lden fleece of aspirations and anticipations.

I must avail myself of this opportunity to say a few words to my distant
friends who take interest enough in my writings, early or recent, to wish
to enter into communication with me by letter, or to keep up a
communication already begun. I have given notice in print that the
letters, books, and manuscripts which I receive by mail are so numerous
that if I undertook to read and answer them all I should have little time
for anything else. I have for some years depended on the assistance of a
secretary, but our joint efforts have proved unable, of late, to keep
down the accumulations which come in with every mail. So many of the
letters I receive are of a pleasant character that it is hard to let them
go unacknowledged. The extreme friendliness which pervades many of them
gives them a value which I rate very highly. When large numbers of
strangers insist on claiming one as a friend, on the strength of what he
has written, it tends to make him think of himself somewhat indulgently.
It is the most natural thing in the world to want to give expression to
the feeling the loving messages from far-off unknown friends must excite.
Many a day has had its best working hours broken into, spoiled for all
literary work, by the labor of answering correspondents whose good
opinion it is gratifying to have called forth, but who were unconsciously
laying a new burden on shoulders already aching. I know too well that
what I say will not reach the eyes of many who might possibly take a hint
from it. Still I must keep repeating it before breaking off suddenly and
leaving whole piles of letters unanswered. I have been very heavily
handicapped for many years. It is partly my own fault. From what my
correspondents tell me, I must infer that I have established a dangerous
reputation for willingness to answer all sorts of letters. They come
with such insinuating humility,--they cannot bear to intrude upon my
time, they know that I have a great many calls upon it,--and
incontinently proceed to lay their additional weight on the load which is
breaking my back.

The hypocrisy of kind-hearted people is one of the most painful
exhibitions of human weakness. It has occurred to me that it might be
profitable to reproduce some of my unwritten answers to correspondents.
If those which were actually written and sent were to be printed in
parallel columns with those mentally formed but not written out response