common pleasures, hopes, and fears of better and happier days, should be forgotten and we pursue our weary and desolate track through life, as if neither had existed? Is it necessary because we are separated, because the billows of the Allantic, or the Pillars of the Alleghany are between us, that all the ties which bound us, in other days should be severed? I trust not. Why then do you not avail yourself of that medium of communion, which language proffers? Have I rendered myself unworthy of your affection? I know my course, since I left home, has been erratic in the extreme. But can you conceive of no reason why it has been so? If you can recall the events of the last few years, you must; if you can not, you may then perhaps, with justice, censure me for that reckless indifference, to my hopes and prospects in life, with which, I have so often been charged. It is true that I have passed unimproved many opportunities of acquiring the good opinion of my fellow men, but why was it so? Because early misfortunes have broken and seared a heart, perhaps too sensitive, and bligh led all the hopes which a disposition too sanguine, has prompted me lo form and cherish. Can I change the fiat of fate? Can I control the waves of mighty destiny? My life has indeed, been a wayward and useless one; and you can not be more sensible of it, or more sincerely deplore it, than myself. But, notwithstanding all my faults and follies, l have never failed in respect for the soil of birth, regard for my native village, love for my home, or affection for my relatives. l have never forgotten: and many an hour of my loneliness has been consumed by thoughts of them. Often has the recollection of the past and of you, arrested me on the brink of acts of deeper recklessness, and of more irremediable desperation so far as this world is concerned, than any I had hitherto committed, Still a latent hope that I may see you all again, and be once more happy, swells my throbbing bosom. But there is some thing, I know not what, which whispers me, that the hope is destined lo no realization on earth. I am acting, my dear sister, in that sphere which nature designed me to fill. / am a soldier of fortune; and all the premonitions of my child hood early told me that I should be one. My profession, perhaps for life, be it short or long, will be that of arms. It is the only pursuit in which I could feel a throb of interest• and the cause in which I now exercise it, renders it still ' .
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