We differ as widely as the poles,
you and I, and have done ever since I have known you.
You are true to your faith, I to my reason--you to your
family belief, I to my own ideas; but our friendship
shows that the real essentials of a man, and his affinity
for others, depends upon quite other things than views on
abstract questions. Anyway, I can say with all my heart
that I wish I saw you with that old corncob of yours
between your teeth, sitting in that ricketty American-
leather armchair, with the villanous lodging-house
antimacassar over the back of it. It is good of you to
tell me how interested you are in my commonplace
adventures; though if I had not KNOWN that you were
so, you may be sure that I should never have ventured to
inflict any of them upon you. My future is now all
involved in obscurity, but it is obvious that the first
thing I must do is to find a fitting house, and my second
to cajole the landlord into letting me enter into
possession of it without any prepayment. To that I will
turn myself to-morrow morning, and you shall know the
result. Whom should I hear from the other day but Archie
McLagan? Of course it was a begging letter. You can
judge how far I am in a state to lose money; but in a hot
fit I sent him ten shillings, which now, in my cold, I
bitterly regret. With every good wish to you and yours,
including your town, your State, and your great country,
yours as ever.
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