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enjoying pleasure, which acts antecedently to any interested consideration? This faculty you have, I believe, in full perfection; give it free exercise. It is the noblest of your faculties; that which assimilates you the most to Him, who, without needing any creature, being all sufficient for his own blessedness, yet willeth the happiness of every thing that lives. They who ascribe all kindly feelings to selfishness would blot out the last faint traces of the image in which man was made-would destroy the last wreck of the crown which has fallen from our head.

But as for the subject which led you to metaphysics, I believe it will be for your advantage to make it an exception from your general habits of sympathy; since I believe it is likely to lead you into more of pain than of pleasure. The "love," the "admiration," the "esteem," which you anticipate for your friend, she will never obtain unless in your imagination. My hopes of popular favour are low-very low indeed. Of a work like mine, the wise and the good will not be at the trouble to judge. Its faults are not such as will recommend it to the vulgar. It may become popular, for that is a mere lottery. If it do, be assured, my dear friend, its faults, of which it has many, will draw down the censure of those who are, or who think themselves entitled to decide for their neighbours. Now, will not one bitter sarcasm on it, much more on its author, give you more real vexation than the praise of nine-tenths of novel readers will give you pleasure ? I judge by myself; for, while I have little pleasure in praise, I am on many subjects keenly alive to censure. Many a person

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less generally vain than I, has felt all the touchy vanity of authorship.

But I am positive that no part-no, not the smallest part of my happiness can ever arise from the popularity of my book, further than as I think it may be useful. I would rather, as you well know, glide through the world unknown, than have (I will not call it enjoy) fame, however brilliant. To be pointed at-to be noticed and commented upon-to be suspected of literary airs to be shunned, as literary women are, by the most unpretending of my own sex; and abhorred, as literary women are, by the more pretending of the other! My dear, I would sooner exhibit as a rope-dancer-I would a great deal rather take up my abode by that lone loch on the hill, to which Mr. I. carried my husband on the day when the mosquitoes were so victorious against him.

All these things considered, pray transfer your sympathy to some other circumstance of my lot. Rejoice with me that I have the finest peas and cauliflowers in Scotland; and, moreover, the most beautiful apple tree that can be seen. *** You say you expect that I should tell you your faults. With all my heart! I will tell you two in a breath. In the first place, you are far too sanguine in expecting strange good fortune to befall your friends. You not only look for roses in the wilderness, but roses without thorns. Take my word for it, you may have, if you choose, the thorns without the roses; but the converse will never do. The next faultand a sad one it is-is, that you constantly refer

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to my letters, as if I should remember what I write. Now, I protest that I retain no more recollection of any letter I have written you since you went to Kinnaird, than I do of the ceremonies of my baptism. So if you think it necessary to answer categorically you must tell me my observation as well as your reply. * * *

This letter writing is but a poor affair after all. It carries on just such a conversation as we should do, if you were not to answer me till I had forgotten what I had said; turning your back to me too all the while you were speaking. A triste enough confab. you will allow. ***

MRS. BRUNTON TO MRS. BALFLOUR.

March 21, 1812.

THE beginning of this month was delightful, and the hedges were just going to burst into leaf; when, behold, this week we have snow a foot thick, and to-day it is again falling without intermission, accompanied by a tremendous gale. It is well for those who, like you and me, have comfortable homes, and affectionate inmates of them. Let it snow on now, and so perhaps we may escape it in April, when it would spoil all the fruit crops at St. Leonard's, and kill all the lambs in Elgar Holm. I hope, too, that it may serve instead of the May fogs, which would dismally eclipse my views in travelling to London.

You would smile if you knew how much I am bent on this journey, and, perhaps, with some latent self-complacency, you would say, 66 Well, well, I would not give the sight of little Thomas

fondling his sister for all the sights in London." But consider, my dear, that I have no Maries nor Thomases. When I leave home, I carry all that makes the soul of home with me ; I leave nothing behind but walls and furniture; and when I return, I bring back materials for enlivening my fireside.

To tell the truth, I believe nobody was ever better formed for enjoying life than I, saving and excepting in the construction of an abominable stomach; for I delight in travelling, yet can be happy at home. I enjoy company, yet prefer retirement. I can look with rapture on the glorious features of nature-the dark lake-the rugged mountain-the roaring cataract-yet gaze with no small pleasure on the contents of a haberdasher's window. ***

May God grant that, as long as I have friends, I may have a heart to love them; that I may never be loose from the sacred charities of kindred, nor stand alone in a world peopled with my brethren. I trust I shall always love you all, and I hope I shall always have a little corner in all your hearts. I particularize "you," lest you should fancy that "all" meant all my brethren of mankind. Now, I should wish to love them all, to be sure; but truly, I have no great hopes. Yet I think I would willingly serve any one, provided I were allowed to tell him plainly and roundly that I thought him a rogue or a fool, if that happened to be my opi nion at the time.

LORD BYRON TO M. H. BEYLE.

SIR, Genoa, May 29, 1823. AT present, that I know to whom I am indebted for a very flattering mention in the "Rome, Naples, and Florence in 1817, by Mons. Stendhal," it is fit that I should return my thanks (however undesired or undesirable) to Mons. Beyle, with whom I had the honour of being acquainted at Milan in 1816. You only did me too much honour in what you were pleased to say in that work; but it has hardly given me less pleasure than the praise itself, to become at length aware (which I have done by mere accident) that I am indebted for it to one of whose good opinion I was really ambitious. So many changes have taken place since that period in the Milan circle, that I hardly dare recur to it ;some dead, some banished, and some in Austrian dungeons.-Poor Pellico! I trust that, in his iron solitude, his Muse is consoling him in part -one day to delight us again, when both she and her poet are restored to freedom.

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Of your works I have only seen Rome, Naples, and Florence," &c.; the Lives of Haydn and Mozart, and the brochure on Racine and Shakspeare. The "Histoire de la Peinture," I have not yet the good fortune to possess.

There is one part of your observations in the pamphlet which I shall venture to remark upon; -it regards Walter Scott. You say that "his character is little worthy of enthusiasm," at the same time that you mention his productions in the

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