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Paris, June 14 [[strikethrough]]1867[[/strikethrough]]7 1877

[[edit mark]] So far, therefore, the boy has done well. He is in very good health too, which is of more consequence.

The rest of us are tolerably well: Mary is still under the influence of "a cold" which she brought from Nice, and Emily is feeling the bad effects of too much gaiety and too late hours, into which she has fallen since we came here. "Vanitas Vanitatis, omnia vanitasi"

How is Lizzie, and how are you, and how the rest of the brother hood? I see that the Presidential muddle has again been lugged into public notice, and the Tilton-Beecher affair. We must always have some trouble to stir up, and the worse it is the more people seem to enjoy it! I have no doubt that there was an awful lot of rascality practiced at the Presidential election, and I had hoped that the Democrats had the lion's share: but it seems that the Republicans were not angelic.

Is there any chance or appearance of improvement in trade and business, or is the land still as much as ever in the slough of Despond?

There seems to be a fair prospect of a satisfactory arrangement of the Eastern Question without war, at least for the present - which seems to have disappointed some of our American shippers and bread-stuff-producers, but which must please the majority of right-thinking people all the world over, for War is an awful calamity to the human race.

The weather all over Europe seems to be bad; almost all of May and June thus far, has been rainy - little or no sun to bring any agricultural product to perfection: but perhaps the season for agricultural products is not yet sufficiently advanced to render sunshine important so much as later.

Best love to Lizzie and to all from all of us.

Yours affectionately,  F.W. Sargent.