Even The Eternal Skies Weep, I Thought;

I Shall Commit My Thoughts To Paper, It Is True; But That Is A Poor Medium For The Communication Of Feeling. I Desire The Company Of A Man Who Could Sympathize With Me, Whose Eyes Would Reply To Mine.

But He Found That A Traveller's Life Is One That Includes Much Pain Amidst Its Enjoyments. His Feelings Are For Ever On The Stretch; And When He Begins To Sink Into Repose, He Finds Himself Obliged To Quit That On Which He Rests In Pleasure For Something New, Which Again Engages His Attention, And Which Also He Forsakes For Other Novelties.

I Also Became A Poet, And For One Year Lived In A Paradise Of My Own Creation; I Imagined That I Also Might Obtain A Niche In The Temple Where The Names Of Homer And Shakespeare Are Consecrated.

Our Feelings Probably Are Not Less Strong At Fifty Than They Were Ten Or Fifteen Years Before; But They Have Changed Their Objects, And Dwell On Far Different Prospects. At Five-and-thirty A Man Thinks Of What His Own Existence Is; When The Maturity Of Age Has Grown Into Its Autumn, He Is Wrapt Up In That Of Others. The Loss Of Wife Or Child Then Becomes More Deplorable, As Being Impossible To Repair; For No Fresh Connection Can Give Us Back The Companion Of Our Earlier Years, Nor A "new-sprung Race" Compensate For That, Whose Career We Hoped To See Run.

You Will Rejoice To Hear That No Disaster Has Accompanied The Commencement Of An Enterprise Which You Have Regarded With Such Evil Forebodings.