Douglas is not a misanthrope, but he has met with many disappointments, as all men must do who form their early acquaintances--friendships I will not call them--amongst the multitude who are only bound together by the casual ties of pleasure and convenience. The temporary purpose gained, or the transient gratification satisfied, no memory remains of favour conferred, no gratitude survives for benefits received. While youth continues we _waste_ our resources, because they are liberally replenished, and in the abundance and variety of the springs from whence they flow, we cannot anticipate a season of dearth; but the cisterns, however bounteously supplied, will become dry at last, and even _drops_ will, in the end, seem precious of that which we lavished before with thoughtless prodigality. Your brother, however, is too just to hate his fellow-creatures because he has neglected to render himself an object of their love; but, though he does not actually set his mind in array against them, he is too proud to acknowledge dependence, and his temper is not sufficiently under controul to prevent him from involuntarily revenging on society the insulation which he has imposed on himself, by avoiding rather than courting communion with the world, for an intercourse with the best and wisest of which he is peculiarly gifted. It would seem as if he had laid down a law for himself to be severe and repellent, which the natural kindness of his character renders impossible, and the _most_ that he can achieve is an air of uncertainty bordering on caprice, which strangers ascribe to bad health. I suspect that during the halcyon days of youth, religion which, in India, has been cruelly neglected, made no part of his concern, but a mind of such height and depth as his can never continue careless on the subject of its immortal interests; and, if my observations be correct, he is at this moment suffering those _transition pangs_ incident to the awakened conviction of having been wrong, and desiring to be right, which are rendered more than commonly poignant in his instance by that scrupulous conscientiousness which suggests the inquiry whether his motive in searching after truth may not partly arise from a belief that he feels "the silver cords" beginning to give way and threaten dissolution.