You might now revisit your old Texan haunts, under General Banks’s protection. The November elections show a united North. Peace democracy has made its issue, and is dead. The reëlection of Lincoln by acclamation seems probable, supported by moderate men of all sorts, the extremes of the opposing parties alone going against him.... Merry Christmas to you. January 21, 1864. By the steamer of Saturday, which takes this, a good young fellow, Mr. Kennedy, a member of our Senior class, goes to Cuba, to look after business of his father, and, when he can, to botanize, only four or five weeks, that is, in vacation. He is very fond of botany, and bids fair to be a botanist some day, if he does not take to money-making instead.... This war, we think, will be pretty much over next summer; and then, back in the Union, with slavery pretty much nowhere, by the hearty wish of a majority of the people, we may expect a career of prosperity and real advance of the South, such as it has never known. At least we hope so. TO R. W. CHURCH. CAMBRIDGE, December 25, 1863. For ourselves, your letter found us here just on the eve of our month’s holiday, a trip to Lake George, and thence to my natal region, in the most beautiful (and the most English-looking) part of the State of New York.... My wife was well enough to do her small part in a great fair held in Boston for the United States Sanitary Commission (which has kept the ladies very busy for the last six months), which has just closed, having brought the net proceeds of about $125,000 (it turns out $140,000) for the relief of suffering. As to our national affairs, I should like now and then to send you such comments or articles as seem to me to throw most light upon our condition. There is little I could say in a letter. I said very early to English friends that if the rebellion were short it might leave things much as they were before (no desirable state), but if long and obstinate, it would cut the knot we were unable to untie and completely destroy the slave system. You see now it is coming to pass, by rather slow but sure steps, and a great blessing it is to be to the South. To the North the war, with all its sad evils, has been a great good, morally and politically. The end is in the hands of Providence, and we humbly wait for it; but there is very little diversity of opinion here as to what, essentially, the end is to be, that is, the complete territorial reinstatement of the Union, and the abolition of slavery. Very sanguine, you think, in England. We must wait and see, and on our part hope and labor.