The Club mentioned in this letter was that of which my father wrote in his Reminiscences: "This Charleston Club, then, I think, forty years old, was one of the most remarkable, and in some respects [236] the most improving, that I have ever known. An essay was read at every meeting, and made the subject of discussion. One evening at Dr. Gilman's was read for the essay a eulogy upon Napoleon III. It was written con amore, and was really quite sentimental in its admiration,--going back to his very boyhood, his love of his mother, and what not. I could not help touching the elbow of the gentleman sitting next me and saying, Are n't we a pretty set of fellows to be listening to such stuff as this? He showed that he thought as I did. When the reading was finished, Judge King, who presided, turned to me and asked for my opinion of the essay. I was considerably struck up,' to be the first person asked, and confessed to some embarrassment. I was a stranger among them, I said, and did not know but my views might differ entirely from theirs. I was not accustomed to think myself illiberal, or behind the progress of opinion, and I knew that this man, Louis Napoleon, had his admirers, and perhaps an increasing number of them; but if I must speak,--and then I blurted it out,--I must say that it was with inward wrath and indignation that I had listened to the essay, from beginning to end. There was a marked sensation all round the circle; but I defended my opinion, and, to my astonishment, all but two agreed with me." The following winter he was invited to repeat his lectures in Charleston, and passed some time there, accompanied by his family. In March, 1856, he went with Mrs. Dewey to New Orleans, and, returning to Charleston at the end of April, went home in June. [237] To his Daughters. ON BOARD THE "HENRY KING," ON THE ALABAMA RIVER, March 18, 1856. . . . Sum charming things cars are! No dirt,--no sp-tt-g, oh! no,--and such nice places for sleeping! Not a long, monotonous, merely animal sleep, but intellectual, a kind of perpetual solving of geometric problems, as, for instance,--given, a human body; how many angles is it capable of forming in fifteen minutes? or how many more than a crab in the same time? And then, no crying children,--not a bit of that,--singing cherubs, innocently piping,--cheering the dull hours with dulcet sounds. I write in the saloon, on this jarring boat, that shakes my hand and wits alike. We are getting on very prosperously. Your mother bears the journey well. This boat is very comfortable-for a boat; a good large state-room, and positively the neatest public table I have seen in all the South. There! that'll do,--or must do. I thought wife would do the writing, but I have "got my leg over the harrow," and Mause would be as hard to stop. To Mrs. David Lane. NEW ORLEANS, March 29, 1856.