“I have felt rather lonesome since, but am pretty sure it is all for the best.... I went to Boston to the Convention to choose delegates to Cincinnati a week ago yesterday. We elected the men I wanted. The next day I came out here, and found violets and anemones and bloodroot in bloom and the lawn green with grass. Day before yesterday I spent with the Sewalls at Melrose to meet Mrs. Pitman and Mrs. Childs. I had a delightful time. I am now suffering with a cold brought on by the bitter east wind. I long for the south-east ones. M---- P---- [a niece] is quite ill; I fear, seriously. Joseph and Gertrude Cartland are still at Amesbury, and probably thee will find them there when thee return, which I hope will be ere long.” A letter from Whittier to the writer in the April of 1881--an extract from which Mr. Pickard published in his biography of the poet--says: “I have just got thy pleasant letter. I am afraid I cannot answer it very well for I am under the baleful influence of our reluctant and baffling New England spring and my head is in no condition to think. I was at Amesbury nearly a month, most of the time seeing nobody and rather glad of it, as I was overdone with folks at Boston. “I quite agree with what thee say of ‘The Little Pilgrim’ and the life beyond generally. But I like ‘The Little Pilgrim’ story better than Dante’s pictures of Heaven--an old man sitting eternally on a high chair and concentric circling saints, martyrs, and ordinary church members whirling around him in perpetual gyration and singing ‘glory!’ Ah me! It is idle to speculate on these things. All I ask for is to be free from sin and to meet the dear ones again.... I am not able to do much--even reading is often painful; but the east winds will soon blow themselves out, and I shall feel better, I trust.” In another letter he says: “I have just sent a poem to the ‘Atlantic’ which perhaps nobody will like. But I do and that is enough, as I wrote it to free my mind.” The poem was “Rabbi Ishmael.” * * * * * In 1880 in a letter from Oak Knoll to the writer, he says: “I wonder whether you are enough in the country at Au--to see the progress of spring in grass and bud and blossom. Have you birds about you? Here we have a good many. Last night a pretty rabbit came up under our windows and the gray squirrels are plenty. I have been hoping to get out to see you; but if I cannot, you must come here. Two of our folks are in California this spring.” * * * * *