“We are enjoying our moment of breathing time very much--we students--in our classical and poetical retreats in the attics of Edinburgh, putting the stores of mental _plenishing_, which have been accumulating on our hands or lying in disorder in our heads for the past months, into their fitting places and order, and preparing the still unfurnished apartments for the reception of more. I suppose you will be thinking, that in one suite at least of these same empty inner rooms, there will be a vast quantity of clearing out required, before the formerly unmolested heterogeneous literary rubbish give place to the fair array of philosophical and theological lore, which must needs supplant it--and so there is. I do assure you, that at this present moment, the clearing out and scouring goes on vigorously. You should see how I turn my old friends out of doors to make way for the flowing full-robed dignity of their stately successors. The toil of study has, however, so much real pleasure mixed with it, after the first drudgery is over, that I don’t long very anxiously for its conclusion, though that is drawing near very rapidly. I suppose, if I am spared, I shall be ready to enter upon the work, to which we have so often looked forward, in little more than eighteen months. Well, time is not wont to be a laggard, and I hope when he runs round that length, he will find me better prepared for the duties and labours of my high vocation than I am now. Do you know, Christian, I have had lately a kind of fearful feeling, whenever I think of the future; what is the cause I cannot tell, unless it be one of those presentiments that sometimes--at least so we have heard--overshadow the minds of people who are, or who are about to be, exposed to danger. I am not, you know, in the least; nevertheless, I have not the same pleasure in looking forward that I used to have. I wish you would try and explain this enigma for me.