s possession, to copy others, and resign all identity and
individuality. To you, nobly free as you are from the vice of envy, I
may venture to suggest another consideration, viz. the far greater
influence you possess in your present small sphere of intellectual
intercourse, than if you were mixed up with a crowd of others, most of
them your equals, many your superiors.

If you have few opportunities of forming friendships, those few are
tenfold more valuable than many acquaintance, among a crowd of whom,
whatever merits you or they might possess, little time could be spared
to discover, or experimentally appreciate them. The one or two friends
whom you now love, and know yourself beloved by, might, in more exciting
and busy scenes, have gone on meeting you for years without discovering
the many bonds of sympathy which now unite you. In the seclusion you so
much deplore, they and you have been given time to "deliberate, choose,
and fix:" the conclusion of the poet will probably be equally
applicable,--you will "then abide till death."[2] Such friends are
possessions rare and valuable enough to make amends to you for any
sacrifices by which they have been acquired.

Another of your grievances, one which presses the more heavily on those
of graceful tastes, refined habits, and generous impulses, is the very
small proportion of this world's goods which has fallen to your lot.
You are perpetually obliged to deny yourself in matters of taste, of
self-improvement, of charity. You cannot procure the books, the
paintings, you wish for--the instruction which you so earnestly desire,
and would so probably profit by. Above all, your eyes are pained by the
sight of distress you cannot relieve; and you are thus constantly
compelled to control and subdue the kindest and warmest impulses of your
generous nature. The moral benefits of this peculiar species of trial
belong to another part of my subject: the present object is to find out
the most favourable point of view in which to contemplate the
unpleasantness of your lot, merely with relation to your temporal
happiness. Look, then, around you; and, even in your own limited sphere
of observation, it cannot but strike you, that those who derive most
enjoyment from objects of taste, from books, paintings, &c., are exactly
those who are situated as you are, who cannot procure them at will. It
is certain that there is something in the difficulty of attainment which
adds much to the precio