February 9 Tuesday – Joe Twichell wrote to Sam.

Your letter received a few days ago did me a lot of good. I am glad that you love me, —or you must old fellow, to the end of the chapter. Thank you for telling me about your work. I perceive by your way of telling it, and the gait of your pen altogether, that your literary power is all with you still,—or I am certain the book, and the books, will prove. I only wish that there some things that Livy could do to give her respite also. If she were here I would take her, with her consent, to a mother heart worse broken than hers is—with nothing left,—to balm with her tears and tender sympathy. That would be medicine to her pain, and it is the divinest way of comfort [MTP].

Joe then discussed and enclosed correspondence between himself, a young woman who had been “betrayed” by a “reptile” of a young man with another woman, a man whose parents were his parishioners. He wondered what Sam thought [MTP].