impossible that it should be otherwise: for no two human beings
were ever fashioned absolutely alike, even in their gross outward bodily
form and lineaments, and how should the fine and infinite spirit admit
of such similarity with another? But the broad and firm principles upon
which all honorable and enduring sympathy is founded, the love of truth,
the reverence for right, the abhorrence of all that is base and
unworthy, admit of no difference or misunderstanding; and where these
exist in the relations of two people united for life, it seems to me
that love and happiness, as perfect as this imperfect existence affords,
may be realized....

Of course, kindred, if not absolutely similar, minds, do exist; but they
do not often meet, I think, and hardly ever unite. Indeed, though the
enjoyment of intercourse with those who resemble us may be very great, I
suppose the influence of those who differ from us is more wholesome; for
in mere _unison_ of thought and feeling there could be no exercise for
forbearance, toleration, self-examination by comparison with another
nature, or the sifting of one's own opinions and feelings, and testing
their accuracy and value, by contact and contrast with opposite feelings
and opinions. A fellowship of mere accord, approaching to identity in
the nature of its members, would lose much of the uses of human
intercourse and its worth in the discipline of life, and, moreover,
render the separation of death intolerable. But I am writing you a
disquisition, and no one needs it less....

I did read your praise of me, and thank you for it; it is such praise as
I wish I deserved, and the sense of the affection which dictated it, in
some measure, diminished my painful consciousness of demerit. But I
thank you for so pleasantly making me feel the excellence of moral
worth, and though the picture you held up to me as mine made me blush
for the poor original, yet I may strive to become more like your
likeness of me, and so turn your praise to profit. Those who love me
will read it perhaps with more satisfaction than my conscience allows me
to find in it, and for the pleasure which they must derive from such
commendation of me I thank you with all my heart.

What can I tell you of myself? My life, and all its occupations, are of
a sober neutral tint. I am busy preparing my Journal for the press. I
read but little, and that of old-fashioned kinds. I have never read
much, and am disgracefully ignorant: I