_.

What a sad picture of our civilization!

I did not speak to you of the great tree on what used to be the Colman
farm, in Deerfield, simply because I had not seen it for many years,
and did not like to trust my recollection. But I had it in memory, and
even noted down, as one of the finest trees in symmetry and beauty I
had ever seen. I have received a document, signed by two citizens of a
neighboring town, certified by the postmaster and a selectman, and
these again corroborated, reinforced, and sworn to by a member of that
extraordinary college-class to which it is the good fortune of my
friend the Professor to belong, who, though he has _formerly_ been a
member of Congress, is, I believe, fully worthy of confidence. The tree
"girts" eighteen and a half feet, and spreads over a hundred, and is a
real beauty. I hope to meet my friend under its branches yet; if we
don't have "youth at the prow," we will have "pleasure at the 'elm."

And just now, again, I have got a letter about some grand willows in
Maine, and another about an elm in Wayland, but too late for anything
but thanks.

[And this leads me to say, that I have received a great many
communications, in prose and verse, since I began printing these notes.
The last came this very morning, in the shape of a neat and brief poem,
from New Orleans. I could not make any of them public, though sometimes
requested to do so. Some of them have given me great pleasure, and
encouraged me to believe I had friends whose faces I had never seen. If
you are pleased with anything a writer says, and doubt whether to tell
him of it, do not hesitate; a pleasant word is a cordial to one, who
perhaps thinks he is tiring you, and so becomes tired himself. I purr
very loud over a good, honest letter that says pretty things to me.]

----Sometimes very young persons send communications, which they want
forwarded to editors; and these young persons do not always seem to
have right conceptions of these same editors, and of the public, and of
themselves. Here is a letter I wrote to one of these young folks, but,
on the whole, thought it best not to send. It is not fair to single out
one for such sharp advice, where there are hundreds that are in need of
it.

Dear Sir,--You seem to be somewhat, but not a great deal, wiser than I
was at your age. I don't wish to be understood as saying too much, for
I think, without committing myself to any opinion on my present state,
that I was not