June 8 Tuesday – Though in Elmira, spending days and nights until 10 PM with Livy, Sam wrote her a note after he got in bed. In part:

It is the sweetest face in all the world, Livy. To-day in the drawing-room, & to-night on the sofa when Miss Mary was playing—& afterward when you were sewing lace & I saw you from the front yard, through the window—these several times to-day this face has amazed me with its sweetness, & I have felt so thankful that God has given into my charge the dear office of chasing the shadows away & coaxing the sunshine to play about it always. It is such a darling face, Livy!—& such a darling little girlish figure—& such a dainty baby-hand! And to think that with all this exquisite comeliness should be joined such rare & beautiful qualities of mind & heart, is a thing that is utterly incomprehensible. Livy, you are as kind, & good, & sweet & unselfish, & just, & truthful, & sensible and intellectual as the homeliest woman I ever saw (for you know that all these qualities never existed before in any but belong peculiarly to homely women.) I have so longed for these qualities in my wife, & have so grieved because she would have to be necessarily a marvel of ugliness—I who do so worship beauty [MTL 3: 262]. Note: Miss Mary not identified.