that never was a man less disposed to be over joyous at his good
fortune!" What a happy invention it were, if when adopting any road in
life, we could only manage to forget that we had ever contemplated any
other! It is the eternal looking back in this world that forms the
staple of all our misery; and we are but ill-requited for such
unhappiness by the brightest anticipations we can conjure up for the
future. How much of all that "past" was now to become a source of
painful recollection, and to how little of the future could I look
forward with even hope!

Our weaknesses are much more constantly the spring of all our annoyances
and troubles than even our vices. The one we have in some sort of
subjection: we are perfectly slaves to the others. This thought came
home most forcibly to my bosom, as I reflected upon the step which led me
on imperceptibly to my present embarrassment. "Well, c'est fini, now,"
said I, drawing upon that bountiful source of consolation ever open to
the man who mars his fortune--that "what is past can't be amended;" which
piece of philosophy, as well as its twin brother, that "all will be the
same a hundred years hence," have been golden rules to me from my
childhood.

The transition from one mode of life to another perfectly different has
ever seemed to me a great trial of a man's moral courage; besides that
the fact of quitting for ever any thing, no matter how insignificant or
valueless, is always attended with painful misgivings. My bachelor life
had its share of annoyances and disappointments, it is true; but, upon
the whole it was a most happy one--and now I was about to surrender it
for ever, not yielding to the impulse of affection and love for one
without whom life were valueless to me, but merely a recompense for the
indulgence of that fatal habit I had contracted of pursuing with