FROM WILLIAM ROBERT WARE TO MRS. EMERSON.

Assouan, Egypt, February 2d, 189o.

“We have just heard of your great loss, and it seems as if I could think of nothing else.

That is all there is to say, but it is a satisfaction to be able to make even a mute gesture of sympathy, and vain and impotent as they are, messages of sympathy can never be unwelcome. So I send this line for Harriet as well as for myself.

If in another world the relations of this are to be taken up and carried out, then these separations and reunions are mere passing incidents, and all is well. If not, and this life and its successes is all there is for us, then too all is still well, at least for those who have succeeded in living. And what is more successful than to make the most and best of one’s lot, whatever it is, and make one’s self a pleasure to one’s own and serviceable to others, as opportunity may be found. This seemed to me just the life your sister lived, and that it was a life in which she found as much pleasure and profit as she gave. What the world, her own world, can be without her, I cannot picture. The chasm will close, doubtless, and life go on. But there will be a desolate spot, where it seems as if nothing will ever grow.

Yours sincerely,

W. R. Ware.”