likely to be disturbed. I do not, indeed, wish for
the interruptions designed as civilities; I rather gather around myself,
link after link, the chains that connected me with the world; I find
among my own thoughts that variety and occupation which you only
experience in your intercourse with others; and I make, like the
Chinese, my map of the universe consist of a circle in a square--the
circle is my own empire and of thought and self; and it is to the scanty
corners which it leaves without, that I banish whatever belongs to the
remainder of mankind.

About a mile from L----- is Mr. Mandeville's beautiful villa of E-----,
in the midst of grounds which form a delightful contrast to the savage
and wild scenery by which they are surrounded. As the house is at
present quite deserted, I have obtained, through the gardener, a free
admittance into his domains, and I pass there whole hours, indulging,
like the hero of the _Lutrin, "une sainte oisivete,"_ listening to a
little noisy brook, and letting my thoughts be almost as vague and idle
as the birds which wander among the trees that surround me. I could
wish, indeed, that this simile were in all things correct--that
those thoughts, if as free, were also as happy as the objects of my
comparison, and could, like them, after the rovings of the day, turn
at evening to a resting-place, and be still. We are the dupes and the
victims of our senses: while we use them to gather from external things
the hoards that we store within, we cannot foresee the punishments we
prepare for ourselves; the remembrance which stings, and the hope which
deceives, the passions which promise us rapture, which reward us with
despair, and the thoughts which, if they constitute the healthful
action, make also the feverish excitement of our minds. What sick man
has not dreamt in his delirium everything that our philosophers have
said?* But I am growing into my old habit of gloomy reflection, and it
is time that I should conclude. I meant to have written you a letter as
light as your own; if I have failed, it is no wonder.--"Notre coeur est
un instrument incomplet--une lyre ou il manque des cordes, et ou nous
sommes forces de rendre les accens de la joie, sur le ton consacre aux
soupirs."

* Quid aegrotus unquam somniavit quod philosophorum aliquis non
dixerit?--LACTANTIUS.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

You ask me to give you some sketch of my life, and of that _bel mondo_
which wearied me