ly lessened, if, as soon as he had
passed one wilderness, another of equal length, and equally desolate,
should expect him. In this particular, his experience and mine would
exactly tally. I should rejoice, indeed, that the old year is over and
gone, if I had not every reason to prophesy a new one similar to it.

"The new year is already old in my account, I am not, indeed,
sufficiently second-sighted to be able to boast by anticipation an
acquaintance with the events of it yet unborn, but rest convinced that,
be they what they may, not one of them comes a messenger of good to me.
If even death itself should be of the number, he is no friend of mine.
It is an alleviation of the woes even of an unenlightened man, that he
can wish for death, and indulge a hope, at least, that in death he
shall find deliverance. But, loaded as my life is with despair, I have
no such comfort as would result from a supposed probability of better
things to come, were it once ended. For, more unhappy than the
traveller with whom I set out, pass through what difficulties I may,
through whatever dangers and afflictions, I am not a whit nearer the
home, unless a dungeon may be called so. This is no very agreeable
theme; but in so great a dearth of subjects to write upon, and
especially impressed as I am at this moment with a sense of my own
condition, I could choose no other. The weather is an exact emblem of
my mind in its present state. A thick fog envelopes everything, and at
the same time it freezes intensely. You will tell me that this cold
gloom will be succeeded by a cheerful spring, and endeavour to
encourage me to hope for a spiritual change resembling it;--but it will
be lost labour. Nature revives again; but a soul once slain lives no
more. The hedge that has been apparently dead, is not so; it will
burst into leaf and blossom at the appointed time; but no such time is
appointed for the stake that stands in it. It is as dead as it seems,
and will prove itself no dissembler. The latter end of next month will
complete a period of eleven years in which I have spoken no other
language. It is a long time for a man whose eyes were once opened, to
spend in darkness; long enough to make despair an inveterate habit; and
such it is in me. My friends, I know, expect that I shall see yet
again. They think it necessary to the existence of divine truth, that
he who once had possession of it should never finally lose it. I admit
the s