rations 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
responses and comments, th