dispositions had changed from wavering and transient to
permanent and fixed,--before the desultory ramblings, which
almost became our age, had terminated in a path, and that,
I trust, a right and honorable one, and from which, with
moderate allowance for human inferiority, I have not deviated
since,--before my principles had attained their vigor, and
generated those correct habits which it was their province
to produce,--in short, while, like most young men, I might
be said to have as yet 'no character at all,' I obtained your
friendship. How I lost it, I have already told you. When,
remains to tell you. I lost it when any fruits which my youth
may have promised had appeared; lost it all at once, under
circumstances scarcely more annoying to my feelings than
revolting to my sense of what was right and just.

"I am not seeking to penetrate what is to me, indeed, no
secret; neither do I form the unavailing wish that our expired
intercourse should revive. C'en est fait. A knot which has
been loosened or untied may be formed again, but this knot has
been cut. Accordingly, I neither address you by your name nor
subscribe my own. My hand-writing, though not disguised, is,
like yourself, much changed; and, though this were not the
case, you could not, after the lapse of so much time, have
recognized it.

"My regard you continue to possess, though I am not certain
of your title to retain it. But you have, by means of your
estrangement, sustained a loss. In ceasing to entertain a
feeling of esteem and cordiality toward me, you have lost that
which is a source of soothing gratification to the mind in