late 1859?

Katie-- Last year at this time I did not miss you, but positions shifted, until I hold your black in strong hallowed rememberance, and trust my colors are to you tints slightly beloved. You cease indeed to talk, which is a custom prevalent among things parted and torn, but shall I class this, dear, among elect exceptions, and bear you just as usual unto the kind Lord? -- We dignify our Faith, when we can cross the ocean with it, though most prefer ships.

How do you do this year? I remember you as fires begin, and evenings open at Austin's, without the Maid in black, Katie, without the Maid in black. Those were unnatural evenings.-- Bliss is unnatural -- How many years, I wonder, will sow the moss upon them, before we bind again, a little altered it may be, elder a little it will be, and yet the same as suns, which shine, between our lives and loss, and violets, not last years, but having the Mother's eyes.--

Do you find plenty of food at home? Famine is unpleasant.--

It is too late for "Frogs," or which pleases me better, dear -- not quite early enough! The pools were full of you for a brief period, but that brief period blew away, leaving me with many stems, and but a few foliage! Gentlemen here have a way of plucking the tops of trees, and putting the fields in their cellars annually, which in point of taste is excerable, and would they please omit I should have fine vegetation & foliage all the year round, and never a winter month. Insanity to the sane seems so unnecessary -- but I am only one, and they are "four and forty," which little affair of numbers leaves me impotent. Aside from this dear Katie, inducements to visit Amherst are as they were. -- I am pleasantly located in the deep sea, but love will row you out if her hands are strong, and don't wait till I land, for I'm going ashore on the other side -- Emilie.