“You will say this is a diseased imagination,--the fruits of an overworked brain, or, not improbably, the result of an overwrought vanity, that would seek consolation for failures in the dim regions of superstition. It may be so; and yet I have found this terror beset me more in the seasons of my strength and activity than in those of sickness and depression. Could I have given a shape and color to my thoughts, I might have whispered them in the confessional, and sought some remedy against their pain; but I could not. They flash on my waking faculties like the memories of a recent dream. I half doubt that they are not real, and look around me for the evidences of some change in my condition. I tremble at the first footstep that draws near my door, lest the new-comer should bring the tidings of my downfall! “I was at Borne--a student of the Irish college--when this cloud first broke over me. Some letter came from Ireland,-- some document containing a confession, I believe. I was summoned before the superiors, and questioned as to my family, of which I knew nothing; and as to my means, of which I could tell as little. My attainments at the college were inquired into, and a strict scrutiny aa to my conduct; but though both were above reproach, not a word of commendation escaped them; on the contrary, I overheard, amid their whisperings, the terrible word 'degradato!' You can fancy how my heart sank within me at a phrase so significant of shame and debasement! “I was told the next morning that my patron was dead, and that, having no longer the means to support the charges of a student, I should become a 'laico;' in other words, a species of servant in the college. These were dreadful tidings; but they were short of what I feared. There was nothing said of 'degradation.' I struggled, however, against the hardship of the sentence,--I appealed to my proficiency in study, the prizes I had won, the character I bore, and so on; but although a few months more would have seen me qualified for the priesthood, my prayer was rejected, and I was made a 'laico.' Two months afterwards I was sent to the convent of 'Espiazione,' at Ancona. Many of my early letters have told you the sufferings of that life!--the awful punishments of that gloomy prison, where all are 'degradati,' and where none are to be found save men stained with the foulest crimes. I was seventeen months there,----a 'laico,'--a servant of the meanest class,--no consolation of study, no momentary solace in tracing others' thoughts to relieve the horrible solitude of my own. Labor--incessant debasing labor--my lot from day till dawn.