WCP2672

[1]¹

Hartford

Feb[ruary] 3, 1889²

My dear Mrs Wallace

Your exquisite New Year's Card reached me lately on my return from Washington where I have been working for dear life to get a recognition for women in our coming Centennial Celebrations of the Constitution of the U.S. in 1889 & the discovery by Columbus 1892.

The reason I have not written you since that charming Sunday at Godalming, is that I have had a plan to get you all over here to live with us in the dear old home, we had to part with, but which may come back on our hands on meeting of the ^{with the} mortgage of $12,000, the present owner not being able to pay the interest even ^{being seriously embarrassed}. So far nothing decisive has occurred, but now I will say to you that if you can sell your home & invest a small sum in a home here jointly with us, I believe we can live & work together happily for many years, for we are of one mind & heart & spirit. I can't help feeling that [2] I was sent to make you that flying visit in order that you & I might see whether we could live together harmoniously under the same roof & together make a happy home for our husbands & children & grandchildren. And your bouquet of pressed flowers looking as ^if fresh from your dear garden in the old mould, that I enjoyed so much, goes straight to my heart & give me courage to make the proposal I have done & faith to believe that somehow the plan will be carried out.

I have wanted for years to have classes in Psychology & Political Economy in our big parlors, & my husband assisting; & if I could picture to you the wonderful waking up of our ^American people in both these directions you would see that under the leadership of the Dr Wallace, who is Europe's most distinguished scientist, we could hope eventually to guide the thought of this nation in the right direction & save it from the [1 word illeg.] which is now impending. [3]³

So what I have to ask is, that you make no plans for the future that will prevent your joining us in this glorious work, if the way should be opened in the near future. I have no time for particulars: but simply send you my speech on the Constitutional Rights of Women in the U.S. in pamphlet form, which has just been received by the Senate Comm[ittee]. of Congress & ordered printed as in the Congressional Record as a part of the Report of the Committee. I will send copies of the Record later & you will then see how it becomes possible & even probable that both parties & all parties will during the next four years accept woman's vote as as [sic] their only refuge from the domination of the foreign vote. and this means the beginning of a reform scarcely less than millennial.

I send also the Report of the Committee which has been making up the Centennial of 1892 with an Exposition [4] by the 15 S[outh]. American Republics which have adopted our Constitution in all executive particulars. I had no idea of all this — but I see what is coming — & it confirms a vision granted me in the city of Paris in 1874 — which I never could understand & which for a long time caused me to doubt the truth & value of spiritual communications.

But I have no time to enlarge. I prey you [1 word illeg.] &[?] think earnestly of what I have written & to prepare to cross the ocean when the time comes, bringing those dear children to our New World where they shall be most welcome & in which they may have their part to play in the wonderful future that is before us.

With much love to you all | I am faithfully yours | Isabella B. Hooker [signature]⁴

I send the communication from my brother which I promised your husband — one here had most [1 word illeg.] & valuable ones lately — but I cannot send them at present.