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Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge’s London Travel Diary, 27 July 1838

On Wednesday we went accompanied by Mr Ashburner, to the Oriental Club. He conducted us through all that part of the building open to strangers and explained to me the system of Club Life—a thing very perfect in it’s way. Whether this way is as good in it’s results as it is certainly well adapted...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge’s London Travel Diary, 2 Aug. 1838

Yesterday we visited the Tower. There is no place in England better worth seeing when we remember all that it’s old grey walls have seen. An American should feel the influence of the grand recollections attached to the Tower of London even more than an Englishman. Our common origin connects us as...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge’s London Travel Diary, 1 Oct. 1838

I have been hoping for some time past to get away from London before the fine season was quite over. It is now decided that we go to Edinburgh. I am overjoyed at the thought. I shall see Scotland, I shall hear the “sweet Doric” of her spoken tongue, and in the home of Burns and Walter Scott do...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge’s London Travel Diary, 1 May 1839

Off the Banks of Newfoundland. Three weeks at sea. Dismal weeks of incessant sickness & suffering. Let no one talk of sea-sickness who has not felt it in it’s horrors—it’s weakness, it’s helplessness, it’s utter prostration of all power bodily and mental. O long days & weeks of giddiness ...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Jane H. Nicholas Randolph, 17 May 1843

I write to you, dearest Jane, a little before the time; as the Steamer leaves England not before the first of next month and I usually allow not more than a week for my letter to reach Liverpool, but if I do not write now I may have to wait five or six weeks, as I am going to a place pretty much...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 29 May [1848?]

We arrived here safe & sound, dearest Virginia, on saturday, but as I was obliged to write for the Steamer, it is only now, Monday, that I have time to write to you. Tell Cousin Beverley that his recommendations procured me all sorts of attentions from his friends. Mr Bomford was very civil,...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 10 July 1853

I am very sorry, my dear Mr. Randall, that I can give you no information on the subject of the chasms in Mr. Jefferson’s Correspondence.—I have no copy of Tucker’s Biography at hand to see what mention he makes of them. He wrote whilst my mother was yet living. She, of all persons would have...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 26 Jan. 1856

Few things could give me more pleasure than to contribute in the smallest degree to the successful termination of the work which at present occupies your time and thoughts. I feel the deepest interest in it.— I will not take up your questions in order, but write what I can, when I can, and as the...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 13 Feb. 1856

No. 3. I have found it impossible to resume my pen until now when I have an hour or so of leisure before turning my attention to the daily cares & duties which admit of no postponement. The decay of my grandfather’s fortune was owing, as you know, to various causes, but to none more than the...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 18 Feb. 1856

… The house at Poplar Forest was very pretty and pleasant. It was of brick, one story in front, and, owing to the falling of the ground, two in the rear. It was an exact octagon, with a centre-hall twenty feet square, lighted from above. This was a beautiful room, and served as a dining-room....