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James T. Fields — 25 Jan. 1861

To JAMES T. FIELDS 

January 25, 1861, Wheeling

Mr. Fields,


You do not owe me these $’s at all! It is pure pretense on your part, because the original price was paid all at once, you recollect? My first impulse was to return it and explain. And then I remembered that “it is easier to give than to receive gracefully.” So I say it is all right, and business-like, of course! But “no more o’that, Hal.”[1] “John Brent”[2] came safely. Thank you for sending it. What a clear pretty volume you have made of it. We are all in the snow here too. I wish you and Mrs. Fields would come and see Wheeling white. I wish you both would come and see me this winter. I can promise you nothing but a welcome from all the family, half Irish, and half Virginia. Will it tempt you?


Yours sincerely,

R. B. H.

I sent the last proof and a note enclosed the other day.



Notes

  1. From Shakespeare’s Henry V.

  2. A novel by US writer and lawyer Theodore Winthrop (1828-1861) published posthumously by Ticknor & Fields in 1862.


Key Words

financial issues, Wheeling


Source

Richard Harding Davis Papers, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia


Contributor

S. M. Harris

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