in the flush of my rage, how sweet was the thought that I would now do my best to choke all the best feelings of which my nature was susceptible. If before I had borne neglect, I would now return it with vengeance. If I had cherished a submissive and yielding spirit, I would now strive to become tyrannical and cruel. The last time I ever spoke either to my mother or brothers was at the time of my quarrel. I insulted them all in every way I could; I gave way to the most violent fit of passion, and then left the house forever-that house, with which I had none of the usual associations which belong to the home of our childhood and youth-in connexion with which I had no pleasing recollections of happy days, or of the interchange of those mutual kindnesses which are the highest blessings of life.

I went immediately to one of my early acquaintances, who, though he was not a friend, for I never had one, yet was familiar with all my private history. I told him what I had done, and before he had time to remonstrate I took the most solemn oath that rage ever suggested, that I would never undo it; and when afterwards calm reflection would have forced itself upon me, when perhaps I might have returned to the bosom of my family while the wound was yet unhealed, and perhaps owing to my previous illtreatment, have been blessed with all that kindness could bestow, I swore again, that, if there were no other reason why I should shut my ear to everything, my oath alone should be sufficient.

I was in my eighteenth summer, in the full tide of health and strength, and had never felt a restraint upon the wild spirits of youth. I was soon to come into the possession of a fortune, the income of which was alone sufficient to bear every expense I could contract. I was not dissipated in the common, hackneyed sense of the word, neither did I try to raise a false interest for my unhappy situation, by my mad career. What is commonly meant by dissipation, was my being. The midnight revel was my temperate meal. The low debauch seemed like my natural amusement. Every nerve was strung to its utmost. I was all excitement, and what would have shattered a thousand constitutions, was the healthy craving of my unnattural appetite. Thus passed the few first years of my alienation from my kindred.

There is a point

But there is a limit to everything under the sun. to which our feelings can stretch, and must then return upon themselves. I at last grew sick of the hollowness of worldly pleasure, and was disgusted with the loathsomeness of its votaries. Among them all I never discovered any of that refinement, that elevation of sentiment or dignity in their intercourse with their fellows, which I had always held sacred. I could no longer bear to associate with men for whom I had no respect, and in whose society I was constantly reminded of the worthlessness of my condition. I had always a

taste for books; to cultivate this, I immured myself, not in the beautiful retreats of woods and fields, where they who are sick of life are wont to retire, but in the very heart of a populous city. From what cause, I know not, but so it was, I hated not only my own family, but the world. I hated men, and in the true spirit of misanthrophy I lived where I could see their sufferings and misery. It would have been little consolation to me to know that yonder clouded atmosphere, which I might have beheld from some distant elevation, was hanging over the usual scenes of crime and guilt which are ever to be found in the marts of man---No! I watched them all, I constantly kept my eyes on them, as the beast of prey on his victim. There was no pity mingled with my hate.

Here too my restless spirit at length grew tired. As I read and became more conversant with my own mind, some few sparks of my once generous nature again revived. The long dried-up spring again sent forth a few trickling drops. I longed for something on which to fix what little affection I now discovered myself possessed of. I could not receive the balm which memory gives when it goes back to early years,---and yet I felt I must find something to which I might cling. I felt that the mind of man could never for any length of time stand by itself. It is at best a weak and fragile plant, that can lend its little strength to the support of something from which it receives assistance in return.

In one of my early summers, I formed an acquaintance with a beautiful girl, while on a visit in the country. I became more intimate with her than I ever did with any human being; she was an orphan and was then undergoing many of those hardships and cruelties incident to that unhappy state. I made her acquainted, young as I then was, with my own ill-fated lot, and she, in return, unlocked her own heart to me. She unfolded all her misery and her gloomy anticipations. I was then but sixteen, and she was a few years younger tha. myself; but we were just at that period of life when one of the apest feelings of the human breast is strongest: for if sympathy be stronger at one time of life than another, it certainly is in youth, when we are less locked up in self, before we have been dragged through a world, which, instead of making our sensibility to the sufferings of others more acute, turns it all inward upon our own. It was this sacred feeling which linked us together then, and which had continued to connect us through all the misery of which we were both large partakers. To this lovely creature I resolved to return, and in a few months I did so. It was sometime since I had seen her; I found that time and misfortune had worked their usual changes. She was, however, still beautiful-beautiful to me at least -for I did not want to look upon the blooming cheek, to feast my eyes on beauty which was the mere result of youth and health, and

