Geneva, Sept. 1st/52.
Wednesday morning.
My Dear Mrs. Seward.
I had anticipated, ere
I could find a leisure moment to communicate
with you through the medium of pen and
paper, being again quietly settled at Aurora,
performing my accustomed round of daily
duty and enjoying those mornings of light
and fragrance, those sunsets at evening on the
Cayuga, which I am fain to believe are in
Western New York, nowhere so beautiful as in our
little village of the "rosy-fingered goddess." Two
weeks have however passed away almost imperceptibly

hsince I left you at Auburn, yet still I am in Geneva,
enjoying to the utmost of my capacities its scenery
and society. I look back upon the few days
passed at your house with much pleasure. I
do not recollect in a long time to have made a
visit so agreeable to myself, and I feel to thank
you sincerely Mrs. Seward for the kindness and
politeness you have shown to me now, as well
as last Winter, when I was to you an entire stranger.
True friends I know are rarely found, and when
I reflect with how many I have been surrounded
from earliest childhood, I am ever ready to bless
my lucky natal star, or rather that power, high
over all, which formed the stars; the God, who
giveth to his creatures every needed good. Carrie
I suppose has already gone East; when you write
to her please give her my love, and tell her I trust
she will feel inclined to fulfill the partial
promise, which she made of writing to me.

I hope she will not disappoint me in a visit on
her return to Auburn, as I am looking forward to
it with much pleasure, and am doing my
utmost to convince myself that the brightness
and beauty with which Fall has so auspicious-
ly opened upon us are to continue. I love to look
forward to the glorious days of our Indian Summer,
when the tall forests are gorgeous with the
varied hues of their changing foliage and the
ground is covered with that, already fallen.
I delight in the rustling of the leaves beneath
my feet, the sighing of the winds and the
chirping of the crickets. I cannot say with
Bryant, that they are the melancholy days, the
saddest of the year". May I not Mrs. Seward at
that time hope to welcome you also to Aurora?
Although I know you are familiar with the
place, I shall scarcely feel satisfied until I
have had the pleasure of showing it to you

myself. I wish I might offer you some stronger
inducement to come than the natural beauty
of the place and the assurance of a cordial
reception, but to go farther, would be beyond the
limit of my power. Mr. Seward is of course
relieved from his senatorial duties for a time,
which must afford great pleasure, both to himself
and you. You go soon I believe to Vermont to join
him, and indeed, I am entertaining some doubts
whether my tardy letter finds you still at Auburn.
If, Mrs. Seward, in addition to your numerous duties
and engagements you could occasionally find
a few moments unemployed, I cannot express to
you the happiness, which it would afford me to
hear from you, but I have scarcely the presumption
to ask a moment from you, save in your thoughts:
I hope not to be forgotten. Give if you please my
love to the children, and remember me,
Respectfully yours,
Maria Avery.

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Frances Seward

Birth: 1805-09-24 Death: 1865-06-21

Maria Avery
1852