.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 [x] fields & woods. and the forest has on, now, that indescribably beautiful variety of color to New England foliage in autumn. The woods all around look like great bouquets. We have just turned [?] cows & horse into the field, U the way in which they gomander 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 [?] pleasant [?] [?] in connexcion 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 stage of your life are past away, & cannot be recalled, - a sort of im-pression that you might have lengthneed out those stages a little longer & prolonged the enjoyment of them. These sade feelings, my son, are experienced, more or less, by all whose affections & sensibilities are not as hard & blunt as those of brutes. But, min, Zadoc, we are pro-ressive [underline] beings. You are passing from the stage of youth to manhood: from a state of dependence to a state of self [underline] reliance [underline].