ifferent
scenes of my short life: if the world is a stage and I merely an actor
on it my part has been strange, and, alas! tragical. Almost from
infancy I was deprived of all the testimonies of affection which
children generally receive; I was thrown entirely upon my own
resources, and I enjoyed what I may almost call unnatural pleasures,
for they were dreams and not realities. The earth was to me a magic
lantern and I [a] gazer, and a listener but no actor; but then came
the transporting and soul-reviving era of my existence: my father
returned and I could pour my warm affections on a human heart; there
was a new sun and a new earth created to me; the waters of existence
sparkled: joy! joy! but, alas! what grief! My bliss was more rapid
than the progress of a sunbeam on a mountain, which discloses its
glades & woods, and then leaves it dark & blank; to my happiness
followed madness and agony, closed by despair.

This was the drama of my life which I have now depicted upon paper.
During three months I have been employed in this task. The memory of
sorrow has brought tears; the memory of happiness a warm glow the
lively shadow of that joy. Now my tears are dried; the glow has faded
from my cheeks, and with a few words of farewell to you, Woodville, I
close my work: the last that I shall perform.

Farewell, my only living friend; you are the sole tie that binds me to
existence, and now I break it[.] It gives me no pain to leave you; nor
can our seperation give you much. You never regarded me as one of this
world, but rather as a being, who for some penance was sent from the
Kingdom of Shadows; and she passed a few days weeping on the earth and
longing to return to her native soil. You will weep but they will be
tears of gentleness. I would, if I thought that it would lessen your
regret, tell you to smile and congratulate me on my departure from the
misery you beheld me endure. I would say; Woodville, rejoice with your
friend, I triumph now and am most happy. But I check these
expressions; these may not be the consolations of the living; they
weep for their own misery, and not for that of the being they have
lost. No; shed a few natural tears due to my memory: and if you ever
visit my grave, pluck from thence a flower, and lay it to your heart;
for your heart is the only tomb in which my memory will be enterred.

My death is rapidly approaching and you are not near to watch the
flitting and vanishing of my spirit. Do no