equal truth and frankness in return.  But this evil may be borne; the hard, the lasting evil was to learn to distrust my own heart, and lose all faith in my power of knowing others.  In this letter I see again that peculiar pride, that contempt of the forms and shows of goodness, that fixed resolve to be anything but “like unto the Pharisees,” which were to my eye such happy omens.  Yet how strangely distorted are all his views!  The daily influence of his intercourse with me was like the breath he drew; it has become a part of him.  Can he escape from himself?  Would he be unlike all other mortals?  His feelings are as false as those of Alcibiades.  He influenced me, and helped form me to what I am.  Others shall succeed him.  Shall I be ashamed to owe anything to friendship?  But why do I talk?—­a child might confute him by defining the term human being.  He will gradually work his way into light; if too late for our friendship, not, I trust, too late for his own peace and honorable well-being.  I never insisted on being the instrument of good to him.  I practised no little arts, no! not to effect the good of the friend I loved.  I have prayed to Heaven, (surely we are sincere when doing that,) to guide him in the best path for him, however far from me that path might lead.  The lesson I have learned may make me a more useful friend, a more efficient aid to others than I could be to him; yet I hope I shall not be denied the consolation of knowing surely, one day, that all which appeared evil in the companion of happy years was but error.’

* * * * *

’I think, since you have seen so much of my character, that you must be sensible that any reserves with those whom I call my friends, do not arise from duplicity, but an instinctive feeling that I could not be understood.  I can truly say that I wish no one to overrate me; undeserved regard could give me no pleasure; nor will I consent to practise charlatanism, either in friendship or anything else.’

* * * * *

    ’You ought not to think I show a want of generous confidence,
    if I sometimes try the ground on which I tread, to see if
    perchance it may return the echoes of hollowness.’

* * * * *

’Do not cease to respect me as formerly.  It seems to me that I have reached the “parting of the ways” in my life, and all the knowledge which I have toiled to gain only serves to show me the disadvantages of each.  None of those who think themselves my friends can aid me; each, careless, takes the path to which present convenience impels; and all would smile or stare, could they know the aching and measureless wishes, the sad apprehensiveness, which make me pause and strain my almost hopeless gaze to the distance.  What wonder if my present conduct should be mottled by selfishness and incertitude?  Perhaps you, who can make your views certain,