And in that time my absolute and necessary expenses have been scorchingly
heavy--for I have now less than three thousand six hundred dollars in
bank out of the eight or nine thousand I have made during those months,
lecturing. My expenses were something frightful during the winter.
I feel ashamed of my idleness, and yet I have had really no inclination
to do anything but court Livy. I haven't any other inclination yet.
I have determined not to work as hard traveling, any more, as I did last
winter, and so I have resolved not to lecture outside of the 6 New
England States next winter. My Western course would easily amount to
$10,000, but I would rather make 2 or 3 thousand in New England than
submit again to so much wearing travel. (I have promised to talk ten
nights for a thousand dollars in the State of New York, provided the
places are close together.) But after all if I get located in a newspaper
in a way to suit me, in the meantime, I don't want to lecture at all next
winter, and probably shan't. I most cordially hate the lecture field.
And after all, I shudder to think that I may never get out of it.

In all conversations with Gough, and Anna Dickinson, Nasby, Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Wendell Phillips and the other old stagers, I could not
observe that they ever expected or hoped to get out of the business.
I don't want to get wedded to it as they are. Livy thinks we can live on
a very moderate sum and that we'll not need to lecture. I know very well
that she can live on a small allowance, but I am not so sure about
myself. I can't scare her by reminding her that her father's family
expenses are forty thousand dollars a year, because she produces the
documents at once to show that precious little of this outlay is on her
account. But I must not commence writing about Livy, else I shall never
stop. There isn't such another little piece of perfection in the world
as she is.