Woodrow Wilson to Mary Allen Hulbert Peck

Title

Woodrow Wilson to Mary Allen Hulbert Peck

Creator

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924

Identifier

WWP17604

Date

1913 March 23

Description

Woodrow Wilson writes to Mary Allen Hulbert Peck as she is in Bermuda.

Source

Wilson Papers, Library of Congress, Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia

Subject

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence

Text

Dearest Friend

Our third Sunday in Washington, but alas! only one letter from our dear, dear friend in Bermuda since we came,—and that means that we are deeply discontented! There are some things that we must have, and amongst them is constant news of you. Do you suppose that we need our friends less, and miss them less here than we did before? If so, pray, my dear Madam, dismiss the idea from your pretty head,—for it is false. On the contrary we miss and need them more—much more, if I may speak for the male member of the group with special emphasis. Do you really want to know what the present President of the United States lacks and must have, if he is to serve his country as he should and give the best that is in him to his tasks? He needs pleasure and the unaffected human touch! He cannot live on duty. He cannot feed his heart on “great questions.” He must have the constant tonic of personal friendships, old and sweet and tested, that have nothing to do with him as a politician, have no relation to his, or any, career, but touch him only as a man, ante–date his public responsibilities and will outlive them,—that belong to him, are part of his private and essential life! You said the other day that you felt very lonely and (foolish lady!) very useless, a looker on at a life that was not yours but that of another generation. Well, suppose that is true in Bermuda (as of course it is not!) here is a job for you in America which you can perform from Bermuda,— not as easily or as completely as you could in America, but so well that you may add to the success of a national administration. I am not jesting! I am in dead earnest as I ever was in my life; and this is what I mean, that one Mary Allen Hulbert may be of infinite use and benefit to one Woodrow Wilson by merely drawing him aside from politics at least once a week into the realm of personal comradeship, into which politics can come only by way of an impertinent and irrelevant intrusion! She has the talisman by which all the magic of friendship and comradeship may be wrought, namely her own personality. I know what it can do for me for I have felt it shoot back every bolt in me and release me from the pent house of my own cares and responsibilities. If you want to escape from Glencove, send your spirit over sea to Washington, to give me a holiday, and I shall rejoice as only he can who is privileged to subscribe himself
Love from all.
Love to Allen.
We are well.


Woodrow Wilson

Original Format

Letter

To

Hulbert, Mary Allen, 1862-1939

Files

http://resources.presidentwilson.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Temp00055.pdf

Tags

Citation

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924, “Woodrow Wilson to Mary Allen Hulbert Peck,” 1913 March 23, WWP17604, First Year Wilson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.