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Aug [18th?] 93
JLS

Mrs Leland Stanford

Dear friend

I know words are powerless to console - to which
I should not aspire - I of all others whom you apparently
abandoned as unworthy your remembrance and affection
as so benignly bestowed upon me in times past - yet who
has never ceased to love and reverence you and yours -
freely pardoning our long misunderstanding. Whatever
its origin (of which I am, and always have been at a loss
to account for our estrangement) hoping you will as
freely forgive me?, pleading in the name and memory
of the Blessed Guardian Angel your model husband
whose immaculate life and gentle happy release from
the tribulations which always beset the too good in this
world "God's cherished own". Praying you will be recon-
ciled to believe

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die" -
but to live honored in memory thro' all time -

"while we have time, let us do good to all men" -
can truly be said of him, not only in the hearts of those
bound by ties of kindred - but in the suffering and
unfortunate ones of all mankind with whom he came in