And now he read the letter, which covered many closely written sheets:
Meriwether Lewis, I said to you that my face should come to you, wherever you might be. This time it has been long—I cannot tell how long. That is for my messenger to determine, not for you or me. But that it has been long I shall know, else long since there would have been no need of my adding this letter to the others.
Not one of them has served to bring you back! Since you now have this one, let it advise you that she who wrote it is grieved that you gaze upon this little portrait, and not upon the face of her whom it represents. ’Tis a monstrous good likeness, they tell me; but would you not rather it were myself?
Where are you? I cannot tell. What adversities have been yours? I cannot tell that. You cannot know what grief you have caused by your long absence. You cannot know how many hearts you have made sad. You cannot know how you have delayed—destroyed—plans made for you. We are in ignorance, each of the other, now. I do not know where you are—you do not know where I may be. A great wall arises between us. A great gulf is fixed. We cannot touch hands across it.
As I know, this will not move you; but I cannot restrain this reproach. I cannot help telling you that you have made me suffer by your silence, by your absence. Do I make you suffer by looking at you with reproach in my eyes—as I do now?
You have forgotten your childhood friend! I may be dead as you read—would you care? I have been in need—yet you have not come to comfort me and to dry my tears.
Figure to yourself what has happened to all my plans and dreams for you. Even I cannot tell of that, because, as I write, it all lies in the future—that future which is the present for you as you sit reading this. All I know is that as you read it my appeal has failed.
I can but guess how or where these presents may find you; for how shall I know how wise or how faithful my messenger has been? Are you on the prairie still, Meriwether Lewis? Is it winter? Does the snow lie deep? Are the winds keen and biting? Are you well fed? Are you warm? Have you bodily comforts? Have you physical well-being?
How can I answer all these questions? Yet they come to my mind as I write.