Chapter 8

Abstract

The Winter of 1856–1857 was spent back in America. It had been so long since Motley had seen his family and friends, that, at this time of the year, and upon the publication of his first work, there could not be a better time to come home. In Boston, he was considered something like a hero. His fame was rapidly spreading in Europe as well as America, and tributes poured in from all his friends on a job well done. Besides his immediate family, the person whom he enjoyed seeing the most was his old correspondent Oliver Wendell Holmes. Throughout his entire adult life his two closest friends were people whom he saw at very infrequent periods, but who maintained a life-long correspondence, the other person being, of course, Bismarck.