But whither is senile
garrulity leading me? Into politics, of which I have taken final leave.
I think little of them, and say less. I have given up newspapers in
exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid, and I
find myself much the happier. Sometimes, indeed, I look back to former
occurrences, in remembrance of our old friends and fellow-laborers,
who have fallen before us. Of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, I see now living not more than half a dozen on your side
of the Potomac, and on this side, myself alone. You and I have
been wonderfully spared, and myself with remarkable health, and a
considerable activity of body and mind. I am on horseback three or four
hours of every day; visit three or four times a year a possession I have
ninety miles distant, performing the winter journey on horseback. I walk
little, however, a single mile being too much for me; and I live in the
midst of my grandchildren, one of whom has lately promoted me to be a
great-grandfather. I have heard with pleasure that you also retain good
health, and a greater power of exercise in walking than I do. But I
would rather have heard this from yourself, and that, writing a letter
like mine, full of egotisms, and of details of your health, your habits,
occupations, and enjoyments, I should have the pleasure of knowing, that
in the race of life, you do not keep, in its physical decline, the
same distance ahead of me, which you have done in political honors and
achievements.
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