"For the first time since I left that loved spot in Pearl Street have I seated myself at my _desk_; and, although my object in now doing so was a very different one, I cannot resist the impulse which the sight of it gives, to renew the employment, so wont to be pursued at it, of pouring forth a few of my feelings to my friend. It is so long since I have had an opportunity to do so, and so various have been the occurrences, and still more various the feelings which it has been my lot to experience in the course of the last two months, that, though my mind is full of what I wish to communicate, I am as much at a loss what to write as if all was vacancy. This poor little, unconscious desk has carried me back, against my will, to scenes which it were wise seldom to think of. The last time I wrote at it was the last evening I spent in the I 'oaken parlor,' when all was sad and solitary. But I cannot dwell on it. I find in the record of that evening prophecies which are hourly fulfilling. I felt deeply impressed with a sense of insufficiency to meet with, and bear aright, the temptations which a life of indulgence would present. I felt that I was not fit for society, and I feel so still, but more sensibly, more truly, for it is now the lesson of experience, sad indeed. But a truce with such feelings;--it is not of them I wish to write. This wicked desk has conjured up the old complaining spirit which so used to haunt me whenever I attempted scribbling to you. I am happy, contented with any change that has or may take place. I only ask a less selfish, more disinterested frame of mind,--to be more independent of the opinion of others, when a consciousness of sincere endeavor to do right acquits me of actual transgression. Selfish are all my regrets, all my trials, and wherefore, then, trouble another with a detail of what self alone can sympathize in, or ameliorate, or cure? I will not;--for once, I will follow reason rather than inclination.