[23] of both mind and body. To me withdrawal from my daily studies and occupations is an event that occurs but seldom; but from its rarity it is the more highly enjoyed. To you such withdrawals are doubtless frequent, nay, as I guess, are reckoned among your duties, and done in the spirit wherein every duty should be performed. Since my return I have been busily engaged in preparing for my examination for readmission to college, whither I go next week — to practise an art of which I am wholly ignorant — to wit, the art of living without means. And yet in some sort I am rich, for are not the kind hearts and kind hopes of friends, “fit though few,” of more value than wealth that begets selfishness? Last week I had letters from Buffalo. There is nothing new in that beautiful city of agitations, where the mass are restless and excitable as the surface of their own lake. Our friends are well-faring. I look forward with pleasure to the time when I shall breathe again the air of Cambridge and Boston, in which the mind may draw long breaths and be strengthened, so genial it is, and where, but for term-bills and washer-women, one would never guess that there are such things as money and money-getting in the world. And, indeed, I hold it an evidence of human depravity that there are such things, and dream (nay, it is not a dream but a prophecy) of the time when the cycle of humanity shall be completed and it shall not be said “God makes man, and man makes money.” I shall expect to hear from you at Cambridge. Direct to me at Harvard University, and if I do not get your letters, “why, the de'il is in it.” Tell me what you think of Jones Very and I'll tell you something about the man. I had almost forgotten to say how much I owe you for a large share of the pleasure of my visit to Hanover, and to remind you of our bargain, “to live together and write books.” In the meanwhile, I trust no legal or other logicalities may obscure in us the love of the beautiful or the hatred of the Devil.
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Harper and Brothers, New York and London, 1907.
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