MELANCHOLY IN SPRING. 47 



not during the whole month, but only a portion of it. Now 

 February is the month in which I was born. I can look back 

 to my schoolboy days, and recollect perfectly those times as 

 being miserable from coincident saddening events, generally 

 those causing remorse for improper conduct. An awakened 

 conscience is a fearful depressor of happiness. Now you will 

 say, perhaps, that the circumstance of the time being about my 

 birthday, that was an epoch, or an ' Olympiad,' to which the 

 mind would retrospectively look, and the attendant circum- 

 stances of which would be more deeply impressed on my mind. 

 I have endeavoured to account for it in this manner, but cannot 

 satisfy myself that that will suffice to explain the facts, for I 

 never paid any attention to my birthday ; indeed, I never knew 

 it, or if I did once hear it, certainly forgot it ; nor did I look 

 forward to next February as a time when I should be sad. It 

 was long after several birthdays had rolled over me that the 

 circumstance attracted my attention. Last February was the 

 most sad and melancholy period of my life, and I can look back 

 on many mournful birthdays. Perhaps I shall die in this 

 month, but that will sadden me least, for I will have no recur- 

 rence of mournful seasons to vex me, and if I only understood 

 religion, my wish for death I am sure would increase. I don't 

 think I will live long ; my mind will, must, work itself out, and 

 the body will soon follow it. But God has ordained all for the 

 best, and I do not repine, and I have great reason to be thank- 

 ful that though in minor points of everyday duties, I am very 

 undecided and many strange fancies pass through my brain, 

 infidelity has not, and I have never been undecided about reli- 

 gion. I have troubled you with enough of my sorrows, and I 

 am always the happier of losing them, but I shall keep a diary, 

 or rather write my past life. It will be interesting to watch 

 metaphysically the changes brought about in my own mind, 

 though the causes are far less apparent than the effects. I 

 have done ; as my last letter was from my heart, so is this ; but 

 recollect the circumstances attending its production, and 

 perhaps you will forget its strangeness. 



" Nor, my dear William, imagine that I am not happy gene- 

 rally. I am sincerely happy, for instance, in reading your kind 