which with these would fade. I found what I expected to find; I loved what I had resolved to love; a kind of melancholy loveliness which was more congenial to my own nature. On her beautifully formed features was displayed that sadness and sorrow which to my eye made up for all that the bloom of womanhood could bestow. I soon succeeded in rekindling that affection for me which had never entirely died away. She was still in trouble and distress, and while her heart was throbbing with the emotion which the recital of her own affliction had excited, I told her of the waste in my own barren bosom. I told her again of my former misfortunes, of my future hopes. I laid bare the altar of my own heart, and shewed her that no flame could be kindled there, but that which burned for her. She loved me with all the intensity of woman's love. She yielded to my entreaties and fled with me from her unnatural and cruel protectors. I completed her imperfect education, and she was all to me that I could desire. Even now, while I am trembling under the effects of infirmity and age, recollection teems with the many happy hours I have spent with the only being that ever loved me. This old breast throbs and these dried veins swell as I imagine her in my embrace, as I think of the sweet kiss I have imprinted upon her lips. She tried to awaken within me the feelings of a man. She strove to make me embrace the religion of which she was herself a lovely ornament. She urged me to return to my family, but she only bound me more closely to herself. I disregarded her entreaties, and became more zealous in my devotion to herself. Never, never, in this or another world can I forget the bliss I then enjoyed. It was communion of mind with mind, of heart with heart.

I remember in the full tide of all my happiness a circumstance which came like a check upon my soul;-it well nigh made me what I should have always been, a feeling, natural man. I was one day riding with her in one of the streets of the city, a few miles from which we resided. We were passing the proud mansion of my unnatural mother. There was a collection of carriages and persons about the entrance, and as I rode towards them, I saw what could leave no doubt of the occasion—a hearse. It was my mother's funeral! The first feeling that arose, would have prompted me to avoid it; but my old hate drove me onward, and as I rode by the door, the coffin was brought down the steps. I looked towards it. There was a glass lid, and I distinctly saw the features. Oh! the agony of that moment! I was well nigh mastered. I could have gone, and wept upon it. In spite of all that had passed, I knew I could make all right with my brothers, but the next moment somewhat restored me to myself, and I drove furiously onward. For some days I was sensibly affected by what I had seen. In addition to this, my wife took advantage of the favorable opportunity, and

used all those powers of persuasion which woman so well knows how to exercise; but my old feeling of bitterness and contempt for my relations returned, and that affection which she would have divided with them, was the more concentrated upon her.

A few years rolled away and my wife died. The only cord which bound me to the world about me, was snapt. I mourned over her corpse as if it had been that of the only human being in the world, and when at last it was placed in the new made grave in the garden where I had walked with her and lost myself in her love, even then I went and knelt over it. For many, many years afterward I passed the nights of summer there-fondly imagining while I was near her ashes, that I was not far from that heart I had idolized-from that lovely being who had been my world. The only pleasure I now had to enjoy, was in recollection of her; this at least could not be taken from me, and with this I trusted I could bear the years that still remained.

One by one, my brothers went to their long home, and as I had been a stranger to that grief which one feels when lamenting for the mother that bore him, so was I to all brotherly affection. I heard of their deaths, but this was all; I neither mourned for the departed nor sympathized with those who were left; I was alike insensible to the dead and the living.

It is now many years since I could claim kindred with any one. I am far beyond the ordinary life of man, and it is now that I feel my misery. I see through the whole of my long career no single monument to comfort and support me. I fly to religion; I ask for that grace which in my youth was my fondest hope, but the heart that has been callous to all its natural emotions, can with difficulty bring down its pride before the Deity itself. How can I expect to replant what I rooted up and destroyed seventy years ago? I find not even the seeds of kindly affection. How then can I expect my breast to be warmed with devotion? If there be any unnatural thing more awful than another to the contemplation, it is an old man on the very verge of the grave, who has lived entirely in vain-to whom the noble ends of being have been an empty sound-around whom the shades of evening are closing, and yet no star visible! But when -as in my miserable case-when through life he has been haunted by something which told him that he was not pursuing his best endwhen in old age, extreme old age, he feels this phantom still behind him, and has travelled far enough in the mazes of wisdom, to know that he who would be happy hereafter must set his affections on things above-when such a being begins to penetrate the veil which conceals this life from the future, how full and overflowing must his cup of bitterness be!