Your sincerely affectionate HARRIET. [TO MISS LANE.] WHEATLAND, near LANCASTER, March 15, 1853. MY DEAR HARRIET:— I received yours of the 11th, postmarked the 14th, last night. I now receive about fifty letters per day; last Saturday sixty-nine; and the cry is still they come, so that I must be brief. I labor day and night. You ask: Will you accept the mission to England? I answer that it has not been offered, and I have not the least reason to believe, from any authentic source, that it will be offered. Indeed, I am almost certain that it will not, because surely General Pierce would not nominate me to the Senate without first asking me whether I would accept. Should the offer be made, I know not what I might conclude. Personally, I have not the least desire to go abroad as a foreign minister. But “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” I really would not know where to leave you, were I to accept a foreign mission, and this would be one serious objection. I think you are wise in going to Mr. Macalester’s. You know how much I esteem and admire Mrs. Tyler, but still a long visit to a friend is often a great bore. Never make people twice glad. I have not seen Kate Reynolds since her return, and have had no time to see any person. In remarking as I did upon your composition, I was far from intending to convey the idea that you should write your letters as you would a formal address. Stiffness in a letter is intolerable. Its perfection is to write as you would converse. Still all this may be done with correctness. Your ideas are well expressed, and the principal fault I found was in your not making distinct periods, or full stops, as the old schoolmasters used to say. Miss ——’s are probably written with too much care,—too much precision. We have no news. We are jogging on in the old John Trot style, and get along in great peace and harmony. March 19, 1853.