Han1 recd your note, with 1 dollar was too weakly to read it, just then. Is very poorly, feeble, nervous, emaciated, brain affected through prostration of physical power, from two very protracted attacks/jaundice & has taken much medicine, necessarily—has every edible thing suitable for her convalescence, yet does [illegible] acquire any energy duk.00441.002_large.jpg weather very hindering, cold, or coldly damp—house comfortable however good heater in sitting room of course her disorder admit[illegible] of no philosophy—She is sick—very sick" indeed Charlie"—Yet I feel encouraged that she will get better—well, after a time—can get up stairs and return—cook her own victuals, agreeable to herself— I gave a couple of paintings away (allmost) to buy a tin of coal and a few groceries—
Neither Geo or Lou,2 write to her—might send her a trifle—
Charlie—Correspondent:
Charles Louis Heyde (ca.
1820–1892), a French-born landscape painter, married Hannah Louisa Whitman
(1823–1908), Walt Whitman's sister, and they lived in Burlington, Vermont.
Charles Heyde was infamous among the Whitmans for his offensive letters and poor
treatment of Hannah. For more information about Heyde, see Steven Schroeder,
"Heyde, Charles Louis (1822–1892)," Walt
Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New
York: Garland Publishing, 1998).