431 Stevens st.
cor West.
Camden, N. Jersey,
Tuesday noon, Feb. 3.¹

Dear Nelly,

I sent you the Weekly Graphic No. 2 yesterday—wish you to take an opportunity, when convenient, & loan it to those two dear ladies, Mrs. Johnson & her sister mentioned in my article²—& please give them my best remembrances. Dear Nelly, how are you getting along, this winter?—We have just had a snow storm here—cold & while, as I look out, and the sleigh-bells occasionally jingling by—I am sitting here alone in the parlor by the heater, as I write. I am alone most of the time, (to all intents & purposes.)

I feel that I am better, in the main—yet still have daily & nightly bad spells in the head, & my leg most of the time disabled as ever. In fact not much different from the same old story—(yet certainly a good streak, or vein, of encouragement, & feeling of encouragement—maintaining itself—accumulating—never more than temporarily leaving me.) I even begin to think about coming back to Washington & trying it again.

Nelly, I sent a P.O. check for $50 to Charley last Friday to pay my young man³—haven't rec'd any word from Charley yet, up to this present writing⁴—hope it came safe—may hear from him, this afternoon or tomorrow. Charley is always so prompt in responding. I hear regularly from Peter Doyle—he is well & hearty, works hard for poor pay, on the Balt & Potomac RR., works nights a great deal. He writes me regularly every week. I have been waiting ever since I wrote,⁵ to get the photos. of my nieces, (my dear sister Mat's girls,) returned from New York, & send them to you—but have not yet got them. Shall write for them. My "song of the redwood tree," in last Harpers is copied a little, & abused & sneered at in the newspaper criticisms, a good deal, (from what I glean)—of course, that last makes me feel very bad—I expect to have another piece in February⁶ Harpers—(but am not certain)—"prayer of Columbus"—as I see it now I shouldn't wonder if I have unconsciously put a sort of biographical dash in it—Nelly dear, write oftener—put in all the gossip & items that will be next best to seeing you—do you see Dr. Drinkard—I sent Garaphelia Howard⁷ a paper, the Graphic⁸ that has my picture—how is she? Is she married? Give her my love—Poor, good Mr. Dille⁹—yet amid all its sombreness & terror how blessed to die "by touch ethereal," painless, instantaneous—Nelly, death has become to me a familiar thing—Yet, as I sit here writing, I do not feel a particle less of life in me, than ever.

God bless, you, dear, dear Nelly.
Walt