Autograph letter signed : Cambridge, Massachusetts, to George Higginson, 1910 Oct. 26.

Writing of his illness and the death of his brother; apologizing for his long silence, "But there were from the first -- there have been all along -- dismal or heavy reasons for my wretched silence. I have been perpetually & miserably ill -- with the obstinate remains of my quite dreadful & horrible illness of last year (I mean of this past one, from Christmas back to the present autumn.) I accompanied my beloved Brother to this country ill (I had got better enough to make in a manner the journey,) even as he had come out to see me in my own frustration the previous April (last April,) he & Alice together like blest ministering angels. Then came, a week after our return, his dreadful accelerated death, the shock & pain & strain of which made me lose all the ground I had managed to gain. I was thrown back again, dismally, into my worst condition, with which I have still constantly to struggle. At the same time we were all overwhelmed by an avalanche of letters, consequent upon William's death -- letters almost by the thousand, & at the immense business of answering which I could for the most part, in spite of Alice's heroic example, only helplessly & shrinkingly gape. In other words I have been too sadly gone or demoralized to mind my manners or my memorial, & can but plead my state of health in excuse;" explaining that it would be impossible for him to visit them due to the distance and a journey that length would "simply paralyze me with terror & sickness. I haven't for many a year 'staid' more than a Sunday with any one, & that very rarely & never at more than a couple of hours' distance from London. Such is the final effect of age or infirmity -- with many sources of depression & anxiety now added;" inviting them to Boston for Thanksgiving; adding "I cleave to Alice & her children here for the present -- they are all interesting & admirable -- & shall probably spend the whole winter on this side of the Sea; but I fear I shall be able to take no step into the [sic] into your mighty West. To crawl occasionally into Boston, & perhaps later on to put in a little time in New York, are all I must dream of."