relate with exactness the same anecdote in the same monotonous
tone, which never changes. I find by this, how much an author
injures his works by altering them, even though they be improved
in a poetical point of view. The first impression is readily
received. We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible
things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him
who would endeavour to efface them.

AUGUST 18.

Must it ever be thus, -- that the source of our happiness must
also be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment
which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me
with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before
me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually
pursues and harasses me. When in bygone days I gazed from these
rocks upon yonder mountains across the river, and upon the green,
flowery valley before me, and saw all nature budding and bursting
around; the hills clothed from foot to peak with tall, thick forest
trees; the valleys in all their varied windings, shaded with the
loveliest woods; and the soft river gliding along amongst the
lisping reeds, mirroring the beautiful clouds which the soft evening
breeze wafted across the sky, -- when I heard the groves about me
melodious with the music of birds, and saw the million swarms of
insects dancing in the last golden beams of the sun, whose setting
rays awoke the humming beetles from their grassy beds, whilst the
subdued tumult around directed my attention to the ground, and I
there observed the arid rock compelled to yield nutriment to the
dry moss, whilst the heath flourished upon the barren sands below
me, all this displayed to me the inner warmth which animates all