ALS signed “O. W. Holmes,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 6, April 18, 1882. Handwritten letter to Mr. Hayne, in part: "You need not apologize to me for delay…I am worn out with my correspondence…On returning to Boston after a week's absence I was frightened at the peaks of letters…But I have strength enough left in my wrist at least to write a few words, and especially with relation to our beloved Longfellow for whom the American and English world is in mourning. I had not seen him for a good while, for he proudly came to town of late, I think, and I rarely go to Cambridge in the cold season. He had been ailing for years more or less, and when I went with him, at the request of a photographer (the Notman Company) to get one photograph taken, I thought he looked older and more worn than I had ever seen him. Still his last attack was acute…All of us speak of him and all in the same way—I made some remarks at the Mass. Historical Society, and have written some verses for the June Atlantic. But it is all too little, for his life was so exceptionally sweet and musical that any voice of praise sounds almost like a discord after it, and yet as he cannot ring his own requiem, we must alter ourselves as nature prompts us to." In fine condition.
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