Default Metadata, or override by section

  My dear friend,

I was glad to hear by your postal that you are getting along without an increase of suffering. I wish that we all were near you, if so be that we might make an occasional hour brighter for you & contribute to your exterior comforts. I see no time to be fixed for our return. Alys proposes to go to Bryn Mawr College in September & then will visit you. She will return to us if all is well in June 1890 with her diploma in her pocket.

She, with her mother, a niece & myself have been wandering  this winter through Paris, Marseilles, the paradise of Nice and the Riviera, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, Switzerland & home escaping thus the melancholy skies of London with its "pea soup" smoky atmosphere.

Logan is doing well at his college at Oxford & is studying faithfully in his vacation at home.

Mary's second daughter, 3 weeks old, opens new hopes & joys—but through much suffering. Her husband is in the new London City Council and is becoming prominent in abilities & in his profession as a barrister.

 

My old enemy "melancholia" spreads its vampire wings still over my life and will I presume go with me to the end. I take it quietly, as a physical disease simply & live on remembering the phrase—"Its dogged that does it."

So I have not much to tell. Yet it is fun to be in the midst of this great fermenting intense life of London as an on looker.

I see with interest that you have issued a complete edition of your writings. You have many, many devoted friends in England among  thoughtful people who would delight to see you here.

Good bye, dear old friend,—Write me when your spirit moves you & tell me how you are.

With love from our children I am always

Yours affectionately Robert Pearsall Smith