Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4

Sumner remained at Washington till well on into the heats of August, busy with correspondence and controversy. One evening he addressed the colored people from his doorstep, when they waited on him to bid him good-by, speaking to them for equal civil rights.¹ To one of the San Domingo commissioners he wrote an open letter concerning the discrimination against Frederick Douglass on account of his race while associated with them, which brought out a reply.² Appeals were made to him from political leaders (Samuel J. Randall among them), and by Southern men, to make addresses in different States; but he was obliged by ill health to decline the service. While still at Washington he received a note from Longfellow, dated July 27:

I wish you could have been at the Club to-day. None of the young members came. There were a dozen of us, all over sixty. It was like a dinner at some Old Man's Home or Hotel des Invalides. Emerson sat next to me. He was emphatic in his praise of you. Such elegant and easy hospitality; such a worker; such agreeable company; and so on to the end of the chapter.³

On reaching home he at once, as was his custom at this season, sought Longfellow at Nahant, where he found as a guest his old companion George W. Greene. One day he drove from the city to Mr. Winthrop's at Brookline. Another day he entertained R. Schleiden, who was on a visit to this country.

Sumner overworked himself at this session, as indeed he was almost always doing. In addition to the controversies in the Senate, which taxed severely his nervous system, he was engaged in the preparation of notes to his Works, of which four volumes had been issued and three more printed; and he was beginning to prepare the eighth and ninth. Twelve or fifteen hours a day were thus given to sedentary work. He had broken down after the debate on the sale of arms to France, and had serious reminders after other excitements. His system lacked strength to withstand such a strain much longer. He experienced a sensitiveness about the heart, and a difficulty of breathing. The day after the session closed he consulted his physician, Dr. J. Taber Johnson, who found that the heart, though