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in going over a package of leters - your pleasant note with the sweet volume of poems (sent me during my brief stay at the Occidental HOtel, San F.) caused me to renew the desire to assure you of my truest sympathy in the removal of your loved life partner. He has only moved a little farther on and up. Blessed though, that ever as our dear ones sometimes, during their earthly lives journeyed to distant countries, so, in the more spiritual sense, they pass without the gates, entering into the Paradise country, where living fields of verdure ever spring fresh and green - I know from sad experience how words fall limp & lifeless upon the heart, which is breaking - yet even after twenty years, the memory of some senders expression of sympathy is with one still - so I venture again to express my soul language - we have both been so simularly afflicted that there is a bond - your only boy & mine - How rich the present is of blessed memories of those whom the Dear Lord lovingly loaned us. There is nothing that could make me murmur - so intense is my gratitude for the past - and I am sure