The natural elasticity of youth, and your society, gradually reclaimed me from a state which, had it continued, must have ended in madness, or idiotcy; and I am able now, at the termination of our collegiate career, to think gratefully of prolonged existence, and look back with thankfulness. Perhaps you have just laid down my letter to exclaim, "Poor Falkland! surely the man is bewildered, or he would not tell me now, as if for the first time, what I have known these six years." Now, my good fellow, be not so hasty in declaring me _non compos_. You know the general outline of my story, and you are acquainted sufficiently with what you call my romance of character, to find in it a constant fund of amusement when we are together; but you do not know more than this! You are _not_ aware that the tree has adopted its decided inclination from that bias which the twig received. Nothing, I feel, can ever make me a man of fashion. Nothing, I _hope_, will loosen the ties which, all unseen as they are, bind me to the memory of her by whose judgment, were she living, I should desire to be directed in all things to which her admirable sense would permit her to apply those reasoning powers which never dogmatized, nor lost themselves in the mazes of imagination.--I admired my mother's taste as much as I reverenced her virtues--I respected her talents; and since her death have not met with any one capable of interesting me who did not resemble, in some degree, the character which faithful memory attaches to her much-loved image. Different as has been your path from mine, your affectionate heart has been my best solace; and though you have been trained in the school of modern luxury, which is so little conversant with Nature, the generous impulses of your breast have not been sacrificed, and you are not _yet_ spoiled by what is called The World. For being what you are, you are, I firmly believe, indebted in part to original structure; and perhaps, in some degree, to that friendship which has united us both at school, and at the University.--Somewhat older, and much graver than you, I have always been permitted to take the lead, and exercise an influence over your pleasures and pursuits, which, though frequently counteracted, has, notwithstanding, communicated an individuality to one and the other, that distinguishes you essentially from the heartless specimens of human mechanism that pass for men of _ton_.