p.

May 1st 1840

My dear Mrs Lowell -

I went to call on you yesterday
and was very much disappointed not to
see you again - it is so long since! - all this
winter I have intended it - and once
I went and you were not at home. - I then
put it off - and when your father died I
could not immediately intrude upon you - feeling
as I did so deep a sympathy in an afflic-
tion which had so many depths - in a case
like yours - where his character added so
much to the usual feelings of a child
and your retirement of life make the loss
of so deeply loved a relative so insepar
able to every day - I should have
gone out to Roxbury yesterday had I not
thought that perhaps there your grief would
be awakened - among the long loved [places ?]
associated with him. - And yet perhaps
I am wrong. - Death too has a happy side -
and sometimes we accept it for a friend
with a peculiar sense of rest - you have
sympathised with his sufferings so much
that perhaps you rejoice even now in his
security forever from all touch of pain - per
haps surviving nature in this outward
spring is a perpetual lyric in which your
mind can hear the beloved spirit cloth-
ing itself in new form - and pluming itself for
a new flight - I think Nature is ever a frame
to whatever human action is worthy of it and
when the cold snows of winter break up and

May 1st 1840

My dear Mrs Lowell -

I went to call on you yesterday
and was very much disappointed not to
see you again - it is so long since! - all this
winter I have [intended?] it - and once
I went and you were not at home. - I then
put it off - and when your father died I
could not immediately intrude upon you - feeling
as I did so deep a sympathy in an applic
ation which had so many depths - in a case
like yours - where his character added so
much to the usual feelings of a [child?]
and your retirement of life make the loss
of so deeply loved a relative so insepar
able to every day - I should have
gone out to Roxbury yesterday had I not
thought that perhaps there your grief would
be awakened - among the long loved [pride?]
associated with him. - And yet perhaps
I am wrong. - Death too has a happy side -
and sometimes we accept it for a friend
with a peculiar sense of [?] - you have
sympathised with his sufferings so much
that perhaps you rejoice even now in his
security forever from all touch of pain - per
haps surviving nature in this outward
spring is a perpetual lyric in which your
mind can hear the beloved spirit both