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96 myself, or even my friends—when envy or pure stupidity will turn the balance against me, and withhold from me my so anxiously-sought, my just meed of praise? Again, I feel that youth is rapidly passing, and with it that happiness which youth only can enjoy. What will it avail me, even if future years bring me pleasures for which I no longer care,—pleasures which, if I could command them now, would send the blood through my pulses as if it bore a thousand lives? It is easy to tell me that every lot has its annoyances. I believe nothing which I have not known. Give me the wealth you say has its cares and its vexations; let me try them; let me at least choose my destiny, and then take my chance. Why should I wear out a dreary life in poverty and obscurity, while I loathe the one and despise the other? There are who may talk of calm content, of gliding unnoticed through the road of life; let those who like such ignoble path follow it. Did I make myself? did I wish to enter on this mortal struggle? did I give myself feelings, ideas, or wishes? did I create this difference between myself and my situation? In what am I to blame? Can I help being most unutterably wretched? Tell me not of the benevolence shewn in the organisation of this world; in every part pain and sorrow reign triumphant. True, we are promised a reward hereafter; but that is to depend upon conduct, which it is always difficult, sometimes impossible, to control. My futurity