But there came an event which made all speculation regarding his plans vain and illusory. On
the 19th of February, 1885, Mrs. Lowell died after a short, sharp illness. The loss struck a chill in his heart which made him dumb for the most part, but he wrote to his friends, Mr. and Mrs. John W. Field, who had been sharers in his profound anxiety during those painful days in Madrid:—
London, 6 March, 1885.
Dear old Friends,—What shall I say to you, even though I have the sad comfort of feeling that whatever I say will be said to those who loved her and knew the entire beauty of her character. But I must at least say how deeply grateful I am to you whose friendly devotion in Madrid did so much to prolong a life so precious. She was given back to us for five years, and for the last two of them was hopeful enough about her health to enjoy her life. She had grown easy in her ceremonial duties, and (since the death of her mother and sisters) had no desire to return home. It is all bitterly sad.
It seems there was no hope from the first,—though I naturally thought it an attack like that of three years ago which she would pull through. The doctors all believed as I did. But they think now that there was some organic and incurable lesion of the brain,—perhaps a tumor,—and that this disturbance was the cause of her fever in Spain instead of being its consequence.
Everybody here has done for me everything that kindness could do,—especially Lady Lyttelton, Mrs. Smalley, and Mrs. Stephen. Lady L. has been all that the tenderest sister could be.
God bless you, dear old friends!