MANUSCRIPT: missing. The text is from Letters (1894), which reproduces in facsimile the first paragraph (showing the letter to be dated: Tuesday Evening), and the signature: Affy, Emilie.

PUBLICATION: L (1894) 157-158; LL 185-186; L (1931) 156-157; LH 32-34.

Emily and Vinnie visited the Hollands in September, pursuant to plans made in July. Mrs. Holand's sister Amelia (Minnie) Chapin lived with the Hollands until her marriage in 1856. Dr. Heman Humphrey, president of Amherst College from 1823 until 1845, had taught moral philosophy. Adolphus Hawkins, in Longefellow's prose romance Kavanagh, is a character whose writings satirize the effusions of the village poet. The scripture paraphrase in the first paragraph is from Matthew 7.7-8; that in the second, from Luke 11.12: "Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?"; that in the third, from I Corinthians 15.53.