E-text prepared by Lionel Sear
MY DEAR —,
I will not write your name, for we have long been strangers; and I,at any rate, have no desire to renew our friendship. It is now tenyears and more from the end of that summer term when we shook handsat the railway-station and went east and west with swelling hearts;and since then no report has come of you. In the meantime you mayhave died, or grown rich and esteemed; but that you have remained theboy I knew is clearly beyond hope.
You were a genius then, and wrote epic poetry. I assume that youhave found it worth while to discontinue that habit, for I never seeyour name among the publishers' announcements. But your poetry usedto be