iS52 DESPAIR 8q 



wishes than because reason approved it as the right course 

 to follow. 



Here is another typical extract from his correspondence. 

 Hearing that Toronto is likely to go to a relative of a Cana- 

 dian minister, he writes, January 2, 1852 : — 



I think of all my dreams and aspirations, and of the path 

 which I know lies before me if I can only bide my time, and it 

 seems a sin and a shameful thing to allow my resolve to be 

 turned; and then comes the mocking suspicion, is this fine ab- 

 stract duty of yours anything but a subtlety of your own selfish- 

 ness? Have you not other more imperative duties? 



You may fancy whether my life is a very happy one thus 

 spent without even the satisfaction of the sense of right-doing. 

 I must come to some resolution about it, and that shortly. I 

 was talking seriously with Fanning the other night about the 

 possibility of finding some employment of a profitable kind in 

 Australia, storekeeping, squatting, or the like. As I told him, 

 any change in my mode of life must be total. If I am to change 

 at all, the change must be total and complete. I will not attempt 

 my own profession. I should only be led astray to think and to 

 work as of old, and sigh continually for my old dear and intoxi- 

 cating pursuits. I wish I understood Brewing, and I would 

 make a proposition to come and help your father. You may 

 smile, but I am as serious as ever I was in my life. 



The distance between them made it doubly difficult to 

 keep in touch with one another, when the post took from 

 four and a half to five or even six months to reach England 

 from Australia. The answer to a letter would come when 

 the matter in question was long done with. The assur- 

 ance that he was doing right at one moment seemed in- 

 adequate when circumstances had altered and hope sunk 

 lower. It was all too easy to suspect that she did not under- 

 stand his aims, his thirst for action, nor the fact that he was 

 no longer free to do as he liked, whether to stay in the 

 navy, to go into practice, or follow his own pursuits and 

 pleasure. Yet it made him despair to be so hedged in by 

 circumstances. With all his efforts, he seemed as though 

 he had done nothing but earn the reputation of being a 

 very promising young man. How much easier to continue 

 the struggle if he could but have seen her face to face, and 



