and therefore little likely to be disturbed. I do not, indeed, wish for
the interruptions designed as civilities; I rather gather around myself,
link after link, the chains that connected me with the world; I find
among my own thoughts that variety and occupation which you only
experience in your intercourse with others; and I make, like the Chinese,
my map of the universe consist of a circle in a square--the circle is my
own empire and of thought and self; and it is to the scanty corners which
it leaves without, that I banish whatever belongs to the remainder of
mankind.

About a mile from L----- is Mr. Mandeville's beautiful villa of E-----,
in the midst of grounds which form a delightful contrast to the savage
and wild scenery by which they are surrounded. As the house is at
present quite deserted, I have obtained, through the gardener, a free
admittance into his domains, and I pass there whole hours, indulging,
like the hero of the _Lutrin, "une sainte oisivete,"_ listening to a
little noisy brook, and letting my thoughts be almost as vague and idle
as the birds which wander among the trees that surround me. I could
wish, indeed, that this simile were in all things correct--that those
thoughts, if as free, were also as happy as the objects of my comparison,
and could, like them, after the rovings of the day, turn at evening to a
resting-place, and be still. We are the dupes and the victims of our
senses: while we use them to gather from external things the hoards that
we store within, we cannot foresee the punishments we prepare for
ourselves; the remembrance which stings, and the hope which deceives, the
passions which promise us rapture, which reward us with despair, and the
thoughts which, if they constitute the healthful action, make also the
feverish excitement of our minds. What sick man has not dreamt in his
delirium everything that our philosophers have said?* But I am growing
into my old habit of gloomy reflection, and it is time that I should