I have sought consolation with my poor dog, and he has wagged his tail, sprung forward happily and endeavored to make me gay. It is a noble trait in him; and I regret, therefore, that he has failed. My old friend has used his influence with my heart, but an old man cannot appreciate the sorrows of a young and lonely lover's heart.

AUGUST 29th.-Perhaps it is late, but I hope it can never be too late to ask the forgiveness of those we may have injured either directly or indirectly. It is almost an acquired trait in my character to forgive. A short time ago and I scorned where I would now ask for forgiveness. It is of the world that I request it, for I have illy named and treated it. I have loathed it, with a deep loathing, and I fear too seldom with a cause; yet, despite all, my abjurations shall not be entire, for there are those from whom no power of good or ill could make me ask forgiveness. If I have ever injured any man, I am unconscious of it. If I have unwittingly hurt the feelings, or wounded the pride of a human being, may he know my regretful heart at this moment with respect to him.

I have had few to love. My heart was not an extensive heart, although I hope a comprehensive one; and it is a jealous heart, and will not admit all men of every sort into its cloister.

But then I hate few, because it is my habit-my nature to pity and scorn more than to hate. I pity those weak, lax creatures, having no mind for themselves, who are always pursuing frivolity in preference to searching for truth, or shining in some of wisdom's ways. But I scorn the wise who are mean, the learned who stoop to trifle with their fair name, and

sell their information, like a worthless thing, to the highest bidder.

I have no faith in the friendship of men-ah! and regret to say so; but I know them too well. They will appear devoted to you—will hang on your neck; but, great God! it is an awful thing to think, that all this is but as the fondling of the harlot, who is robbing you in the midst of her caresses. It has been a long time since I have trusted to the friendship of a man. My days are numbered; and I have made the last offering to that false, fickle divinity, as I have made the last to love -the last to ambition.

Perhaps I may be called bitter, censorious; but I consider there is in this world but one all-pervading passion, and that the basest of all-selfishness. That there is but one great system, the end of which is, selfish-one mighty, profound principle in all man's actions, and that is, selfishness.

I have now a last complaint to make against the world. It has stigmatized me as a misanthrope. In doing so it has transcended all honesty, dignity, and charity; it has played toward me a mean and contemptible part; and that, I would never forgive or forget, though it might heap mountains of applause, lavish all its sycophantic heart on me.

SEPT. 12th. The world now condemns; it regards me as a demon, while my dear old friend really considers me ar angel. May not both be wrong? But while I conceive myself neither, the exact place I occupy between the two I do not know.

The world would fain spurn me, because my father has acted towards me as he has. For, when a parent sets his heart against us, and when we are reduced likewise, in our circum

stances, we are no longer popular; and the world generously takes up the cudgels with vehemence against us.

Well, I will teach my heart to forget that I ever formed an attachment for a single individual among my fellow men. And I will, because they force it on me, become a misanthrope. I can despise men, leave them, abide wholly and entirely within myself. But since the season of chagrin is not over with me, I can no longer live so happily within myself. Though to live being our doom, I shall not dwell among the treacherous, the frivolous, the changling, and the dolt; but the desolate like myself, or the non-thinking, and, therefore, happy inanimate beings of the country surrounding me.

SEPT. 25th. It is autumn, and my feelings are in their autumn. It is the very close of autumn, and it is the very last hour of my autumnal feelings. Feelings that once had a spring which was bright, a summer rich and bountiful; and in that spring I think I sat down and wrote on an old letter taken from my pocket, my thoughts-desultory, yet eager thoughts on hope. If I knew where now to find such evidence against myself, I should seek and destroy it.

How these past things do mock us; how all pleasures gone, do laugh in irony at our later feelings, that are all checquered over with disappointment, and so eternally masked by despair? How sick at heart do we feel, to know that once we spoke and wrote of those happy days to come, when our actions should meet our approbation, and, perhaps, we might have indulged the thought of being famous. But all that was so real, has as a vision passed away; and there exists nothing now on which we can fix a dotard affection. Alas! the chain is broken, and we drink no more at the refreshing well. When so many

around us are exchanging affection, to be denied it.—Oh, heavens! it is a horrid thing, to think that we lie freezing in the snows, when the flames of Moscow are being wasted on the insensible air.

OCTOBER 3d.-I begin to fear that, like the rest of the world, my old friend grows tired of me, although he is always kind, obliging, all that I could wish--a father, and more than a father. Yet I fear his attentions arise rather from my state of mind, and from my painful destitution, than any desire to serve me more than another. Even for this, however, I thank him with my poverty-thanks which are worth more than the gold of the rich and polluted of the world; and if I can ask a favor from a superior power, it is, that that man may be exalted, because he was strange enough to be virtuous. Ah, heaven! bestow a blessing on him, though you visit a curse on me.

I fear, alas! that I was born to be unhappy, and oh! that the chief cause should be my books to which I so devoted my whole heart, and so gave my whole mind. It were ungrateful in them, if we can charge ingratitude on such beings; but probably it was their nature to make men miserable by their thousand, their million of powers of insinuation, and it was my fault to be captivated by them.

My books then, early incapacitated me for the usual avocations of life-they will do it; and an education bestowed on a penetrating and spirited man is a great, and a fearful gift. Know little and you will surely be happy-for from cultivation arises fancies and desires never to be supplied. But there is an ambition in knowing, and that same ambition is the venom of life the Dog-star to the human race.

When I commenced life, this beautiful and enchanting world

was spread open, as by intention, to my view. It had many paths and moreover, such it was, that one, if he thought proper, might turn his course which way out of his given path he pleased; and ever when he did so, there were to be found fresher and richer beauties, and scenes more exciting. Of course, as was my nature, I had left the beaten track, where my steps were to be rewarded only by some choice acquisition—neither regarding the thorns, the briers, or the sharp rocks for now and then, as compensation to my venturous spirit, I would find a beautiful flower hidden in a della rich shell in the cleft of a rock. On I went, and difficulty after difficulty I overstepped, and never thought to look behind-never dreamt that I had to return by a way unmarked save by obstacles. I had overcome ten thousand difficulties of more or less magnitude-and of course, to return was to overcome ten thousand more. But why should I think of that, when the prospect grew brighter, and more enticing, and it were a pleasure to pass difficulties which were greater at each step. I passed a stream, that could never be repassed; I crossed a crag never to be reached again—and now I stand upon a rock, which trembles over a gulf-my foot cannot keep its position there long-I grow dizzy—I faint—I am in the gulf. I sink,-and sink, and the third time rise to reach the shore, all feeble and spent; and on that shore I lay me down to die.

O! dear books! you have done me fearful harm; you caused a father to discard me who was kind, and might have been almost forbearing in his desire as to my profession. Well! I begin now to think that there was no profession-no occupation which could have suited me-none capable of affording plea