194. AGE, Oppressed by.—[further continued].
The epistolary industry
* * * is gone from me. The aversion
has been growing on me for a considerable
time, and now, near the close of seventyfive,
is become almost insuperable. I am
much debilitated in body, and my memory
sensibly on the wane. Still, however, I enjoy
good health and spirits, and am as industrious
a reader as when a student at
college. Not of newspapers. These I have
discarded. I relinquish, as I ought to do,
all intermeddling with public affairs, committing
myself cheerfully to the watch and
care of those for whom, in my turn, I have
watched and cared.—
To Benjamin Waterhouse. Washington ed. vii, 100.
Ford ed., x, 103.
(M.
1818)
