Thus far I have fooled it off well enough; and yet, Alan, all is
not at ease within me. I am affected with a sense of loneliness,
the more depressing, that it seems to me to be a solitude
peculiarly my own. In a country where all the world have a
circle of consanguinity, extending to sixth cousins at least, I
am a solitary individual, having only one kind heart to throb in
unison with my own. If I were condemned to labour for my bread,
methinks I should less regard this peculiar species of
deprivation, The necessary communication of master and servant
would be at least a tie which would attach me to the rest of my
kind--as it is, my very independence seems to enhance the
peculiarity of my situation. I am in the world as a stranger in
the crowded coffeehouse, where he enters, calls for what
refreshment he wants, pays his bill, and is forgotten so soon as
the waiter's mouth has pronounced his 'Thank ye, sir.'

I know your good father would term this SINNING MY MERCIES, [A
peculiar Scottish phrase expressive of ingratitude for the
favours of Providence.] and ask how I should feel if, instead of
being able to throw down my reckoning, I were obliged to
deprecate the resentment of the landlord for consuming that which
I could not pay for. I cannot tell how it is; but, though this
very reasonable reflection comes across me, and though I do
confess that four hundred a year in possession, eight hundred in
near prospect, and the L--d knows how many hundreds more in the
distance, are very pretty and comfortable things, yet I would
freely give one half of them to call your father father, though
he should scold me for my idleness every hour of the day, and to
call you brother, though a brother whose merits would throw my