similar state;
but the idiosyncrasies of my education had given to the general
phenomenon a special character, which made it seem the natural effect of
causes that it was hardly possible for time to remove. I frequently
asked myself, if I could, or if I was bound to go on living, when life
must be passed in this manner. I generally answered to myself, that I
did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a year. When, however, not
more than half that duration of time had elapsed, a small ray of light
broke in upon my gloom. I was reading, accidentally, Marmontel's
"Memoires," and came to the passage which relates his father's death,
the distressed position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by
which he, then a mere boy, felt and made them feel that he would be
everything to them--would supply the place of all that they had lost. A
vivid conception of the scene and its feelings came over me, and I was
moved to tears. From this moment my burden grew lighter. The oppression
of the thought that all feeling was dead within me, was gone. I was no
longer hopeless: I was not a stock or a stone. I had still, it seemed,
some of the material out of which all worth of character, and all
capacity for happiness, are made. Relieved from my ever present sense of
irremediable wretchedness, I gradually found that the ordinary incidents
of life could again give me some pleasure; that I could again find
enjoyment, not intense, but sufficient for cheerfulness, in sunshine and
sky, in books, in conversation, in public affairs; and that there was,
once more, excitement, though of a moderate kind, in exerting myself for
my opinions, and for the public good. Thus the cloud gradually drew off,
and I again enjoyed life: and though I had several relapses, some of
which lasted many months, I never again was as miserable as I had been.

The experiences of this period had two very marked effects on my
opinions and character. In the first place, they led me to adopt a
theory of life, very unlike that on which I had before acted, and having
much in common with what at that time I certainly had never heard of,
the anti-self-consciousness theory of Carlyle. I never, indeed, wavered
in the conviction that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct,
and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only to be
attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I
thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their