French, Mary Adams French: Memories of a sculptor's wife (Boston , New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928)

PEARY AND OTHERS 153
Meanwhile the time was going on and my years in
Washington, which seemed like the first chapter of my life,
were drawing to a close.
As to Judge French’s letters, they were still full of humor,
of devotion to his son’s career, of interest in public life, but
he realized that he could not stay there forever. ‘ I can go
back,’ he wrote, ‘ and settle down with equanimity to my
asparagus and to art,’ and in 1885 he closed his life in
Washington and returned, for his last few years, to his old
house, among his old friends in Concord.
Three years later, in ’88, my cousin and I were married
and went to live in New York.