of German planters in that region, and the trade is thriving to
the general benefit. His son Joseph is a well-bred gentleman of
literary tastes, whose position and good heart make him largely
hospitable. His wife is a very attractive and excellent woman,
and they are good friends of mine. It seems I have at some
former time told her that, when she went to England, she should
see you. And they are going abroad, soon, for the first time.
If you are in London, you must be seen of them.

But I hailed even this need of taxing once more your often taxed
courtesy, as a means to break up my long contumacy to-you-ward.
Please let not the wires be rusted out, so that we cannot weld
them again, and let me feel the subtle fluid streaming strong.
Tell me what is become of _Frederic,_ for whose appearance I have
watched every week for months? I am better ready for him, since
one or two books about Voltaire, Maupertuis, and company, fell in
my way.

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