Between William Edgerton and Julia Clifford my young life and best affections were divided, entirely, if not equally. I lived for no other--I cared to seek, to know, no other--and yet I often shrunk from both. Even at that boyish period, while the heavier cares and the more painful vexations of life were wanting to our annoyance, I had those of that gnawing nature which seemed to be born of the tree whose evil growth “brought death into the world and all our wo.” The pang of a nameless jealousy--a sleepless distrust--rose unbidden to my heart at seasons, when, in truth, there was no obvious cause. When Julia was most gentle--when William was most generous--even then, I had learned to repulse them with an indifference which I did not feel--a rudeness which brought to my heart a pain even greater than that which my wantonness inflicted upon theirs. I knew, even then, that I was perverse, unjust; and that there was a littleness in the vexatious mood in which I indulged, that was unjust to my own feelings, and unbecoming in a manly nature. But even though I felt all this, as thoroughly as I could ever feel it under any situation, I still could not succeed in overcoming tha' insane will which drove me to its indulgence. Vainly have I striven to account for the blindness of heart--for such it is, in all such cases--which possessed me. Was there anything in my secret nature, born at my birth and growing with my growth--which impelled me to this willfulness. I can scarcely believe so; but, after serious reflection, am compelled to think that it was the strict result of moods growing out of the particular treatment to which I had been subjected. It does not seem unnatural that an ardent temper of mind, willing to confide, looking to love and affection for the only aliment which it most and chiefly desires, and repelled in this search, frowned on by its superiors as if it were something base, will, in time, grow to be habitually wilful, even as the treatment which has schooled it. Had I been governed and guided by justice, I am sure that I should never have been unjust.