PREFACE TO THE LETTERS. IN the sad months following the great bereavement which threw its sombre shadow over a happy home, changing smiles and cheerful greetings to sorrowful tears, many of the letters written by my dear husband were gathered together for the perusal of family and friends. It was, however, after due consideration, deemed fitting and best to preserve them in a more enduring form: giving them a place in connection with the speeches and addresses, that those who honored and admired him as the patriot and statesman only, might, together with those who knew and loved him, read of those qualities of mind and heart, which rendered him so dear in the home which he gladdened with the sunshine of his presence; while they exhibit, perhaps even more vividly than his earnest, impressive oratory, how fervent, pure, and true was the love he bore his country. Perhaps some who, in the mysterious vicissitudes of human life, have drifted far away from youthful scenes and associations, may find in these pages passages which will bring vividly before them one who always held them in affectionate remembrance, and who, though constantly acquiring new friends, ever cherished the same unwavering attachment for those of his early years. The Orchard home, so replete with rural beauty and so congenial in his hours of retirement, has passed into other hands; the old, bright days there are now but a memory: yet in perusing these records, those who have been beneath its roof may recall pleasing memories of bygone scenes, and imagine themselves in the old, familiar scenes; to hear the river's murmuring near his library windows; to see the sun light shimmering through the trees he so carefully nurtured; to watch with him the robin building her nest; to listen to that pleasant voice, until the happy hours passed in his congenial companionship seem almost to have come again, irradiating the dark cloud of sorrow with which painful reality has overshadowed those who loved him. L. D. INTRODUCTORY LETTERS. GOVERNOR THROOP TO MRS. DICKINSON. WILLOWBROOK, NEAR AUBURN, N. Y., MY DEAR MADAM-I am exceedingly gratified by the note with which you have honored me, reminding me of one of my most cherished friendships. Your eminent and lamented husband was a friend to be proud of: a man of probity and genius, faithful to his friend and his country. That you should find consolation in reviewing your wedded life, and in putting upon record proofs of your husband's noble character and distinguished career, I can well understand; and I wish it were in my power to make a more satisfactory contribution to your pious enterprise than I have the means to do. With you it is a labor of love, and not of vanity. Your early struggles together, that he might become worthy to be honored by his countrymen, must have knit your hearts together in ever-enduring love and a retrospect can yield nothing but pleasure. From the period of my first acquaintance with Mr. Dickinson until I left the country in 1838, I was so situated as to have but few opportunities of personal intercourse with him; and the few letters which passed between us were elicited almost entirely by my approval of his course as a legislator and politician. He seemed a man after my own heart; and it was gratifying to me to find him in accordance with my own views on all important topics. I first met Mr. Dickinson at Norwich in the year 1830, when I was on a journey across the county of Chenango, and again the next day, when I stopped for an hour or two at a little village a few miles east of Norwich, where he had recently opened an office to commence the practice of law. What |