"
In another letter from Beverly Farms, when he was eighty-three, he
says:--
Where this will find you, in a geographical point of view, I do not
know; but I know your heart will be in its right place, and accept
kindly the few barren words this sheet holds for you. Yes; barren of
incident, of news of all sorts, but yet having a certain flavor of
Boston, of Cape Ann, and, above all, of dear old remembrances, the
suggestion of any one of which is as good as a page of any common
letter. So, whatever I write will carry the fragrance of home with it,
and pay you for the three minutes it costs you to read it.... I find
great delight in talking over cathedrals and pictures and English
scenery, and all the sights my traveling friends have been looking at,
with Mrs. Bell. It seems to me that she knew them all beforehand, so
that she was journeying all the time among reminiscences which were
hardly distinguishable from realities.
My recollections are to those of other people around me who call
themselves old,--the sexagenarians, for instance,--something like what
a cellar is to the ground-floor of a house. The young people in the
upper stories (American spelling, _story_) go down to the
basement in their inquiries, and think they have got to the bottom;
but I go down another flight of steps, and find myself below the
surface of the earth, as are the bodies of most of my contemporaries.
As to health, I am doing tolerably well.
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