638 The Little-Go. 



Such was M , the earliest, best, sincerest friend I ever had. At 



the time alluded to, scarce nineteen summers had rolled over his event- 

 ful and chequered career ; but, in that brief space how much had he 

 seen, felt, reflected, and endured more than falls to the lot of most at 

 that generally inexperienced age! In looking back a little at his early 

 biography, let not the digression be deemed unimportant. In order 

 to understand a character and pursue it through all its intricacies of 

 envelopment, we must necessarily learn to comprehend the princi- 

 ples of its constitution. Bare facts afford but a barren lesson unless 

 the causes which produce them are investigated and laid onen to 

 view ; but when brought out and displayed for observation turfy offer 

 the surest commentary on the past the safest guide to the future. 



The history of himself I have gleaned from his own lips at such 

 times when we used to while away the long nights together in his or 

 my rooms. Though by nature somewhat diffident, and even reserved 

 in his manners (never taciturn or sullen), he would communicate 

 freely to my inquiries after his early history ; yet, as the subject 

 seemed to be at best but an irksome one to him on many points, there 

 were some moments and themes more favourable than others, and I 

 availed myself without scruple of their discovery to gain from him 

 such particulars as enable me here to present the imperfect outline 

 which follows. 



On one subject'alone did he always appear to preserve the most scru- 

 pulous and rigid silence. There was something so truly overpowering 

 in the deep grief-like tone of his dark allusions to some one unknown, 

 whose name he never mentioned, and whose being he never revealed to 

 me further than in the obscure hints of the existence of such a crea- 

 ture, connected with his thoughts and his actions so inveterately as it 

 seemed to be, that I never pressed him for a confession of more con- 

 cerning it than he chose I should be made aware of spontaneously. 



Yes ; his life had evidently been choked up by the weeds of a de- 

 vouring disappointment. It preyed upon his very vitalsj ate deeper 

 and deeper into his heart's core, tinged his views of things, biassed 

 his modes of thought, and warped his very will to its arbitrary stand- 

 ard. There were moments when his despair seemed insupportable. 

 It was the utter woe of hopelessness. His soul could not be sick only 5 

 no, it must be cankered, cut up slaughtered ! His was not the sor- 

 row that sighs itself away, nor the grief that raves itself to rest, but 

 a torment that preyed and preyed, Vampyre-like, upon his liver, co- 

 existent with his memory, co-eternal with his life ! And yet, for all 

 this, he was the most popular man in college -not a single individual 

 (and there were many of us) but courted his acquaintanceship. At 

 the out-college parties he was welcomed ; in the in-college sets, 

 honoured; every where looked up to, for he was not one of those, as 

 Dr. Johnson well terms them, " screech owls of society" who go about 

 uttering the lugubrious wail of their interminable plaint in every- 

 body's ears far from it. He even affected to be liked, and almost 

 loved, for a right good-hearted, amiable fellow, free with the free, 

 child-like with the young, and affable to all about him. He possessed 

 in an eminent degree that peculiarly happy knack of adapting him- 

 self to each one he came near, and this not from policy or design, but 



