Believe me, dear Mrs. Moulton, Faithfully yours, O.W. HOLMES. [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES _Page 164_] _Dr. Rolfe to Mrs. Moulton_ CAMBRIDGE, Christmas, 1889. DEAR MRS. MOULTON: How can I thank you enough for giving me a free pass to your "Garden of Dreams" with its delightful wealth of violets, fresh and sweet; lilies and roses, rosemary, and Elysian asphodel, and every flower that sad embroidery weaves? Put your ear down close and let me whisper very confidentially,--tell it not at our meetings at the Brunswick, publish it not in the streets of Boston! that I like your delicate and fragrant blossoms better than some of the hard nuts that the dear, dead Browning has given us in his "Asolando." Sour critics may tell us that the latter will last longer,--they are tough enough to endure,--but I doubt not that old Father Time,--who is not destitute of taste, withal,--will press some of your charming flowers between his ponderous chronicles, where their lingering beauty and sweetness will delight the appreciation of generations far distant. So may it be! Luckily, one may wander at will with impunity in your lovely garden, even if he has as bad a cold as at present afflicts and stupefies your friend, though he may enjoy these all the more when he recovers his wonted good health. If this poor expression of his gratitude seems more than usually weak and stupid, ascribe it to that same villainous cold, and believe him, in spite of it, to be always gratefully and cordially yours. With the best wishes of the holiday time, W.J. ROLFE. _Mr. Greenough to Mrs. Moulton_ "DECEMBER, 1889. "I took a long walk in 'The Garden of Dreams.' What a perfect title! Dr. Charles Waldstein is staying with me on his way to Athens, and I read him some of these poems which most pleased me, finding instant response. "You will feel Browning's death very much. Story was with him only a few weeks ago. They were making excursions, and, despite remonstrances, Browning insisted on scaling heights, though often obliged to stop. It was a great disappointment to his son that he could not be buried by E.B.B., as he desired to be.... Yes, positively and inexorably, the past exists forever. We do not apprehend it, owing to the limitations of our faculties, but once granting the removal of these limitations by organic change (as by death), then the past becomes awakened, and we are again alive in the entity of our being. Then the latent causes of our actions, for good or evil, are as patent to us as to the Author of our being. The friends we long to see are present. This is a practical glance at the thing...."