men, and calls up the new
feeling of numerous relations by which it is to be connected with them.

To the young adventurer in life, who enters upon his course with such a
mind, every thing seems made for delusion. He comes with a spirit the
dearest feelings and highest thoughts of which have sprung up under the
influences of nature. He transfers to the realities of life the high
wild fancies of visionary boyhood: he brings with him into the world the
passions of solitary and untamed imagination, and hopes which he has
learned from dreams. Those dreams have been of the great and wonderful
and lovely, of all which in these has yet been disclosed to him: his
thoughts have dwelt among the wonders of nature, and among the loftiest
spirits of men, heroes, and sages, and saints;--those whose deeds, and
thoughts, and hopes, were high above ordinary mortality, have been the
familiar companions of his soul. To love and to admire has been the joy
of his existence. Love and admiration are the pleasures he will demand
of the world. For these he has searched eagerly into the ages that are
gone; but with more ardent and peremptory expectation he requires them
of that in which his own lot is cast: for to look on life with hopes of
happiness is a necessity of his nature, and to him there is no happiness
but such as is surrounded with excellence.

See first how this spirit will affect his judgment of moral character,
in those with whom chance may connect him in the common relations of
life. It is of those with whom he is to live, that his soul first
demands this food of her desires. From their conversation, their looks,
their actions, their lives, she asks for excellence. To ask from all and
to ask in vain, would be too dismal to bear: it would disturb him too
deeply with doubt and perplexity and fear. In this hope, and in the
revolting of his thoughts from the possibility of disappointment, there
is a preparation for self-delusion: there is an unconscious
determination that his soul shall be satisfied; an obstinate will to
find good every where. And thus his first study of mankind is a
continued effort to read in them the expression of his own feelings. He
catches at every uncertain shew and shadowy resemblance of what he
seeks; and unsuspicious in innocence, he is first won with those
appearances of good which are in fact only false pretensions. But this
error is not carried far: for there is a sort of instinct of rectitude,
which, li