August 22 Monday – By this day Sam had returned to Lee, Mass. where he wrote to Susan Crane.

Susy dear, you are right: put just the dates, as you suggest—or, add “Florence, Italy” to the “June 5, 1904”— for there is a deep pathos in that far-from-home-&-friends in the simple mention of that beyond-ocean name.

Dear Sue, I thank you for arranging for the flowers for me, it is good & kind of you. And I thank you for Livy’s letter—October 13, just when she was entering with fear & trembling upon the heavy labor of that large house, a labor which was to have consequences. She was already feeling “old & out of repair,” like the house—how the words reproach me! Sue, she should never have returned to America— she would have lived 15 years longer. But— she is better off as it is. Death is always better fortune than life [MTP]. Note: Sam put a PS at the top that Jean was walking without crutches.