West Point 28 Febr 1854
My dearest Markie[1]
I deputed Mary to thank you for your note by Rooney, & to express my sense of your kindness, in remembering me & my pen at the time of its reception in the great Bazar of London. Now that I am able, I will myself acknowledge my gratitude from your remembrance & pretty present, & also for your thoughtfulness in sending the socks. The pen wiper is beautiful & the best I have ever seen. I have as yet been only able to admire it. To use it never, nor can I make up my mind to touch it, but with an unsoiled pen. I wish it to last as long as my recollection of you, & that will be as long as memory lives. I recd last month a letter from Lawrence. He was well & cheerful & better contented I think with Garrison life than when he last wrote. He had seen Jerome Bonaparte & heard from Iris, who had reached Albequerque in comfort. Your friends the Benards & Reynolds are well. We see them often. I will have to give Cousin M[ary] the narration of local news, who will do it much better than I can. I enclose you a hearts ease, that I have had since last spring—Faded as it is, it will still whisper Comfort & hope to one who careth For the flower, will much more care for the bountiful Giver.
I remain your Cousin
RE Lee
To Miss Markie Williams, Arlington
Source: The Archives of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation, Papers of the Lee Family, Box 3, M2009.226, Jessie Ball duPont Library, Stratford Hall
Transcribed by Colin Woodward, 2015 September 4
[1] Martha “Markie” Custis Williams, a cousin of Mary Custis Lee and a distant cousin of Robert E. Lee. Markie lived at Tudor Place across the Potomac from Arlington.
