And now the book closes, just as the birds are flying to the warmer South and the groves are growing strangely silent; just as the flowers are fading in the gardens and in the fields; just as the leaves are falling in the forests, and the hill-sides are beginning to drape themselves in the melancholy and tender beauty of the Autumn. I cannot make this parting without a feeling of regret and a certain sadness; and, as I extend my hand to each and all of you—to some whom I have met daily, to some whose faces have grown familiar, and to some whom I have never seen and may never see, and yet have sent me precious words of sympathy and encouragement during these past three years—I should be ungrateful were I not to acknowledge the constant kindness which has greeted these careless letters as they have appeared in the columns of the Tribune.
Hoping that, in some future time, we may meet together again as now, it only remains to say Farewell, and to write those saddest of all words—
THE END.
September 22, 1869.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Northwestern Saengerfest, held at Chicago, June, 1868.
[2] The completion of the Pacific Railroad.
Transcriber's Notes: