ility;
her prudence temper my energies; her bland but enduring affections
soothe my soul. I felt at peace with all around me, myself included, and
I found a sweet assurance of the wisdom of the step I had just taken
in the expanding sentiment. If such were my sensations now that every
thought centred in Anna, what would they not become when these personal
transports were cooled by habit, and nature was left to the action of
the ordinary impulses! I began to doubt of the infallibility of that
part of my system which had given me so much pain, and to incline to the
new doctrine that by concentration on particular parts we come most to
love the whole. On examination there was reason to question whether
it was not on this principle even that, as an especial landholder, I
attained so great an interest in my native island; for while I certainly
did not own the whole of Great Britain, I felt that I had a profound
respect for everything in it that was in any, even the most remote
manner, connected with my own particular possessions.

A week flew by in delightful anticipations. The happiness of this short
but heavenly period became so exciting, so exquisite, that I was on the
point of giving birth to an improvement on my theory (or rather on the
theory of the political economists and constitution-mongers, for it is
in fact theirs and not mine), when the answer of Anna was received. If
anticipation be a state of so much happiness--happiness being the
great pursuit of man--why not invent a purely probationary condition
of society?--why not change its elementary features from positive to
anticipating interests, which would give more zest to life, and bestow
felicity unimpaired by the dross of realities? I had determined to carry
out this principle in practice by an experiment, and left the hotel to
order an agent to advertise, and to enter into a treaty or two, for some
new investments (without the smallest intention of bringing them to a
conclusion), when the porter delivered me the ardently expected letter.
I never knew what would be the effect of taking a stake in society by
anticipation, therefore; the contents of Anna's missive driving every
subject that was not immediately connected with the dear writer, and
with sad realities, completely out of my head. It is not improbable,
however, that the new theory would have proved to be faulty, for I have
often had occasion to remark that heirs (in remainder, for instance),
manifest a