"I have missed you, my son, for some time past, and the beauty of
the picture reminds me of what your seeming neglect has made me
lose. When I was a young man I would have preferred to visit such
a spot as this alone. But the sense of desolation presses heavily
upon an old man under any circumstances; and he seeks for the
company of the young, as if to freshen, with sympathy and memory,
the cheerlessness and decay which attends all his own thoughts
and fancies. To come alone into the woods, even though the scene
I look on be as fair as this, makes me moody and awakens gloomy
imaginations; and since you have been so long absent, I have taken
to my books again, and given up the woods. Ah! books, alone, never
desert us; never prove unfaithful; never chide us; never mock us,
as even these woods do, with the memory of baffled hopes, and dreams
of youth, gone, never to return again.
"I trust, my dear sir, you do not think me ungrateful. I have not
wilfully neglected you. More than once I set out to visit you; but
my heart was so full--I was so very unhappy--that I had not the
spirit for it.
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