George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[501] pleasant to you in after life. So long as you continue to be the kind, discreet, wise, and dutiful son, so long I shall anticipate all I can wish in one who has been so long devoted to the wishes of his parents and friends; and so long I shall continue, even to the end of my life, to aid and assist you, and make the path of life easy and pleasant to you. . . .

August 9.—. . . . The great object of your journey I am sure you will keep in mind, and never turn to the right hand nor to the left, viz. to improve in solid science, the arts, and literature, and in the knowledge of men, as well as to learn to describe the former, and those of the latter, on paper with so much candor and justice as to give pleasure to every one who reads after you. . . . . And also, from what you see and discover, to learn how to improve and economize in living, so as to live genteelly, respectably, and even profusely on a small and narrow income. . . . . You have not left your home for the sole purpose of describing the lawns, the hills, the valleys, the tops of mountains, the columns of smoke, the villages,—except for amusement, and as shades to ornament your other improvements, which may be often and happily interspersed; but you have left your father to grow wiser and better,—to learn how to be more useful to yourself, your friends, and your country.

November 6.—. . . . Savage comes to see us every Sunday evening, as faithful and as constantly as the sun rises and sets. Good and charming as he is, it is not my son, my only son, whom I love and esteem so much. It is not George, whom I have so often seen sitting by us, and amusing us with his own composition, or by some well-written piece of another, or giving us some outlines of his plans and his studies, which he meant to pursue in some future time. These are scenes now past and gone, and when they will return again to cheer the hearts of your aged parents, God only knows. You are in his hands. . . . .

By this time, I suppose, you want to know all about our affairs at home, and what we have been doing since you left us. We remain here in the old house, myself in the great chair reading, or at my table writing or settling my accounts, while your mother sits by me knitting, sewing, or talking, as she pleases; but we are often talking about you, looking at your likeness, and telling a thousand things you would say and do, if you were only with us, and sitting by us as you used to do. But this is what we can't have. Everything now is in imagination, although sometimes it seems almost to be a reality; and, when it is so, the happiness is inexpressible, and I almost start from