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The whole ONE SELF! SELF, that no alien knows!
SELF, far diffused as Fancy's wing can travel!
Self, spreading still! Oblivious of its own,
Yet all of all possessing!"

Religious Musings, p. 90-1.

Το you, my dearest children, and to those not less dear, because equally docile and ingenuous, whom only, or chiefly, I desire as readers, I would as the result of my experience say,— cultivate all the social relations, all the recognised modes of kindly intercourse and intercommunication; yet always preserving, even in moments of the most entire interfusion of mind and the affections, a consciousness and presence of identity, which alone gives value to this sympathy and sympathetic union. So also I would have you to consider this self as cultivable, as deriving its chiefest and highest value from its relation to and dependence upon congenial natures, which by a natural attraction and harmony are drawn together, and respond to each other.

To be conscious of existence only, as its sorrows are shared or its pleasures enhanced by affection and love in its nobler sense, appears the highest condition of humanity, and this I hold to be attainable. To this I seek to approximate; and this, my dearest friends, every one may to some considerable extent arrive at, who, yearning after the pure and unearthly,

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Among the tasks of real life, have wrought

Upon the plan that pleased his child-like thought;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care,
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth or honours, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow, on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all.

His is a soul, whose master-bias leans
To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve,

More brave for this-that he has much to love.
'Tis, finally, the man who, lifted high,
Conspicuous o' ject in a nation's eye,
Or left unthought on in obscurity,
Who with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,
Plays in the many games of life that one
Where what he most doth value must be won."

MY DEAREST FRIEND,

LETTER XVI.

Blandford-place, March 1st, 1821. God bless you, and all who are dear and near to you! but as to your pens, they seem to have been plucked from the devil's pinions, and slit and shaped by the blunt edge of the broad sprays of his antlers. Of the ink (i.e. your inkstand), it would be base to complain. I hate abusing folks in their absence. Do you know, my dear friend, that having sundry little snug superstitions of my own, I shrewdly suspect that whimsical ware of that sort is connected with the state and garniture of your paper-staining machinery.-Is it so? Well, I have seen Murray, and he has been civil, I may say kind, in his manners. Is this your knock? Is it you on the stairs?—No. I explained my full purpose to him, namely, that he should take me and my concerns, past and future, for print and reprint, under his umbrageous foliage, though the original name of his great predecessor in the patronage of genius, who gave the name of Augustan to all happy epochs-Octavius would be more appropriate-and he promises,-cætera desunt.

It was about this time that I met with an odd volume of the Tatler, during a forced stay at a remote and obscure inn* in the wilds of Kinder Scout.

*Those who have been kept at a cheerless inn in a dreary country by continued rain in late autumn, without external resource or the

The book opened at a paper (one of Steele's) giving an account of the writer's meeting with an old friend, recalling to his memory their early intimacy, and the services he had rendered him in his courtship, the delightful pictures which he calls up of the youthful, animated, and happy lovers, which, with a felicity peculiar to Steele, such was the fineness, the pure gold of his nature, he associates, rather than contrasts, with the quiet happiness, the full content and the still devotion (the heart-love), which makes an Elysium of a home in other respects only home-ly.

This picture, yet I think one of the most pure and most delightful of that age, for it belongs in its manners and some of its accessories to the past century, I mentioned to Coleridge on my return, and had, as I expected, my pleasure repeated, deepened, and extended. It was a joy and ever new delight to listen to him on any congenial theme, on one congenial to you as well as to him. I was especially pleased to find that he

means of communication, without books, and even without writing materials, - that is, without paper upon which to write, — need not be told how delightful, what an event, it is to meet with a book, such as by a special providence is always discovered in these places when the powers are propitious, such as a stray volume of Sir Charles Grandison, which you will find at the Swan at Brecon; an odd volume of the Tatler at the inn on Kinder Scout; the fifth volume of Clarissa Harlowe at the inn at Lyndhurst; the Abelard and Heloise, an undomestic translation (which I hasten to recommend to my excellent friend, Charles Cowden Clark, to be immediately expurgated and made decent, and fit for introduction into seminaries, and into demure and orderly families), at the Crab and Lobster, Bonchurch; to Bell's Luther's Table Talk, full of odd things, at Camps Inn, Ilfracombe; the Athenian Oracle, containing many unnoticed contributions by Swift, at the Pelican, Speenhamland; and last, because the most ungenial and most unseemly, Pamela, in one large volume, at the little inn at Bembridge Ledge or Point. To enjoy these you must be without any other resource, and the book, discovered after a long, and, as you begin to think, hopeless, search, must be one that you have read very early in youth, and of which you only retain very faint recollections.

