My college course just finished, my degree taken, and the mind experiencing the _pains_ of liberty, not its _pleasures_, how delightful is this new direction of its activity! I cannot describe the feelings with which I paid my last accounts to Alma Mater, and took leave _for ever_ of a heap of books which now that I am not obliged to read, I dare say I shall never be likely to open again. Well, man is surely a perfect enigma! _Venteroli_, _La Place_, _La Croix_, all those volumes with the red, blue, and yellow, covers, which when lying on my table you used to call my _parterre of tulips_, and at which I have often worked till my mind was reduced to a state of complete inanition, became objects of affection when the task was finished,--_not_ that I had any inclination to continue the toil, when the necessity for it had ceased; but I regretted the absence of that necessity, and sat mournfully gazing on those books which I had longed so often to lay upon the shelf. I felt exactly, I dare say, as a piece of clock-work would tell us that it does, were it able to speak, when the main spring, after being wound up to the utmost extremity of tension, is suddenly let go, and flies back with proportionate and painful velocity. In short, I know not how to express the collapsed, unstrung, nerveless condition of my mind, which I suppose was somewhat over wrought by study, and the repose for which I had so often sighed, had so little rest for me when it arrived, that I should gladly have preferred the labour of a coal porter to the relaxation which I had been anticipating with such impatience. Doctor Evelyn is certainly right, when he says that every gratification to be truly felt, must be _earned_; and when I ceased to _earn_, I ceased to enjoy. All this egotism would be unpardonable if it were not necessary to your right understanding of my present gratitude for the delightful excitement in prospect. Emily, Charlotte, Fanny, and I, have something new and stimulating to talk of, and our preparations for quitting home already occupy hands as well as heads. We build castles, lay plans, read books with reference to our _travels_, and, by-the-bye, Em. and I are so completely bitten by the idea of visiting the vallies of Piémont, that I prepare you now for being pressed into the service. We are longing, too, to be acquainted with your friend Falkland: and dear Phil. who has promised my poor uncle to accompany the party, writes to Stanhope to meet us at Turin with Mr. Oliphant, junior. So really it is quite an _embarras de richesses_, and I should be too happy were it not for a few counteracting circumstances which put a wholesome log about my neck, and restrain my buoyancy from breaking into any indecorous exuberance.