youth, and that the meditation upon the facts has disenthralled me from
the visionary broodings over fiction; but what remuneration have I found
in reality? If the line of the satirist be not true, "Souvent de tous
nos maux la raison est le pire," [Boileau]--at least, like the madman of
whom he speaks, I owe but little gratitude to the act which, "in drawing
me from my error, has robbed me also of a paradise."

I am approaching the conclusion of my confessions. Men who have no ties
in the world, and who have been accustomed to solitude, find, with every
disappointment in the former, a greater yearning for the enjoyments which
the latter can afford. Day by day I relapsed more into myself; "man
delighted me not, nor women either." In my ambition, it was not in the
means, but the end, that I was disappointed. In my friends, I complained
not of treachery, but insipidity; and it was not because I was deserted,
but wearied by more tender connections, that I ceased to find either
excitement in seeking, or triumph in obtaining, their love. It was not,
then, in a momentary disgust, but rather in the calm of satiety, that I
formed that resolution of retirement which I have adopted now.

Shrinking from my kind, but too young to live wholly for myself, I have
made a new tie with nature; I have come to cement it here. I am like a
bird which has wandered, afar, but has returned home to its nest at last.
But there is one feeling which had its origin in the world, and which
accompanies me still; which consecrates my recollections of the past;
which contributes to take its gloom from the solitude of the present:-Do
you ask me its nature, Monkton? It is my friendship for you.



FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.