'I cannot answer your question--Pain me not by its repetition; neither seek to ensnare me to the disclosure. Unkindly, severely, as I have been treated, I will not risque, even, the possibility of injuring the man, whom I have so tenderly loved, in the esteem of any one. Were I to name him, you know him not; you could not judge of his qualities. He is not "a model of excellence." I perceive it, with pain--and if obliged to retract my judgment on some parts of his character--I retract it with agonizing reluctance! But I could trace the sources of his errors, and candour and self-abasement imperiously compel me to a mild judgment, to stifle the petulant suggestions of a wounded spirit. 'Ought not our principles, my friend, to soften the asperity of our censures?--Could I have won him to my arms, I thought I could soften, and even elevate, his mind--a mind, in which I still perceive a great proportion of good. I weep for him, as well as for myself. He will, one day, know my value, and feel my loss. Still, I am sensible, that, by my extravagance, I have given a great deal of vexation (possibly some degradation), to a being, whom I had no right to persecute, or to compel to chuse happiness through a medium of my creation. I cannot exactly tell the extent of the injury I may have done him. A long train of consequences succeed, even, our most indifferent actions.--Strong energies, though they answer not the end proposed, must yet produce correspondent effects. Morals and mechanics are here analogous. No longer, then, distress me by the repetition of a question I ought not to answer. I am content to be the victim--Oh! may I be the only victim--of my folly! 'One more observation allow me to make, before I conclude. That we can "admire, esteem, and love," an individual--(for love in the abstract, loving mankind collectively, conveys to me no idea)--which must be, in fact, depending upon that individual for a large share of our felicity, and not lament his loss, in proportion to our apprehension of his worth, appears to me a proposition, involving in itself an absurdity; therefore demonstrably false. 'Let me, my friend, see you ere long--your remonstrance has affected me--save me from myself!' TO THE SAME. [In continuation.]