well, that though my mind has not been depraved, it has found no
perfection but in misfortune; and that whatever be the acquirements of
later years, they have nothing which can compensate for the losses of our
youth.



FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

I returned to England. I entered again upon the theatre of its world;
but I mixed now more in its greater than its lesser pursuits. I looked
rather at the mass than the leaven of mankind; and while I felt aversion
for the few whom I knew, I glowed with philanthropy for the crowd which I
knew not.

It is in contemplating men at a distance that we become benevolent. When
we mix with them, we suffer by the contact, and grow, if not malicious
from the injury, at least selfish from the circumspection which our
safety imposes but when, while we feel our relationship, we are not
galled by the tie; when neither jealousy, nor envy, nor resentment are
excited, we have nothing to interfere with those more complacent and
kindliest sentiments which our earliest impressions have rendered natural
to our hearts. We may fly men in hatred because they have galled us, but
the feeling ceases with the cause: none will willingly feed long upon
bitter thoughts. It is thus that, while in the narrow circle in which we
move we suffer daily from those who approach us, we can, in spite of our
resentment to them, glow with a general benevolence to the wider
relations from which we are remote; that while smarting beneath the
treachery of friendship, the stinging of ingratitude, the faithfulness of
love, we would almost sacrifice our lives to realise some idolised theory