that I might not again be taken unawares. At first this melancholy
task was insupportable, but I persevered; and in a short time became
reconciled to it.

In the spring of 1821 Count Luigi Porro {5} obtained permission to
see me. Our warm friendship, the eagerness to communicate our
mutual feelings, and the restraint imposed by the presence of an
imperial secretary, with the brief time allowed us, the
presentiments I indulged, and our efforts to appear calm, all led me
to expect that I should be thrown into a state of fearful
excitement, worse than I had yet suffered. It was not so; after
taking his leave I remained calm; such to me proved the signal
efficacy of guarding against the assault of sudden and violent
emotions. The task I set myself to acquire, constant calmness of
mind, arose less from a desire to relieve my unhappiness than from a
persuasion how undignified, unworthy, and injurious, was a temper
opposite to this, I mean a continued state of excitement and
anxiety. An excited mind ceases to reason; carried away by a
resistless torrent of wild ideas, it forms for itself a sort of mad
logic, full of anger and malignity; it is in a state at once as
absolutely unphilosophical as it is unchristian.

If I were a divine I should often insist upon the necessity of
correcting irritability and inquietude of character; none can be
truly good without that be effected. How nobly pacific, both with
regard to himself and others, was He whom we are all bound to
imitate. There is no elevation of mind, no justice without
moderation in principles and ideas, without a pervading spirit which
inclines us rather to smile at, than fall into a passion with, the
events of this little life. Anger is never productive of any good,