And again “When I am speaking with my friends I deny the existence of any such thing as thee love.” But this lady friend of mine subsequently perused a work which seemed to open up a new world of thought and among the beauties of that work she notes the following: “She speaks my mind when she says: “Did not I say I prefer as Master XXXX A man I shall feel it impossible not to love and very possible to fear.” Some time after my lady friend attends a wedding and says: “I wondered ?? if I ever could stand up and promise to love, honor and obey, a man xxx and I came to the conclusion that I could.” Thanks to Shirley and her talented authoress for her splendid work. Here is an instance developed in
[page four]
subsequent action of the benefit of reading and thinking properly. It makes me smile, too, when that lady writes me that she will not answer my letter on true love, while all the while giving sensible, tangible answer to it in her actions as just ??? for example.
But I have been reading another work lately which I would take the liberty of asking you to ?? for my sake. I do this because I think you will like it. The work in question is entitled
“Robert Graham,” and is written by Mr. ?? Lee Hentz.
But you must excuse me for coming to ?? ?? a conclusion. I said to you before that I expected to be able to get clear of my ??? claims for some other kind of property and perhaps in this way be enabled to reach home earlier than otherwise. The gentleman with whom I expect to negotiate has just arrived and I must therefore, though very unwillingly, ??? your pleasant society for business. Oh how I wish I had a likeness of you that I could set before me while writing to you, but never mind, I hope the day will come when I hope to have more than one likeness of you. In the meantime, may all the blessings of earth, air and sky be yours, while I remain
Yours, as ever,
E.F. Delancey
P.S. Please don’t make the shortness of this an excuse for a short answer. You know I’d write long if circumstances permitted.
In haste —
E.F.D.