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and demonstrative proofs. How I miss my books, nobody can tell. I take the Atlantic, Continental, Harper, and the Eclectic, and so I do not altogether starve for intellectual pabulum; but I have a fondness for old authors, and old poets, and old visionaries, and somehow the new does not quite supply the place of the ancient cronies in whose immortal company I have so ofter grown drunken at the wine-flasks of Elysium. I can't carry Shakespeare in my knapsack; it would make it too heavy for my slight shoulders; Spenser is only published in quarto, and I am not rich enough to but the "blue and gold" editions of the classics; so you see my deplorable condition, and if you have a grain of womanly pity about you, I am sure you will sympathize with me as I deserve. I must acquaint you with the latest definition of a Poet. Our Regimental Surgeon is a genial, capable, and cultured man, fond of passages at arms of wit, and addicted to trenchant epigrammatic thrusts. The other day himself, myself, with certain other persons, were talking about Poets and Poetry, and during the conversation I quoted Aristotle, who says "A poet must be either