And now, my dear Mrs. Fields, there must come a period of depression, almost of collapse, after the labor and the solace of this tender, tearful, yet blessed occupation. I think you need the kind thoughts and soothing words—if words have any virtue in them—of those who love you more than while each day had its busy hours in which the memory of so much that was delightful to recall kept the ever-returning pangs of grief a little while in abeyance. It must be so. But before long, quietly, almost imperceptibly, there will, I hope and trust, return to you the quieting sense of all that you have done and all that you have been for that life which for so many happy years you were privileged to share. How few women have so perfectly fulfilled, not only every duty, but every ideal that a husband could think of as going to make a happy home! This must be and will be an ever-growing source of consolation.
Forgive me for saying what many others must have said to you, but none more sincerely than myself.
I do not know how to express to you the feeling with which Mrs. Holmes looks upon you in your bereavement. I should do it injustice if I attempted to give it expression, for she lives so largely in her sympathies and her endeavors to help others that she could not but sorrow deeply with you in your affliction and wish there were any word of consolation she could add to the love she sends you.
Believe me, dear Mrs. Fields,
Affectionately yours,
O. W. Holmes
For thirteen years longer, till his death in 1894 at the age of eighty-five, Dr. Holmes was a prolific writer of notes, more often than letters, to Mrs. Fields. The sympathy of tried and ripened friendship runs through them all. In the Charles Street house the younger friends might see from time to time this oldest friend of their hostess. When he came no more, it was well for those of a later day that his memory was so securely held in the retrospect and the record of Mrs. Fields.