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..... The enigma you do me the honour to ask for will accompany this; but I have
first to find it; for though I have looked a good deal, I have not yet been able
to lay my hands on it. I beg to make proviso that if I should want myself to
insert it in any publication, I may be at liberty to do it. Though, truly, that
is not very likely; for well do I feel one faculty after another withdrawing,
and the shades of evening closing fast around me; and be it so! What does life
offer at past eighty (at which venerable age I arrived one day last June); and I
believe you will allow that there is not much of new, of animating, of inviting,
to be met with after that age. For my own part, I only find that many things I
knew, I have forgotten; many things I thought I knew, I find I know nothing
about; some things I know, I have found not worth knowing; and some things I
would give -- O what would one not give to know? are beyond the reach of human
ken. Well, I believe
I saw yesterday two boys, modern Greeks, in the costume of their country,
introduced by Mr. Bowring, who has the charge of them --
Your affectionate friend.