"It is not, my dear sir, the letters of my friends which give me trouble, or add aught to my perplexity.

I receive them with pleasure, and pay as much attention to them as my avocations will permit.

It is references to old matters with which I have nothing to do--applications which oftentimes can not be complied with--inquiries, to satisfy which would employ the pen of a historian--letters of compliment, as unmeaning perhaps as they are troublesome, but which must be attended to; and the common-place business--which employ my pen and my time often disagreeably.

Indeed, these, with company, deprive me of exercise; and, unless I can obtain relief, must be productive of disagreeable consequences.

Already I begin to feel their effects.