Your letter was received last mail. I thank you for your good
wishes. But
Adolphus I have little hope or even a strong wish to reach
that height of fame which your kindness would assign to me In youth we are too
often apt to look forward to our passage through life as one decked with
flowers and calculated to render us happy in every condition. Yet we find as we
advance that these expectations are nothing but the illusions of a youthful
imagination and that our present situation as far different from that which we
had anticipated. This is indeed a world of disappointments. The little boy as
he cons over his grammar looks forward with buoyant hopes to the time when he
shall enter college his imagination paints to him scenes far different from
those which then surround him. When the time arrives, how much he is mistaken!
He finds college instead of
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the
Elysium which
he had expected, the same dull routine of studies, that his brains are bothered
with something worse than than the lessons of a dictionary. He now looks back
with feelings of regret upon the many happy moments
of spend among his young academical
freinds and longs to be restored to the home of his childhood. Here however
fresh hopes arise in his bosom, he may look forward with pleasing anticipations
to the time when he shall depart from these somber walls and enter the world a
candidate for distinction in some profession. His lofty and visionary dreams
would make him completely successful.
He thinks of the approving smiles of his doating parents or perhaps of an
object even dearer than these. Fortune too smiles on his endeavours and crowns
them with all the blessings of wealth. He becomes popular is elected to the
legislature this is but the stepping stone to
congress!
How much farther might I follow the young devotee in his vain hopes!– But
how seldom are these hopes realized? I might say never in their full extent. He
finds the world far different from what his imagination had painted, Instead of
being disposed to encourage and honor his talents (should he have any) he finds
ready to criticize and disparage his
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attempts as
much as possible. Instead of finding the world inhabited by a warm-hearted
generous people they prove to be cold, callous and in many cases villanous Such
are the disappointments attendant on him who kneels at the shrine of hopeful
ambitions; and he is fortunate if his perseverance overcomes them, and he is
not driven by them to seek releif in the haunts of dissipation—Happy
would it be for us if we would or could content ourselves with our present
condition and trust to good conduct and persevering industry to place us in a
respectable if not honorable station—Your letter brought on these
remarks, and without any intention to do so I have occupied greater part of my
letter with them—
I was sorry to find the mirth of
Charlotte
had sustained so great a dipression after I lef[t] [h]ome My vacation was too
pleasant, my cup [of] joy was too full. After I returned here I frequently
found that while my mind should have been occupied in unravelling some abstruse
question in mathematics, it had taken wings to itself and was thinking of the
happy scenes of my vacation Ask
the
Captain if he ever goes to
Cousin Jane's now to get brandy peaches. Ask him if he had
yet reconciled himself to sleep with the girls—and tell him he must often
think of me and assure all my freinds that although business or enjoyment may
make them forget me, my thoughts are almost continually about them—My
best wishes to all the girls
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Ask
Eliza if the snuff is out yet and say to her I know she
needs no memento or I should replenish her batch. I have a thousand things more
to tell you but must leave you to imagine the rest