mind turns to you! You will not ridicule its scruples—you will, at least, deign to reason with me, and, in the exercise of my understanding, I shall experience a temporary relief from the sensations which devour me, the suspicions that distress me, and which spread over futurity a fearful veil.

 'Emma.' 

Emma.

I walked to the next market town, and left my letter at the post-house,—I waited impatiently for a reply; my mind wanted impression, and sunk into languor. The answer, which arrived in a few days, was kind, because it was prompt, my sickly mind required a speedy remedy.

 TO EMMA COURTNEY.

CONTENTS

'Why will you thus take things in masses, and continually dwell in extremes? You deceive yourself; instead of cultivating your reason, you are fostering an excessive sensibility, a fastidious delicacy. It is the business of reason to compare, to separate, to discriminate. Is there no medium—extraordinary exertions are only called forth by extraordinary contingences;—because every human being is not a hero, are we then to distrust the existence of virtue?

'The mind is modified by the circumstances in which it is placed, by the accidents of birth and education; the constitutions of society are all, as yet, imperfect; they have generated, and perpetuated, many mistakes—the consequences of those mistakes will, eventually, carry with them their antidote, the seeds of reproduction are, even, visible in their decay. The growth of reason is slow, but not the less sure; the increase of knowledge must necessarily prepare the way for the increase of virtue and happiness.

'Look back upon the early periods of society, and, taking a retrospective view of what has been done, amidst the interruptions of barbarous inroads, falling empires, and palsying despotism, calculate what yet may be achieved: while the causes, which have hitherto impeded the progress of civilization, must continue to decrease, in an accelerated ration, with the wide, and still wider, diffusion of truth.

'We may trace most of the faults, and the miseries of mankind, to the vices and errors of political institutions, their permanency having been their radical defect. Like children, we have dreamt, that what gratifies our desires, or contributes to our convenience, to-day, will prove equally useful and satisfactory to-morrow, without reflecting on the growth of the body, the 

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