conclude. I meant to have written you a letter as light as your own; if
I have failed, it is no wonder.--"Notre coeur est un instrument
incomplet--une lyre ou il manque des cordes, et ou nous sommes forces de
rendre les accens de la joie, sur le ton consacre aux soupirs."

* Quid aegrotus unquam somniavit quod philosophorum aliquis non
dixerit?--LACTANTIUS.



FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

You ask me to give you some sketch of my life, and of that _bel mondo_
which wearied me so soon. Men seldom reject an opportunity to talk of
themselves; and I am not unwilling to re-examine the past, to re-connect
it with the present, and to gather from a consideration of each what
hopes and expectations are still left to me for the future.

But my detail must be rather of thought than of action; most of those
whose fate has been connected with mine are now living, and I would not,
even to you, break that tacit confidence which much of my history would
require. After all, you will have no loss. The actions of another may
interest--but, for the most part, it is only his reflections which come
home to us; for few have acted, nearly all of us have thought.

My own vanity too would be unwilling to enter upon incidents which had
their origin either in folly or in error. It is true that those follies
and errors have ceased, but their effects remain. With years our faults
diminish, but our vices increase.