lities,
with energy of feeling, and with a love of morality, though
narrowed and vulgarized by the absence of the intelligence
which should enlighten. I had the good discipline of trying
to make allowance for those making none, to be charitable
to their want of charity, and cool without being cold. But
I don't know when I have felt such an aversion to my
environment, and prayed so earnestly day by day,--"O, Eternal!
purge from my inmost heart this hot haste about ephemeral
trifles," and "keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me."

'What a change from the almost vestal quiet of "Aunt Mary's"
life, to all this open-windowed, open-eyed screaming of
"poltroon," "nefarious plan," "entire depravity," &c. &c.'

* * * * *

_'July, 1842. Boston_.--I have been entertaining the girls
here with my old experiences at Groton. They have been very
fresh in my mind this week. Had I but been as wise in such
matters then as now, how easy and fair I might have made the
whole! Too late, too late to live, but not too late to think!
And as that maxim of the wise Oriental teaches, "the Acts of
this life shall be the Fate of the next."'

* * * 'I would have my friends tender of me, not because I am
frail, but because I am capable of strength;--patient, because
they see in me a principle that must, at last, harmonize all
the exuberance of my character. I did not well understand what
you felt, but I am willing to admit that what you said of my
"over-great impetuosity" is just. You will, perhaps, feel it
more and more. It may at times hide my better self. When it
does, speak, I entreat, as harshly as you feel. Let me be
always sure I know the worst I believe you will be thus just,
thus true, for we are both servants of Truth.'

* * * * *

'_August, 1842. Cambridge._--Few have eyes for the pretty
little features of a scene. In this, men are not so good
as boys. Artists are always thus young; poets are; but the
pilgrim does not lay aside his belt of steel, nor the merchant
his pack, to worship the flowers on the fountain's brink. I
feel, like Herbert, the weight of "business to be done," but
the bird-like particle would skim and sing at these sweet
places. It seems strange to leave them; and