Letter from Charlotte Cushman to Miss Lloyd, Sep 23, 1874

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[page 1] Dear friend. This morning I rec^d from my nephew a bunch of letters which he had brought for me from friends in England among them your very pleasant & welcome letter of the +++. It is so very long since I have heard any thing of you & the changes come so rapidly. as my years go on. that I almost fear to write to any old friend. for fear of hurt. I sent off that photograph as a sort of arrow. not knowing when or how it might fall. Certain that if all was well with you & yours, I should hear from you & know something of your wanderings & beings & doings if not & life had become too full for you. if it did no more. it would tell you that I cared to be remembered by you & that I wanted you to still remember me & know me as I am now. with a white head instead of a brown one!

[page 1 added vertically] I am +++. +++ +++ +++ +++. +++ +++ +++ you more than I had done. for she writes so much better! I +++ upon my nephew to go & call upon you before he returned. but when he went to +++ Square. in August you were not there. He is very well. They have 4 +++ boys & Mrs Cushman is quite buxom & stout[?]. Give my kind love to Mrs Cobbe & Sallie [?] desires her "duty" to you & her kind love to Ellen[?] of whom she was glad to hear. Let me hear from you. always to this address of J. & J. +++ & Co. +++ +++ New York & I will ever be so +++ in the future as I have been in the past. Believe Me Ever affectionately Yours
Charlotte Cushman

[page 2] nothing could have given me more pleasure than your letter. & I am so glad you forgave all my remissiness & sin of omission & wrote to me just as of old. My life has been so full of occupation during the last three years. professionally & otherwise that I have not been able to keep up any of my foreign correspondences. That of every day. being more than I could meet, with my other occupations! I found soon after I came back here, that work was absolutely nescessary [sic] for me. Society was not sufficient. Even if I could find it. & unless I would be eaten by my own corroding anxiety. I must do something which would so completely take me out of myself. That I should forget all my own troubles in the won[?] of others. so I went to work. in my old profession. which I did great wrong ever to leave, for any thing else. The Lord in his goodness, had so clearly

[page 3] indicated my metier in this world. That I did a great wrong to myself & others. by leaving it even for my pleasant (sometimes) life in Rome. The wrong brought its punishment. a healthy prosecution of my profession & I should have been saved all the pain mental & bodily which I have ever [?] known at last I returned to it. I have had much pleasure & profit in so doing. This last summer. I have been under the hands of a remarkably clever hydropath. a pupil of Prustinty[?]. & one much beloved. I have been as dutiful in my observances under his direction. as I could be. & the result is that after a hard summer of work in tub[?] & pack. I am better generally than when I began. at the end of May. & Locally I am not better. & I now make up my mind can never be. but while I am permitted to live comparatively far from extreme suffering & am allowed to work & to give pleasure to others. I accept the cross. & on I pray that I may have strength to bear it.

[page 4] Early in October I commence my season work by some readings in Boston. I wish I could read where you could hear me. for I believe I had better than I did. at least my friends & others [?] say so. I hope to make this my last season of acting. it is time but I will never give up my readings. for they give me as intense pleasure, as they seem to give my friends. I expect to get as far as California this winter. (D. V.) & be back in the spring to my home at Newport. where I wish I might hope for a visit from you & Miss Cobbe. It would give me the intensest pleasure to welcome you. & it is such an easy thing to do in early [inserted] June. will you not come. you would have real pleasure. & I would put you in the way of seeing the country & its wonders & then you could go back by the end of August. when the sea. both ways. would be like a millpond! Do come - & let me know that you will. Miss Stebbins is with me, much improved in health. but not well enough yet to work. one of these days she will. She meant to answer your letter to me. so I shant [sic] tell her