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Gen. Scott's reply was very concise and affecting. All his remarks I do not remember, but he said he knew by the light of our faces that our enjoyments, though perhaps more pensive than those of persons who see, are not less elevated and refined. Religion, God and the Bible were so much the themes of his remarks, one would sooner have thought him a priest, than a General from the field of battle. When he resumed his seat Fanny was introduced to him, and recited a poem which she had prepared for his reception. She alluded to the soldiers revelling in the halls of Montezuma. The General afterwards remarked: "we did not revel in the Halls of Montezuma, but subsisted on one meal a day; and when the battle ended went down on our knees, as all good Christians and soldiers should do, and returned thanks, and sought the blessing of God." If analyzed, were their thanks for their own escape, or for their success in disposing of their enemies? Even soldiers should remember, "God takes no thanks for murder." The General let Fanny take his sword; she unsheathed it; and raising it high, exclaimed, "You are my prisoner." The great man replied, "I always surrender to the ladies at discretion." He then joked her something about the beaux. Fanny said to him, I have never yet seen a gentleman who quite suited my fancy. This put the house in a roar of laughter, and such a volley of cheers you never heard. I could not see the General to judge of his height, but I fancy he must be to the new world what Saul was to the old, "head and shoulders above all other men."

Rochester Willow Bank, March, 1848.

MY DEAR, VERY DEAR MARY: -- We, whose eyes are closed, have but two divisions of time -- a noisy night and a quiet one. Morning comes, and the light streams in sunny rills over all the gladsome earth. Long ago, Mary, we two awoke, ere the sun had kissed the dews into vapor, and ran joyous to greet the faces of those we loved, refreshed and beautified by a night of slumbers. And oh, do you remember, Mary, how from the opened doors, in rushed, like resisted waters, a flood of golden light? When far o'er the green hills, the full orbed sun showered his splendors; and high up the blue sky, fleecy clouds were flying; and among the trees merry birds were singing -- and on the flowers, busy bees their nectar draughts were sipping, and all the insect tribes were humming, and we, too, in girlhood glee, went singing. How joyful, oh, how joyful, is the morning! But now it is not so; our night is unending. Days steal on us -- and steal from us. We sleep and awaken; but no change comes. No flowers spring up in our path; no garden walks or fields unfold their colors; no mountains rise -- no rivers roll nor oceans swell. To us, beauty hath veiled her face, and grandeur and sublimity, have passed away. Yes, Mary, all things have passed away. The moon has left the sky, and all the constellated stars have gone down for ever; so the bright dreams of our youth have fled; and promised joys come not. All around are blithe and gay, but from morn till eve, Mary, we move cautiously and pensively. Our truant feet often go astray, and we know not when danger is nigh. As the chained eaglet looks heavenward, and stretches out its wing in fancied freedom, so we sometimes intercept the flight of time -- and live forgetful in light, and joy, and hope, only to return and weep in darkness more dark, and loneliness more lonely. But Mary, our darkness, like the clouds, must have its sunny side, for God takes blessings from us only when their absence is the greater blessing; sorrow sanctified, quickens into newness of life, the better feelings of our nature, -- and Mary, does it not make us love our friends and all the world more; and go not our thoughts oftener up to God and heaven? Imagination, that sublime radius of the soul, is every day taking to herself a broader sweep; piercing even the sepulchre of the buried past -- and treading fearless, within the boundary of the unseen. Science or art, or earth or sky, have no treasured worth, nor hidden beauty, that fancy, in her fleetness, does not picture in colors brighter far, than open eyes can see, and as flowers from the depths of the ocean, come floating o'er the swelling tide, so beautiful images from the long-forgotten past, gladden now our searching memories. Galileo, who saw more than all the world before him, and opened the eyes of all after him, from the top of his prison, with the instrument his own hands had made, watched the wheeling orbs above, until his eyes became opaque as the satellites he discovered; in his woes he cried, Oh, ye Gods, for power to look once more into the serene depths of the clear night heaven! If we may judge from his frequent and happy descriptions of its beauties, Milton would have given all other sights for the glorious morning.

Sanderson desired only once to look along the pages of a book, and I have heard you say, Mary, you would rather see the flowers, than all the "world beside! But oh! if I were to be blessed with one moment of sight, I would pray, let me look again into the face of a cherished friend -- a pair of soul-lit eyes, beaming with intelligence and love; whose spirit-glances imagination cannot picture, and things so holy, unsanctified memory may not treasure. Oh, what saddened feelings steal upon us, when, with ravished ears, we listen to descriptions of paintings on the walls, and rainbows on the clouds. But, Mary, have you never thought the angels are always nearer then, to bear our thoughts away, where light is, that fades not? Where the painter, with his brush of divine art, dipped in color's native well, sketches holy imagery; scenery of heaven, where deathless flowers bloom by living fountains, and the fair forms of the blest, when dayspring's fragrant dews hang impearled upon their seraph locks! Where the poet, seated upon some blissful mound, writes while the inspirations of holy genius burn along his lines, where Truths, into which philosophers here look and grow bewildered with their depth, we shall there explore, invited by the voice of Him who sits in majesty enthroned, and sways over earth and heaven his potent rule; whose creating hand moulds worlds, and tosses them into the fields of ether pensile hung; "clothes the lilies of the field, and tempers the winds to the shorn lamb."