MANUSCRIPTS: There are two (Bingham), both written in 1885. The copy reproduced above is incorporated in a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Eben J. Loomis, written on 2 January 1885. The other copy is in the rough draft of a letter, the fair copy of which, now lost, presumably was sent to Helen Hunt Jackson in March 1885. It is variant in line 3, which reads: "Is it becoming me." The last line ends with a question mark. For "abject" (line 5) ED set down "boundless" as a possible alternative, but whether she adopted it in the lost fair copy is not known.

PUBLICATION: The copy to the Loomises in Letters (ed. 1931 only), 426. The copy to Mrs. Jackson is in Letters (ed. 1894), 424; (ed. 1931), 413; also LL (1924), 372.