Woodrow Wilson to Mary Allen Hulbert Peck

Title

Woodrow Wilson to Mary Allen Hulbert Peck

Creator

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924

Identifier

WWP17811

Date

1913 June 9

Description

Woodrow Wilson writes to Mary Allen Hulbert Peck about not hearing from her since she had returned from her travels.

Source

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

Subject

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924--Correspondence

Text

Dearest Friend

I have still only your little line to Helen to go on, written from the Manhattan in New York and saying that you were to leave the next day for Nantucket, but that at least fixes your probable whereabouts and enables me to imagine what you are doing, and I shall have to be content with that until I am vouchsafed something better. It is, perhaps, a wholesome lesson for the President of the United States, lest he should begin to fancy his power very great indeed, to find that he fails of jurisdiction over his nearest friends and cannot get from them even by begging what others are urging him to accept: their confidence and their constant counsel by letter! I write in all humility, therefore, to hope that you are well and that in you occasionally think kindly of your friends at Washington. Poor creatures , madam, but your own to command! It is not as cool and refreshing down here as it is at Nantucket. We have no sight of the sea from our windows. There is no fine curve of a free shore line to make us conscious of the edges of the world and of a hot continent standing away from us at far arm's length. The people about us are not naive rustic neighbours whose characters and conduct remind us of the great body of Americans whose affections and opinions make up the life of a great nation, but a sophisticated miscellany of officials and of men and women who know what they want to get from the government and from the society about it and spend night and day in search of it. We need the tonic that blows about you every hour. Our ears wait from morning till night for the voices that remind us of friends who have nothing to seek, whose affections sustain us, whose thought does not a little to guide us, that keeps us fresh with the touch of the outside world. There is no process of law by which we can obtain what we wish. There is no use trying to make use of any part of the government to get it. We must wait until some consciousness of our need comes to you and you are moved to come to our assistance with what we cannot get anywhere else. I have very often expounded his this need and hunger to you; but probably you have not credited it. You have thought that what I said was just a generous way of expressing our affections and our desire to be in touch with you, while all the time I was speaking with more literal truth. So I appeal to your generosity. Make believe that you believe me. Try the experiment of giving us what we so constantly clamour for. Play the game and judge by the consequences. Our friends are of more value to us now than they ever were before in all our lives. You have seen with what distraction our days are spent. Imagine what it would mean to you, in the midst of some such day, to be handed a letter, a long, chatty letter, full of free and intimate talk, from some one who could touch your mind with a familiar and subtle knowledge of all its tastes and ways of thinking, and to drop down in a corner by yourself and devour it. What a rest and relief it would be! How it would swing your mind back into old, delightful channels! You would turn back to your occupations with a sense of having been cheered and made normal again, and with a warm glow at your heart which nobody had know how to impart to it the day through, because everybody about you was caught in the same swirl. This is my plea. I continue to shoot these bolts of mine into the blue. I should like to know where they lodge!We are all well. The dear folks about me will, I hope, for my sake and in response to my earnest pleading, start are for New Hampshire before the end of the month. I shall, in all likelihood, not get away, except for a day or two at a time, before the autumn. This session of Congress may continue until October. But that is all right. I could not be happy elsewhere so long as there is great business going on here. This house is airy; I will curtainl my office hours as the town clears of the general crowd and play more and more golf and such like proper and sedate games; long auto. drives will put ozone into my system; and I shall thrive on honest toil. Hot weather has no terrors for me. I shall envy you at Nantucket only because I should love to have such company as you are, — if not to yourself, to everyone else who has had a real taste of your quality. I shall get as much sunburn as you, and perhaps your letters, when you begin to write them,may bring me sense of the sea! All join me in affectionate messages.
You did not send me Allen's address again. I misplaced the card.


Woodrow Wilson

Original Format

Letter

To

Hulbert, Mary Allen, 1862-1939

Files

http://resources.presidentwilson.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Temp00334.pdf

Tags

Citation

Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924, “Woodrow Wilson to Mary Allen Hulbert Peck,” 1913 June 9, WWP17811, First Year Wilson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.