The original is at the Houghton Library of Harvard University. From the Blagden Collection of Wendell Phillips Papers: 10 letters from M. Pinner to Wendell Phillips, 1860-1873, bMS Am 1953 (1006) [item 6].
Transcribed (by Doron Zeilberger) and posted on the web: November 2003.
By kind permission of the Houghton Library of Harvard University.
Birnbaum (Prussia) Octbr 13, 1863.
Wendell Phillips Esq.
Boston, Mass.
Friend. For once I sit myself down in my own dear native town, to write to you of home and happiness. I am at home, I am melting away in love and tears, I am happy! And from the fullness of my heart I pray that every human being be blessed with a home. Blessed be every home, and thrice blessed my own dear native town. Birnbaum, the town, not Prussia, the state in which it lies, is my home. Outside of Birnbaum there is but the world, and I love every part of that great though queer world, but my holiest tabernacle, the center of my affections, is and shall always remain this native town of mine. Every eye I here meet beams with joy, every lip utters affection, love greets me at every step I am at home! Blessed, for ever blessed, be this dear little home of mine. And may your snug little dwelling also always prove a home to you!
It is very wrong to estrange ones self from home by long self-exile, and I deeply regret to have partly been guilty of it myself. Twenty one years have elapsed since I left here, and fifteen years since I last paid a two days visit here. I feared to recognize nobody but my parents and not to be able assimilate myself to the habits, customs and views of the people here. But oh, what a mistake! The ties of nature have opened my mental as well as physical eyes and have also enlivened my recollection. I have recognized and known again nearly all of those I have known before, and even the new generation, that has sprung up in the meantime, cannot escape being recognized by me. From family features I distinctly discern children and other young folks, and some of those I had to look for in the grave-yard I have recognized as living in their offspring. Recognition and happiness, love and tears are the order of the day, and in my joy I do not want to forget the few friends I have and especially the one, the only one I left in America. Hence I send to-day my love and pray you to be happy. May you always have a home in the true sense of the term! My dear old father and I are writing now at the same table, my good old mother is busying herself in the same room, everything is cheer, and it is a pity that in such happy moments a man can not die, or at least can not die without bereaving others. Do men ever die happy?
I would like to write you to-day about my intentions, hopes, business and prospects, but I am so intensely at home, that I do not want to think of anything but home. Probably I shall add to this before I mail it. Until then my love to you and my sincerest and most respectful compliments to Mrs. P. and our worthy Garrison family.
Yours in friendship and gratitude
M Pinner
Continued at Berlin, Octbr 23, 1863
Friend! The little tribute I paid in the above to home, but poorly expresses my real sentiments, and as I find more and more every day, that language is not made to express intensity of feeling. And while I love to dwell on that dear little home of mine, I am already geographically a long distance away from it. But what can not be cured has to be endured, I am now here in Berlin and from here I intend to go to Paris and London to spend the winter there. Aside of the flexible substitute for Glass I am interesting myself in several other new inventions and hope to make it, or them, pay on the Continent. You know I live on hope! Politically I have found things very bad, but yet a good deal better than I expected them, and this latter refers particularly to Germany. I have spent one week in London and one in Paris. I have found that Americans wrong Englishmen greatly by accusing them of sympathizing with the South. It is all bosh! Englishmen simply hate and envy the North, and would cheerfully, and for any price they could get, sell North and South alike. In your conversation with them you must never touch America, and if you agree with them, that the highest object of life is the gain of £ and the highest state of social perfection is English liberty, then, and only then, you will get along with them very well. They cheerfully acknowledge that in England it is next to impossible, and therefore happens but seldom, for a poor man to work himself up into a position, they admit that the administration of justice is expensive and that poverty can gain no law suits; they own that their two noble (or at least called noble) families hold and control 1/3 of all the votes, and yet their constant boast is English liberty and they actually seem crazed about that subject. The sight in London of so many men in livrée has disgusted me first of all, and has reminded me but too vividly of the social system founded upon cast; and although I have seen so many livréed men since, I am disgusted again and again by their self-degradation. But poor France, what shall I say of thee? Thou has trusted to Paris, and Paris betrayed thee. Napoleon has her in his grasp. He has bribed her with fine streets, work for the unruly and shallow pleasures, and thy future looks gloomy indeed.
All Paris seems happy. What of taxes and deficiencies as long as people amuse themselves and do not actually starve. All Paris looks cheer and hence France is quite. Napoleon knows his people and revolutionists have no chance. Gaiety at home aggressive wars and military glory abroad, what more does France want? However there must be a strong opposing under-current which for lack of time I have not seen.
Going from Paris to Cöln I passed through Belgien. Capital represented by manufacturing establishments seemed there very prosperous, but the working classes seemed ignorant, poor and wretched. These my first impressions of England, France, and Belgien and now for Germany or rather for Prussia, since I have as yet seen but very little of any other part of Germany. My first impressions of Prussia is not very pleasant. In Cöln I was greeted by the first sentinel box, the first excise collector, that aged and Sky-high absurdity "the Dome", "the Jesuits Apothecary" and a place of amusement called the "The dead Jew". A pleasant reception this, ain't it? Yet Cöln and probably the other few catholic towns form no criterion. I have found Prussia very progressive and the bulk of the people determined on wholesale political reform. Only those who know Prussia and know how Government influence enters every department of life, can form an idea of the difficulties progressive men have to surmount. There is no chance for a Republic for a long time to come. Opposition to organized boycott and thus crippling the Government is the best that can be done at present, and all the German states seem to be alike in this respect. Revolutionists have no chance to organize, but the ever brewing European complications may by accident set the combustible elements agoing and then - good bye Princes, Priests and Barronnets. Let us hope, work and pray. Day before yesterday I witnessed for the first time a Prussian election. What a difference between the conduct of the people at the poles [sic] here and that of our Irish-American Rowdies!
Friend Struve has written to me to Paris. In spite of his gray head he has arrived in Germany full of youthful, sky-high expectations and now mourns his disappointment. In New York we often quarreled because I would or could not see German affairs through his spectacles. I have expected very little and found a great deal, although not enough. Tomorrow and the day after a Congress to promote religious reforms meets at Frankfurt on the Main, and I see Struve advertised as one of the speakers. His subject will be "The dangers of priestly celebacy [sic]".
My youngest brother I have established at the University here to study Chemistry, and all goes well with him so far. If nothing happens to the contrary I expect to return to the U.S. next Spring. Before leaving N.Y. someone from Boston wrote to me "I shall write to you to Berlin", but I have seen no sign of a letter yet. My constant address here will be: care J. Susse 44 Rosenthaler Str. Please accept a representation of my ugly features and remember a certain promise.
Once more my love to you and yours. M Pinner