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[begin struck through text] Laura [end struck through text]

Pulaski: Tenn: Nov. 20, 1864, My dear friend Laura: - Charles Lamb wrote an essay on "Roast Pig," and a charming little "Ode to Tobacco." Burns perpetuated an "Address to the Devil," and "other men of other minds" have immortalized other themes of "other kinds." But nobody - not even Shakespeare has - so far as I can learn - set the ague to rythmic movement: that, I fancy, must have been specially reserved for me. I complained to your Sister yesterday in bad prose - I complain to you to-day in werse. But seriously it is a very troublesome and unpleasant thing. The "dumb ague," it is. A cold, benumbing, paralytic out of constant shiver to the remotest nooks and crannies of the bones. Sometimes I bear it patiently: sometimes I whistle. And so, because I am too distressed to write gravely on grave topics, I shall e'en try to describe to you my quarters and their surroundings. Major Holden and myself occupy the same "apartment," which is office, reception, and