valued Steele, always my prime favourite, so much above Addison and the other essayists of that day; he denied that Steele was, as he himself said in a pleasantry, “like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid, and who, once in possession, became sovereign." Addison was necessary to give variety to the papers, but in no other sense did he give value. Steele's papers are easily distinguished to this day by their pure humanity springing from the gentleness, the kindness of his heart. He dwelt with much unction on the curious and instructive letters of Steele to his wife; and with much approval on the manliness with which, in the first letters, he addressed the lady to whom he was afterwards united. He quoted the following as models of their kind, and worthy of especial admiration:

"As I know no reason why difference of sex should make our language to each other differ from the ordinary rules of right reason, I shall use plainness and sincerity in my discourse to you, as much as other lovers do perplexity and rapture. Instead of saying, 'I

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shall die for you,' I profess I should be glad to lead my life with you. You are as beautiful, as witty, as prudent, and as good-humoured as any woman breathing; but I regard all these excellences as you will please to direct them for my happiness or misery. With me, Madam, the only lasting motive to love is the hope of its becoming mutual. . . All great passion makes us dumb; and the highest happiness, as well as the greatest grief, seizes us too violently to be expressed by words. To know so much pleasure with so much innocence is, methinks, a satisfaction beyond the present condition of human life; but the union of minds in pure affection is renewing the first state of man. This is an unusual language to ladies; but you have a mind above the giddy notions of a sex ensnared by flattery, and misled by a false and short adoration, into a solid and long contempt. Beauty palls in the possession; but I love also your mind; your soul is as dear to me as my own; and if the advantage of a liberal education, some knowledge, and as much contempt of the world, joined with endeavours towards a life of strict virtue and religion, can qualify me to raise new ideas in a breast so well disposed as yours is, our days will pass away with joy, and instead of introducing melancholy prospects of decay, give us hope of eternal youth in a better life. . . Let us go on to make our regards to each other mutual and un

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changeable; that while the world around us is enchanted with the false satisfactions of vagrant desire, our persons may be shrines to each other, sacred to conjugal faith, unreserved confidence, and heavenly society."

Even when the extreme thrift of his wife-the necessary result or reaction from the husband's improvidence-caused him uneasiness, his replies show the true gentleness of his

nature:

"I assure you, any disturbance between us is the greatest affliction to me imaginable. You talk of the judgment of the world; I shall never govern my actions by it, but by the rules of morality and right reason. I love you better than the light of my eyes or the life-blood in my heart; but you are also to understand, that neither my sight shall be so far enchanted, nor my affection so much master of me, as to make me forget our common interest. To attend my business as I ought, and improve my fortune, it is necessary that my time and my will should be under no direction but my own. We must take our portion of life as it runs without repining. I consider that good nature, added to that beautiful form God has given you, would make a happiness too great for human life. You may think what you please, but I know you have the best husband in the world in your affectionate

"RICHARD STEELE."

This letter, written about a year after their marriage, seems to me calculated to appease any woman who was not both a shrew and a niggard. Careful attention to fortune, even if it exceeds its fit and just proportion, may, perhaps, be excusable in a man; in a woman, this most unfeminine and ungentle property of niggardliness is most unseemly, even when redeemed, as it was not in this case, by an upheaped love and devotion to her admirable husband.

"There are not words to express the tenderness I have for you. Love is too harsh a term for it; but if you knew how my heart aches when you speak an unkind word to me, and springs with joy when you smile upon me, I am sure you would place your glory rather in preserving my happiness, like a good wife, than tormenting me, like a peevish beauty. Good Prue, write me word you shall be overjoyed

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