Chapter XVIII: WEST NEW BRIGHTON, STATEN ISLAND, N.Y., 11 April, 1883

My dear John,----Your letter reached me safely, and I share your surprise and regret at what seems to me, so far as I can see, a wholly unnecessary act. I will speak of it in the _Weekly_ at once because the _Magazine_ is always so long after!

I saw some notice of Cranch's seventieth birthday. Good lack! how the years whiz! I did not hear from him, and I suppose it is not exactly the occasion upon which you ask your friends to make merry. Longfellow, I remember, wrote me when he was seventy that it was like turning the slate over and beginning upon the other side.

We are all well and quiet. The Doctors in New York dine Dr. Holmes to-morrow, and I have promised to go. I have heard nothing from Edmund Tweedy for many a day, but I suppose that all goes well with him and his.

Good-bye. It is very good to hear from you always, and I am always affectionately yours,

George William Curtis.