74 
happy in the latter condition, can alone make us so 
in the former. 
I lately received yours of May the 29th, and most 
heartily congratulate you on your advancement. 
May you ever be happy, and escape the snares which 
surround you! I do not fear it. Surely I knew 
your heart once; and surely such a heart cannot be 
corrupted while there is a Providence watching over 
the well-disposed; and that there zs, I would not give 
up to attain the literary reputation of all the inge- 
nious perverters of reason that ever lived. Still you 
express a fear of my becoming a literary coxcomb 
or a fastidious man of the world! Read the first 
part of this sheet; it was written many months ago: 
I have looked it over in many different moods: I 
now deliberately send it you. You may perhaps 
smile at it, think it boyish, too warm to be sincere : 
but I will not suppose such things ; if it gives you 
half the pleasure in reading it that it did me in wri- 
ting, I shall be happy indeed. 
I am your, 
ES: 
In another letter he tells his cousin, “ What a 
pleasing picture does your letter give me of your 
mind! Iam fully sensible of the value of a true 
friend, and will always be quite open with you. I 
have been happier in my friendships than most peo- 
ple : but with you, and in one instance besides, I’ve 
enjoyed that true union of hearts and mind which 
is the essence of friendship ; I mean in an intimacy 
I have formed with a young man of my own profes- 
