like a savage animal, shrewd like a woman, imperious like a tyrant, humble like a beggar. You have become for me an object of curiosity and continued observation, a diversion, a reflection of what is going on every moment, which leads me by a thousand diverse paths to limitless thoughts and imaginings, most remote from you, fancies which fill again every void that, in the years gone by, weariness was wont to penetrate—and tighten every day, more strongly, the hundreds of fine but strong bonds of our friendship.
Yes, dear Dick.
Do you know who made me feel the first impulse of affection for you?
It was not voluntarily but rather with sharp words to an opposite effect, a gentleman with a heavy beard and many degrees;[1] I had sent for him after a month of your being in my house, because you seemed ill.
When he found out that we had been together but a short time he thought that I was tired of having you about. So he was candid and said as soon as he saw you: "He is ugly looking,"
- ↑ The original says: "heavy beard and laurels"—evidently a doctor with degrees. Apollo was said to wear the laurels,—and later the great poets. M. E. B.
