MANUSCRIPT: HCL (H 47). Ink.

PUBLICATION: LH 124-125.

The "Portrait" was an issue of the Springfield Republican of some length, in the 24 July issue, describing the Hollands' new house in the Thousand Islands. The last sentence evidently asks Mrs. Holland to forward an enclosure, probably a letter intended for Dr. Wadsworth. "Whips of Time" paraphrases Hamlet's "whips and scorns of time" (III, i, 70). The second quotation paraphrases the opening lines of Browning's "In Three Days": "So, I shall see her in three days." Mrs. Ward conjectures that "Mrs Browning's little Basket" means that ED folded the letter in a circular notice or the wrapping from a copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Earlier Poems, first published in the United States in March 1878.