February 1879

Dear friend,

To congratulate the Redeemed is perhaps superfluous for Redemption leaves nothing for Earth to add- It is very sweet and serious to suppose you at Home, and reverence I cannot express is all that remains-I have read of Home in the Revelations -- "Neither thirst any more

You speak very sweetly of the Stranger-

I trust the Phantom Love that enrolls the "Sparrow"-enfolds her softer than a Child-

The name of the "little Book she wrote," I do not quite decipher- "and Prairie"? Should you perhaps tell me, I think I could see her Face in that- I am sorry not to have seen your "Hawthorne," but have known little of Literature since my Father died - that and the passing of Mr Bowles, and Mother's hopeless illness, overwhelmed my Moments, though your Pages and Shakespeare's, like Ophir-remain-

To see you seems improbable, but the Clergyman says I shall see my Father-

The subterranean stays-