And who, wearying of this sorry companion, has not tried to change him for a better, only to find himself after a longer or shorter while with the same old fellow at his elbow--a trifle more set in his ways, perhaps, but otherwise little altered? Of the sadder sort of autobiographies I should put the Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel easily first. Not from pain or poverty, not from the malice of other men nor any disgrace of outer fortune did he suffer, but just from the being that was himself. “From the beginning,” he writes in 1858, “I have been a dreamer fearing to act--in love with perfection and as incapable of renouncing her demands as of meeting them. In short, a mind of wide vision and a character of no strength; curious to feel all that is to be felt, unfit for any action.” “Here,” comments his friend, Edmond Scherer, “we have Amiel’s cross. He wanted--he wanted to want--to will, and will-power was wanting in him. He cursed the inner spell that was on him, but he could not shake it off. After each attempt to break it he fell back into himself again, more bewildered, more weary and bruised than ever. In the waging of these combats the years wore on, until the moment was near when Amiel would have to acknowledge to himself that the circle was definitely closed behind him.” Would you say that Amiel had made his destiny or found it? Would you say that any of us is of his own workmanship, or does our life slowly unfold itself to us as to Oedipus his fate? What is thus suggested by self-examination is confirmed by the study of other lives. The friend whose wayward course has made your affection anxious for him--can you, with the best will in the world, change him from himself? Some, out of bitterness of their experience, have said it would be easier to repeal the law of gravitation than in any way to alter human destiny. Others to be sure are more sanguine, and will not give up seeking a way so long as there is a will to save. But whether, even when they appear to succeed, it is not rather their patience that is rewarded by being allowed to live long enough to witness what would have come about without any of their doing, or whether character is more truly a thing made by human effort than a thing found and unfolded to our observation--respecting these matters there is divergence of opinion.