Publication InformationFlorence Aug 2 65

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Dear Baird

Instead of returning your proof, I send corrections written out. The [...] P.O. made me pay seven dollars on a 12 mo volume because the pre-payment fell short 3 ct stamp by this (lying?) weight.

We are much grieved at what you say of Mary's health. I wish she could spend a minute at some of the springs on the Italian slopes of the Alps. They cure everything, as the mountain air does.

We pick up autographs now & then, & will remember Lucy, but collectors are so ravenous that we can't keep them long

Florence is a mighty fine museum & a mighty poor residence. Vile climate, detestably corrupt society, infinite frivolity, servant's hall of Tophet. If it were not for a run now & then into the Alps, which are my Paradise, I should die of vexation at the devilries which are going on around me. When I am rich, I will dig me a hole in a glacier and live there, having a good stove and all things comfortable about me.

Love to Mary & Lucy from both of us. I have heard nothing from Mr Bache since January. I suppose he has

gone home invalided.

Yours trulyG P Marsh

I send Lucy her Somervilles Photog. & Autog.

References in this letter:

Lucy Hunter Baird, 1848-1913, the only child of Spencer Fullerton and Mary Helen Churchill Baird. She shared her father's interests in the natural world. As a child, Lucy had, as a pet, a large black snake, whose tail touched the ground when held by Lucy, sitting on her father's shoulders. It was her memoirs and reminisces which formed the majority of the William H. Dall biography of her father.

Located in the valley of Himmon, near Jerusalem, Tophet was considered to be a city of idoloters. (Jeremiah 19 ; Isaiah 30; 2 Kings 23) The name was used as a synonym of Hell.

The geophysicist Alexander Dallas Bache (1806-1867) served as Superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey from 1843 to 1867 and was one of the influential members of the Smithsonian Board of Regents from 1846 through the 1859 term.