Yet that book will not come which I most wish to read, namely,
the culled results, the quintessence of private conviction, a
_liber veritatis,_ a few sentences, hints of the final moral you
drew from so much penetrating inquest into past and present men.
All writing is necessitated to be exoteric, and written to a
human should instead of to the terrible is. And I say this to
you, because you are the truest and bravest of writers. Every
writer is a skater, who must go partly where he would, and
partly, where the skates carry him; or a sailor, who can only
land where sails can be safely blown. The variations to be
allowed for in the surveyor's compass are nothing like so large
as those that must be allowed for in every book. And a
friendship of old gentlemen who have got rid of many illusions,
survived their ambition, and blushes, and passion for euphony,
and surface harmonies, and tenderness for their accidental
literary stores, but have kept all their curiosity and awe
touching the problems of man and fate and the Cause of causes,--a
friendship of old gentlemen of this fortune is looking more
comely and profitable than anything I have read of love.
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