Woodrow Wilson to Mary Allen Hulbert Peck

Did you write me a longer letter after the little note you scribbled just after the receipt of my telegram to Allen? If so, I did not get it. I ask, not with any implied complaint or criticism, but because from what you said in that note I fear that an earlier letter of yours did not reach me; and I began to wonder if it had happened again. I would like more than I can say to hear, directly from yourself, how you are, and to be assured that you are really improving, as the telegram said. I could tell, whether you talked about your health or not, by the tone and spirit of the letter. The delightful thing about close friendship is that your friend has only to speak and you know so much more than is said. And I long for the chance to read between the lines. The tone of the voice and the play of your mind in what you said would tell me everything. If you cannot write a real letter send me at least another little note, please. It would do me a lot of good!I have been a bit under the weather myself for a few days, — perhaps a week; though getting better all the while and now practically well again. I have been under a terrible strain, if the truth must be told, and am still under it, and my little spell of indigestion (for that is what it was) was due, undoubtedly, to my being worn out and unable to run both my stomach and the government. I realize when I stop to think about it at all that I never before knew such a strain as I have undergone ever since Congress convened in April. The more I succeed in directing things the more I am depended on for leadership and expected to do everything, make all paths straight and carry every plan to its completion. I take the best care I can of myself. The doctor, who is one of my regularly appointed staff, is with me practically at all times of the day, and this summer, while the family has been away, has lived in the house here with me, being very watchful and very competent, and I shall fare very well; but I was a bit bored this past week to find myself so “poorly” that I almost lost interest in golf itself and lay down to rest instead of going out to play. When I did play I hardly had spunk enough to drive the ball a hundred yards. But that is all gone by now. For one thing the weather has changed. The lassitude that was in the air has been replaced, within the last twenty–f0ur hours, by bracin airs, and I am feeling very different, — all my spunk come back! So give yourself no concern about this public servant. He will feel entirely himself again when he hears that his dear friend in Nantucket is really well once more. Can you not supply that tonic?This is sindeed a complicated job I have undertaken down here. It uses up all the grey matter there is in my brain, and I have to borrow much of fellows as I go. What you read in the papers (If I may judge from what I read myself) is for the most part idle gossip, made up for the purposes of each particular paper. We shall get the currency bill through in due time, and the difficulties offered by the attitude of several of the Senators will in due process of argument and persuasion be overcome. But by that time we shall in all probability be in the regular session, and then we shall be in for many another struggle until the middle of next summer. I comfort myself with the thought that I am actually getting more or less used to it. My anxiety has not now quite the edge it had for the first months of the session.

What are your plans? Have you had the opportunity and the strength to form any? Is it possible still that you will go to England and see some of your old Bermuda friends who have been wishing for you and planning for you for so long? My own idea is (and I think myself most unselfish to state it, though not so unselfish as if we could ourselves have you down here) that a complete change of scene and environment would be the best possible tonic and restorative for you. Even if you stay on this side the water, do please try to make some radical change from your old haunts and habits. That will set you ufp for another youth!The family are coming back up from New Hampshire this week, Gott sei Dank, and the period of my self–imposed exile from real home is almost at an end. Stupidly enough, I go down the river to see the battleships at target practime almost as soon as the dear ones arrive; but that will involve an absence of little more thatn thirty–six hours.