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"The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II."

Now I am fooled by my own young people, and grow
old contented. The heedless children suddenly take the keenest
hold on life, and foolish papas cling to the world on their
account, as never on their own. Out of sympathy, we _make
believe_ to value the prizes of their ambition and hope. My, two
girls, pupils once or now of Agassiz, are good, healthy,
apprehensive, decided young people, who love life. My boy
divides his time between Cicero and cricket, knows his boat, the
birds, and Walter Scott--verse and prose, through and through,--
and will go to College next year. Sam Ward and I tickled each
other the other day, in looking over a very good company of young
people, by finding in the new comers a marked improvement on
their parents. There, I flatter myself, I see some emerging of
our people from the prison of their politics. The insolvency of
slavery shows and stares, and we shall perhaps live to see that
putrid Black-vomit extirpated by mere dying and planting.
I am so glad to find myself speaking once more to you, that I
mean to persist in the practice.


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