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WERTER, &c.

LETTER XXXVIII.

20th October, 1771.

Arrived here yesterday. The minifter is indifpofed, and will not go out for fome days. If he was less peevish and morofe all would do well. I fee it but too plainly, heaven has destined me to fevere trials: but I won't be difheartened; one may

bear any thing with a little levity. I can

VOL. II.

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I can scarcely help fmiling at the word which has just escaped me; a little of that levity, which I am totally without, would make me the happiest of men. And muft I defpair of my faculties, and of the gifts of nature, whilft others of far inferior ftrength and talents are parading before me with the utmost fatisfaction in themfelves? Great God! amidst the bleffings thou haft deigned to fhower down upon me why was I not endowed with felf-complacency and confidence? But patience, and all will I hope be better; for I will own to you, my dear friend, that you were in the right fince I have been obliged

obliged to mix continually with other men; fince I have had an opportunity of obferving their designs, their conduct, their converfation, I am become more eafy, and more fatisfied with myself. As we naturally compare ourselves with every thing we meet, our happiness or mifery depends on the objects which are brought into comparison with us, and in this refpect nothing is more dangerous than folitude. There our imagination, which is ever difpofed to rife, takes a new flight on the wings of fancy, and forms a chain. of beings, of which we are the last and most inferior. All things appear

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pear greater than they really are, and all feem fuperior to us; and this operation of the mind is natural. We are continually feeling our own imperfections; we think we have obferved in others qualities which we have not, and conclude they also poffefs all we have ourselves; and thus we have made a perfect, a happy man: but fuch a man exifts

only in our imaginations. But when, in fpite of weakness and disappointment, we direct our endeavours to one end, and steadily perfevere in the pursuit of it, we often find that we have made more way though continually tacking,

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