so! what then: have I been till now the dupe and the victim of
factitious feelings? virtue, honour, feeling, generosity, you are then
but words, signifying nothing? Yet if this vain philosophy lead to
happiness, would not S** be happy? it is evident he is _not_. When he
said that the object existed not in this world which could lead him
twenty yards out of his way, did this sound like happiness? I remember
that while he spoke, instead of feeling either persuaded or convinced
by his captivating eloquence, I was perplexed and distressed; I
_suffered_ a painful compassion, and tears were in my eyes. I, who so
often have pitied myself, pitied him at that moment a thousand times
more; I thought, I would not buy tranquillity at such a price as he
has paid for it. Yet _if_ he should be right? that _if_, which every
now and then suggests itself, is terrible; it shakes me in the utmost
recesses of my heart.

S**, in spite of myself, and in spite of all that with most perverted
pains he has made himself (so different from what he once was), can
charm and interest, pain and perplex me:--not so D**, another disciple
of the same school: he inspires me with the strongest antipathy I ever
felt for a human being. Insignificant and disagreeable is his
appearance, he looks as if all the bile under heaven had found its way
into his complexion, and all the infernal irony of a Mephistopheles
into his turned-up nose and insolent curled lip. He is, he _says_ he
is, an atheist, a materialist, a sensualist: the pains he takes to
deprave and degrade his nature, render him so disgusting, that I could
not even speak in his presence; I dreaded lest he should enter into
conversation with me. I might have spared myself the fear. He piques
himself on his utter contempt for, and disregard of, women; and, after
all, is not himself worthy these words I bestow on him.

* * * * *

_Aug. 25._--Here begins, I hope, a new aera. I have had a long and
dangerous illness; the crisis perhaps of what I have been suffering
for months. Contrary to my own wishes, and to the expectations of
others, I _live_: and trusting in God that I have been preserved for
some wise and good purpose, am therefore thankful: even supposing I
should be reserved for new trials, I cannot surely in this world
suffer more than I have suffered: it is not possible that the same
causes can be again combined to afflict me.

How truly can I say, few and evil h