William Ellery Channing writes to Mary Russell Watson:
I regret very much to say that H.D.T. has not got well and that he has now been in the house ten weeks. His trouble appears to him bronchial, the cold air brings on coughing. he thinks it a trivial thing, but he is reduced much in stature. But R[alph] W[aldo] E[merson] says there is too much insurance on his life and A[mos] B[ronson] A[lcott] says there is too much weather in him to be fatally affected. I know not, None of H.D.T’s joy’s [or] diseases are like anybody’s else, He is of a strange temper and so more difficult to treat. Thus far, I am not anxious but my loss in his confinement is indescribable.
(Emerson Society Quarterly 14 (1st quarter 1959):78)
