.NTI.MTM3NA

Friday Oct. 8. 1852 Stormy & drear. We have slaughten 3 Roosters. The most considerable butchering I ever I ever did was to chop off a hen's head: & this [underline] I dread exceed-ingly to do. The severe frost, lately, have brought a wonderful change upon the fields & woods. and the forest has on, now, that indescribably beautiful variety of color peculiar to New England foliage in autumn. The woods, all around, look like great bouquets. We have just turned the cows & horse into the field, & the way in which they gormandire upon the luxurious fall crop is a caution to humanity. Zadoc, you love your home; & since leaving it with the thought that you may never return to make it a permanent [underline] residence again, - [start underline] all the pleasant frost things in connexion with that home, memory bringing back to you [end underline], dressed in a variety of beautiful & sad colors, like the autumn foliage I have been describing, - you are unhappy. You have a feeling of dissatisfaction, of regret, a sorrowful conviction that some of the pleasantest stages of your life are past away, & cannot be recalled, - a sort of im-pression that you might have lengthened out those stages a little longer & prolonged the enjoyment of them. These sad feelings, my son, are experienced, more or less, by all whose affections & sensibilities are not as hard & blunt as those of brutes. But, mind, Zadoc, we are pro-ressive [underline] beings. You are passing from the stage of youth [underline] to manhood [underline] : from a state of dependence [underline] to a state of self [underline] reliance [underline].