If we are
getting old, that is no reason why we should fall silent, and
entirely abstruse to one another. Alas, I do not find as I grow
older that the number of articulate-speaking human souls
increases around me, in proportion to the inarticulate and
palavering species! I am often abundantly solitary in heart;
and regret the old days when we used to speak oftener together.
I have not quitted Town this year at all; have resisted calls to
Scotland both of a gay and a sad description (for the Ashburtons
are gone to John of Groat's House, or the Scottish _Thule,_ to
rusticate and hunt; and, alas, in poor old Annandale a tragedy
seems preparing for me, and the thing I have dreaded all my days
is perhaps now drawing nigh, ah me!)--I felt so utterly broken
and disgusted with the jangle of last year's locomotion, I judged
it would be better to sit obstinately still, and let my thoughts
_settle_ (into sediment and into clearness, as it might be); and
so, in spite of great and peculiar noises moreover, here I am and
remain. London is not a bad place at all in these months,--with
its long clean streets, green parks, and nobody in them, or
nobody one has ever seen before.
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