“O ye, who consider or declare me to be hostile, obstinate, or misanthropic, what injustice ye do me!  Ye know not the secret causes of that which to you wears such an appearance.  My heart and my mind were from childhood prone to the tender feelings of affection.  Nay, I was always disposed even to perform great actions.  But, only consider that, for the last six years, I have been attacked by an incurable complaint, aggravated by the unskillful treatment of medical men, disappointed from year to year in the hope of relief, and at last obliged to submit to the endurance of an evil the cure of which may last perhaps for years, if it is practicable at all.  Born with a lively, ardent disposition, susceptible to to the diversions of society, I was forced at an early age to renounce them, and to pass my life in seclusion.  If I strove at any time to set myself above all this, oh how cruelly was I driven back by the doubly painful experience of my defective hearing! and yet it was not possible for me to say to people, ’Speak louder—­bawl—­for I am deaf!’ Ah! how could I proclaim the defect of a sense that I once possessed in the highest perfection—­in a perfection in which few of my colleagues possess or ever did possess it?  Indeed, I cannot!  Forgive me, then, if ye see me draw back when I would gladly mingle among you.  Doubly mortifying is my misfortune to me, as it must tend to cause me to be misconceived.  From recreation in the society of my fellow-creatures, from the pleasures of conversation, from the effusions of friendship, I am cut off.  Almost alone in the world, I dare not venture into society more than absolute necessity requires.  I am obliged to live as an exile.  If I go into company, a painful anxiety comes over me, since I am apprehensive of being exposed to the danger of betraying my situation.  Such has been my state, too, during this half year that I have spent in the country.  Enjoined by my intelligent physician to spare my hearing as much as possible, I have been almost encouraged by him in my present natural disposition, though, hurried away by my fondness for society, I sometimes suffered myself to be enticed into it.  But what a humiliation when any one standing beside me could hear at a distance a flute that I could not hear, or any one heard the shepherd singing, and I could not distinguish a sound!  Such circumstances brought me to the brink of despair, and had well-nigh made me put an end to my life:  nothing but my art held my hand.  Ah! it seemed to me impossible to quit the world before I had produced all that I felt myself called to accomplish.  And so I endured this wretched life—­so truly wretched, that a somewhat speedy change is capable of transporting me from the best into the worst condition.  Patience—­so I am told—­I must choose for my guide.  Steadfast, I hope, will be my resolution to persevere, till it shall please the inexorable Fates to cut the thread.  Perhaps there may be an amendment—­perhaps not; I am prepared for the worst—­I, who