'My dear Alick, No piece of news that I have heard for a long time has given me more satisfaction than the intelligence contained in your letter of yesterday. For several weeks I had lived in a total dearth of tidings from you; and both on account of your welfare, and of our mutual projects in the farming line, I had begun to get into the fidgets, and was ready to hasten homewards with many unpleasant imaginations to damp the expected joy of again beholding friends so dear to me.'