In this work it has been my object to portray the progress of the passions; to chronicle a history rather by thoughts and feelings than by incidents and events; and to lay open those minuter and more subtle mazes and secrets of the human heart, which in modern writings have been so sparingly exposed. It is with this view that I have from time to time broken the thread of narration, in order to bring forward more vividly the characters it contains; and in laying no claim to the ordinary ambition of tale-writers, I have deemed myself at liberty to deviate from the ordinary courses they pursue. Hence the motive and the excuse for the insertion of the following extracts, and of occasional letters. They portray the interior struggle when Narration would look only to the external event, and trace the lightning “home to its cloud,” when History would only mark the spot where it scorched or destroyed. EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY EMILY MANDEVILLE. Tuesday.--More than seven years have passed since I began this journal! I have just been looking over it from the commencement. Many and various are the feelings which it attempts to describe--anger, pique, joy, sorrow, hope, pleasure, weariness, ennui; but never, never once, humiliation or remorse!--these were not doomed to be my portion in the bright years of my earliest youth. How shall I describe them now? I have received--I have read, as well as my tears would let me, a long letter from Julia. It is true that I have not dared to write to her: when shall I answer this? She has showed me the state of my heart; I more than suspected it before. Could I have dreamed two months--six weeks--since that I should have a single feeling of which I could be ashamed? He has just been here He--the only one in the world, for all the world seems concentred in him. He observed my distress, for I looked on him; and my lips quivered and my eyes were full of tears. He came to me--he sat next to me--he whispered his interest, his anxiety--and was this all? Have I loved before I even knew that I was beloved? No, no; the tongue was silent, but the eye, the cheek, the manner--alas! these have been but too eloquent! Wednesday.--It was so sweet to listen to his low and tender voice; to watch the expression of his countenance--even to breathe the air that he inhaled. But now that I know its cause, I feel that this pleasure is a crime, and I am miserable even when he is with me. He has not been here to-day. It is past three. Will he come? I rise from my seat--I go to the window for breath--I am restless, agitated, disturbed. Lady Margaret speaks to me--I scarcely answer her. My boy--yes, my dear, dear Henry comes, and I feel that I am again a mother. Never will I betray that duty, though I have forgotten one as sacred though less dear! Never shall my son have cause to blush for his parent! I will fly hence--I will see him no more! FROM ERASMUS FALKLAND, ESQ., TO THE HON. FREDERICK MONKTON.