Of all the evils which harass the human family, none is perhaps more tormenting or more difficult to be removed, than bashfulness—a feeling sufficient in itself to blast the most promising hopes, and render comparatively useless the most brilliant abilities. To this evil, from earliest recollection, I have been painfully subject, and to its influence upon my character and habits, may be traced the many difficulties I have met with in my passage through life. Gifted by nature with a mind of no ordinary caste, which my modest and retiring disposition, while it precluded me from the enjoyment of society, induced me to cultivate, at an early age I had acquired a large fund of useful and polite information. This circumstance induced my parents to send me to the University of ——, then the most flourishing institution in the country. The first term after my arrival passed off drearily enough, but after becoming familiarized to the habits of my fellow students, and to the customs of the institution, I became better satisfied with my situation. Nothing of importance occurred until the time appointed for the examinations came on. I had applied myself with assiduity and vigilance, and flattered myself that I had completely mastered the exercises appointed for the occasion. Among the candidates for graduation there was an individual whom I shall designate by the name of C——, and whose connection with my narration compels me to mention him. He was the son of a southern planter, of immense fortune, and to a person of almost faultless beauty united great liberality, which his princely fortune enabled him to stretch to its farthest limits. As may be imagined he was quite a lion among the students and ladies. Towards this individual I conceived a certain feeling of dislike from my first introduction, which a more intimate acquaintance with his character ripened into hatred. He was proud and overbearing in his deportment towards his inferiors, and even amidst his immediate friends and acquaintance he possessed a certain haughty and imperious bearing, indicative of the exalted opinion he entertained respecting his own merits. His mind was not remarkable for strength, nevertheless he had some shrewdness or cunning, which the vulgar are apt to mistake for talents. As I have before observed, the time for the annual examination had arrived, and no culprit in the gloomy walls of Newgate dreaded the fatal toll of St. Sepulchre's bell—the gloomy herald of many a sinner's entrance into eternity—more than I did the arrival of the hour when our exercises were to commence. A large number of ladies and gentlemen had been invited, and among the number was my father.