d he should!--that he is
but little wiser now than when he turned his back upon the old Academy,
with its gallipots and broken retorts; and that with the addition of a
few Greek roots, a smattering of Latin, and some readiness of speech, he
is almost as weak for breasting the strong current of life as when a
boy. America is but a poor place for the romantic book-dreamer. The
demands of this new, Western life of ours are practical and earnest.
Prompt action, and ready tact, are the weapons by which to meet it, and
subdue it. The education of the cloister offers at best only a sound
starting-point from which to leap into the tide.

The father of Clarence is a cool, matter-of-fact man. He has little
sympathy with any of the romantic notions that enthrall a youth of
twenty. He has a very humble opinion--much humbler than you think he
should have--of your attainments at college. He advises a short period
of travel, that by observation you may find out more fully how that
world is made up with which you are henceforth to struggle.

Your mother half fears your alienation from the affections of home. Her
letters all run over with a tenderness that makes you sigh, and that
makes you feel a deep reproach. You may not have been wanting in the
more ordinary tokens of affection; you have made your periodic visits;
but you blush for the consciousness that fastens on you of neglect at
heart. You blush for the lack of that glow of feeling which once
fastened to every home-object.

[Does a man indeed outgrow affections as his mind ripens? Do the early
and tender sympathies become a part of his intellectual perceptions, to
be appreciated and reasoned upon as one reasons about truths of science?
Is their vitality necessarily young? Is there the same ripe, joyous
burst of the heart at the recollection of later friendships, which
belonged to those of boyhood; and are not the later ones more the
suggestions of judgment, and less the absolute conditions of the heart's
health?]

The letters of your mother, as I said, make you sigh: there is no moment
in our lives when we feel less worthy of the love of others, and less
worthy of our own respect, than when we receive evidences of kindness
which we know we do not merit,--and when souls are laid bare to us, and
we have too much indifference to lay bare our own in return.

"Clarence,"--writes that neglected mother,--"you do not know how much
you are in our thoughts, and how often you are the