The most painful private intelligence we have from America relates to Mrs Frothingham my Wife’s sister. Although she has rallied a good deal in the course of the hot months, the course of the illness does not appear to have been recovered, and her physicians now decide that she must spend the winter at Madeira. To that end she is expected to arrive here next week and I am to engage a passage for her from here to Lisbon. I very much fear that her case is desperate, and yet I dislike greatly that kind of despair so long as there is any right to hope. Another incident of a far different character is the reception under my full260 Official address of two copies of his speech from my old friend Sumner. It seems that he tried to carry the republican convention off their feet by one of his strong declamations, and failed. And now he sends me a copy. I read it without the smallest remnant of sympathy. The disclosure of his behavior to me made by Mr Seward has opened up such a view of human weakness, that it awakens my pity rather than any other emotion. His orations now sound to me hollow, and impractical, stimulated by a vindictive temper rather than a comprehensive philanthropy. If therefore he regards this step as an overture I shall let it let it pass without notice. Indifference is the most unerring symptom of the natural decease of a friendship. If I had any anger or passion about it any enmity or aversion there would be a prospect of a reaction. I am so far removed that there is no friction. So let us be at peace and forget the past. It was a dark and rainy day. I wrote one note to the foreign office, about the case of John W Moody. It rained so hard I did not go to Mr Kuntse, for the final sitting, but I took my usual walk around the regent’s park. Evening at home, reading Pennant’s Tour. rather dull.