Letters to a Friend 



the forest seems to have found out that again 

 its leaf must fade. Our stream, too, has a less 

 cheerful sound, and as it bears its foam-bells 

 pensively away from the shallow rapids it seems 

 to feel that summer is past. 



You propose, Mrs. Carr, an exchange of 

 thoughts, for which I thank you very sincerely. 

 This will be a means of pleasure and improve 

 ment which I could not have hoped ever to 

 have been possessed of, but then here is the 

 difficulty: I feel I am altogether incapable of 

 properly conducting a correspondence with one 

 so much above me. We are, indeed, as you 

 say, students in the same life school, but in very 

 different classes. I am but an alpha novice 

 in those sciences which you have studied and 

 loved so long. If, however, you are willing in 

 this to adopt the plan that our Saviour endeav 

 ored to beat into the stingy Israelites, viz., to 

 "give, hoping for nothing again," all will be 

 well; and as long as your letters resemble this 

 one before me, which you have just written, 

 in genus, order, cohort, class, province, or king- 

 [ 14] 



