Autograph letter signed : London, to Dr. Baldwin, 1898 Feb. 4.

Commenting on Baldwin's "tragic" letters and adding "...but tragedy seems your native air: I mean you bloom & thrive in it - or at least you thrive if you don't bloom I call thriving not dying! - surviving or recommencing. For you will recommence - you are recommencing - you have recommenced! Your so interesting & harrowing letter from Naples makes my heart bleed. However, if it takes collapse & the clammy hand to make you stop - why, let them come(?)! Only the next time do try to stop without them. I rejoice to think Naples was obligatory. But how homesick your whereabouts make me! It's all very painful. You beckon me to Italy, & I don't come - & I can't come - & yet I am coming. It is nearly (will be on April 1st) the 4th year since I last went abroad...Some day - not too far-off a one - we will make it all up together. Oh, what a long draught of dear old Italy I shall then take! - I have just re-read your letter. What a hell of a time you must have had, in the autumn, with rheumatic fever! I always think of that as the direst of human ills & dread it unspeakably for myself. - I hope the boy is long since quite right. But one child-problem, in your life, must subside only to let another come up. Well, you're a hero...Thank God your brother was there! - I write to poor Mrs. Bronson and no sound comes back to me. I hope, however, she won't pass away before I can see her again. Your old friend 'Bill' Nevill is here, in a grim situation in prison with bail refused & penal servitude for forgery staring him in the face. What a world! I embrace you - warm you - watch you; & am yours, my dear Baldwin, ever, constantly..."