The Poet Answered.
Dear Sir:
In answer to your repeated questions and requests which have appeared for some years past in the columns of the rural press, I beg to submit the following solutions of your chief difficulties:—
Topic I.—You frequently ask, where are the friends of your childhood, and urge that they shall be brought back to you. As far as I am able to learn, those of your friends who are not in jail are still right there in your native village. You point out that they were wont to share your gambols. If so, you are certainly entitled to have theirs now.
Topic II.—You have taken occasion to say:
"Give me not silk, nor rich attire,
Nor gold, nor jewels rare."
Nor gold, nor jewels rare."
But, my dear fellow, this is preposterous. Why, these are the very things I had bought
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