late 1872

TO: Louise Norcross
FROM: ED

An ill heart, like a body, has its more comfortable days, and then its days of pain, its long relapse, when rallying requires more effort than to dissolve life, and death looks choiceless.

Of Miss P------ I know but this dear, She wrote me in October, requesting me to aid the world by my chirrup more. Perhaps she stated it as my duty, I don't distinctly remember, and always burn such letters, so I cannot obtain it now. I replied declining. She did not write to me again - she might have been offended, or perhaps is extricating humanity from some hopeless ditch. . . .