Dear Sir,
By a singular coincidence your letter Note: was not read until this morning. When it was droppedAs Written:droped into the hall I picked it up, and having people in put it in my pocket, forgot it, until emptying its contents found an unsealed letter and read it for the first time this morning.
"All chance is directionEditorial Note: From “An Essay on Man” by Alexander Pope." Pope hath said; perhaps I had something important to say to the son and he might not have come under other circumstances. I regret to disappoint the hope of a sick person more than any other. I think I should have taken the case of your daughter if I had been able to do so
But the growing cares and toils unfit me to do more than I am doing. I have to treat myself now, and the additional weight of the sick, beyond what I must inevitably support in the general mind is more than I can sustain; for the year past the touch of mortality I have not been able to bear at times. Also the exception to my general rule to do all I can, for the most that I can, I cannot make consistently with my own health, or a sense of justice to all.
Send your daughter to me and I will teach herEditorial Note: Dell Atkinson was in Eddy’s October 1876 class. how to keep your family in health. This is the best I am able to do after many years of unremitting efforts for my suffering fellow beings.