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  Dear Mary Costelloe

I will write you a few lines without any thing to say, but because the spirit moves me & every thing is so beautiful & peaceful in the nearly declined but dazzling sun—The little children are playing out on the walks, a mocking-bird is singing over the way, & a young just-bursting magnolia blossom, (sent me an hour ago by the grocery woman at the corner) fills the room with its spicy fragrance, from its glass of water on the window-sill—I have been somewhat under a cloud physically the last week, but feel better to day—& the best of it is a sort of consciousness (if it don't deceive me) of being better for good—at any rate for the time, wh.ich is as much as could be asked for—

I have written & sent a poem to Lippincotts—wh. has been accepted, & I have got the money for it, (& great good it does me, coming now)—Herbert Gilchrist is here—he is drawing & painting my portrait to-day—Sidney Morse has modelled a large (colossal I suppose) head of me—I think perhaps the best thing yet—Love to your father, yourself & Alys, the baby dear, & all—as I end, after my supper, (mostly strawberries) I see glimpses of a fine sunset in the west & the boys out in Mickle Street are playing base ball—

Walt Whitman