are prone to enthusiasm, while the vulgar stupidly wonder at the effects of powers, to them wholly inconceivable: the weak and the timid, easily discouraged, are induced, by the first failure, to relinquish their pursuits. "They make the impossibility they fear!" But the bold and the persevering, from repeated disappointment, derive only new ardor and activity. "They conquer difficulties, by daring to attempt them." 'I feel, that I am writing in a desultory manner, that I am unable to crowd my ideas into the compass of a letter, and, that could I do so, I should perhaps only weary you. There are but few persons to whom I would venture to complain, few would understand, and still fewer sympathise with me. You are in health, they would say, in the spring of life, have every thing supplied you without labour (so much the worse) nature, reason, open to you their treasures! All this is, partly, true—but, with inexpressible yearnings, my soul pants for something more, something higher! The morning rises upon me with sadness, and the evening closes with disgust—Imperfection, uncertainty, is impressed on every object, on every pursuit! I am either restless or torpid, I seek to-day, what to-morrow, wearies and offends me. 'I entered life, flushed with hope—I have proceeded but a few steps, and the parterre of roses, viewed in distant prospect, nearer seen, proves a brake of thorns. The few worthy persons I have known appear, to me, to be struggling with the same half suppressed emotions.—Whence is all this? Why is intellect and virtue so far from conferring happiness? Why is the active mind a prey to the incessant conflict between truth and error? Shall I look beyond the disorders which, here, appear to me so inexplicable?—shall I expect, shall I demand, from the inscrutable Being to whom I owe my existence, in future unconceived periods, the end of which I believe myself capable, and which capacity, like a tormenting ignis fatuus, has hitherto served only to torture and betray? The animal rises up to satisfy the cravings of nature, and lies down to repose, undisturbed by care—has man superior powers, only to make him pre-eminently wretched?—wretched, it seems to me, in proportion as he rises? Assist me, in disentangling my bewildered ideas—write to me—reprove me—spare me not! 'Emma.' Emma To this letter I quickly received a kind and consolatory reply, though not unmingled with the reproof I called for. It afforded me but a temporary relief, and I once more sunk into inanity; my faculties rusted for want of
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