self not unworthy to be a true
friend. Neither of us is unworthy. In few natures does such
love for the good and beautiful survive the ruin of all
youthful hopes, the wreck of all illusions.'

* * * * *

'I supposed our intimacy would terminate when I left
Cambridge. Its continuing to subsist is a matter of surprise
to me. And I expected, ere this, you would have found some
Hersilia, or such-like, to console you for losing your
Natalia. See, my friend, I am three and twenty. I believe
in love and friendship, but I cannot but notice that
circumstances have appalling power, and that those links which
are not riveted by situation, by _interest_, (I mean, not mere
worldly interest, but the instinct of self-preservation,)
may be lightly broken by a chance touch. I speak not in
misanthropy, I believe

"Die Zeit ist schlecht, doch giebts noch grosse Herzen."

'Surely I maybe pardoned for aiming at the same results with
the chivalrous "gift of the Gods." I cannot endure to be one
of those shallow beings who can never get beyond the primer of
experience,--who are ever saying,--

"Ich habe geglaubt, _nun glaube ich erst recht_,
Und geht es auch wunderlich, geht es auch schlecht,
Ich bleibe in glaubigen Orden."

Yet, when you write, write freely, and if I don't like what
you say, let me say so. I have ever been frank, as if I
expected to be intimate with you good three-score years and
ten. I am sure we shall always esteem each other. I have that
much faith.'

* * * * *

'_Jan_. 1832.--All that relates to--must be interesting to
me, though I never voluntarily think of him now. The apparent
caprice of his conduct has shaken my faith, but not destroyed
my hope. That hope, if I, who have so mistaken others, may
dare to think I know myself, was never selfish. It is painful
to lose a friend whose knowledge and converse mingled so
intimately with the growth of my mind,--an early friend to
whom I was all truth and frankness, seeking nothing but 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