indirect and most potential cause, not indeed of the origination, yet of the continuance, of his state of mind, must be sought in what the world would call his good fortune.  His maiden aunt by the father’s side left her favorite nephew her pleasant, old-fashioned, somewhat gloomy, but picturesque and comfortable house in —–­shire, about fifty or sixty acres in land, and three or four hundred a year into the bargain.  Poor old lady!  I heartily wish she had kept him out of possession by living to a hundred; or, dying, had left every farthing to “endow a college or a—­cat.”  To Harrington she has left a very equivocal heritage.  For with this and his little patrimony he is entirely placed above the necessity of professional life and fully qualified to live (Heaven help him!) as a gentleman;—­but, unhappily, as a gentleman whose nature is deeply speculative,—­whose life has been one of study,—­and who has no active tastes or habits to correct the morbid portions of his character, and the dangers of his position.  With his views already unsettled, he retired a few months ago to this comparative solitude; (for such it is, though the place is not many miles from the learned city of-----;) and partly from the tendencies of his own mind, partly from want of some powerful stimulus from without, he soon acquired the pernicious habit of almost constant seclusion in his library, where he revolves, as if fascinated, the philosophy of doubt, or some equally distressing themes; all which has now issued as you see.  The contemplative and the active life are both necessary to man, no doubt; but in how different proportions!

To live as Harrington has lived of late, is to breathe little but azote.  I believe that all these ill effects would have been, though not obviated, at least early cured, had he been compelled to mingle in active life,—­to make his livelihood by a profession.  The bracing air of the world would have dissipated these vapors which have gathered over his soul.  In very truth, I half wish that he could now be stripped of his all, and compelled to become hedger and ditcher.  It would almost be a kindness to ruin him by engaging him in some of the worst railway speculations!

I found him all that I had promised to find him; unchanged towards myself; sometimes cheerful, though oftener melancholy, or, at least, to all appearances ennuye; with more causticity and sarcasm in his humor, but without misanthropy; and I must add, with the same logical fairness, the same abhorrence of sophistry, which, were his early characteristics.

But the journal of my visit, which I am most diligently keeping, will more fully inform you of his state of mind.

F.B.

Journal of A visit, etc.

July 1, 1851.

I arrived at ——­Grange this day.  In the evening, as Harrington and myself were conversing in the library, I availed myself of a pause in the conversation to break the ice in relation to the topic which lay nearest my heart, by saying:—­