I experienced this sentiment when in the hey-day of youth, and surrounded by some of the most gifted persons in England; but now, as age advances, the love of solitude and repose increases, and a life spent in study appears to me to be the one of all others the most desirable, as the enjoyment of the best thoughts of the best authors is preferable even to their conversation, could it be had, and, consequently to that of the cleverest men to be met with in society.
Some pleasant people dined here yesterday.

Among them was Colonel Caradoc, the son of our old friend Lord Howden.

He possesses great and versatile information, is good-looking, well-bred, and has superior abilities; in short, he has all the means, and appliances to boot, to make a distinguished figure, in life, if he lacks not the ambition and energy to use them; but, born to station and fortune, he may want the incitement which the absence of these advantages furnishes, and be content to enjoy the good he already has, instead of seeking greater distinction.
Colonel Caradoc's conversation is brilliant and epigrammatic; and if occasionally a too evident consciousness of his own powers is suffered to be revealed in it, those who know it to be well-founded will pardon his self-complacency, and not join with the persons, and they are not few, whose _amour-propre_ is wounded by the display of his, and who question, what really is not questionable, the foundation on which his pretensions are based.
The clever, like the handsome, to be pardoned for being so, should affect a humility they are but too seldom in the habit of feeling; and to acquire popularity must appear unconscious of meriting it.

This is one of the many penalties entailed on the gifted in mind or person.
_January 1st_, 1829 .-- There is always something grave, if not awful, in the opening of a new year; for who knows what may occur to render it memorable for ever! If the bygone one has been marked by aught sad, the arrival of the new reminds one of the lapse of time; and though the destroyer brings patience, we sigh to think that we may have new occasions for its difficult exercise.

Who can forbear from trembling lest the opening year may find us at its close with a lessened circle.
Some, now dear and confided in, may become estranged, or one dearer than life may be snatched away whose place never can be supplied! The thought is too painful to be borne, and makes one look around with increased affection on those dear to us.
The custom prevalent at Paris of offering an exchange of gifts on the first day of the new year was, perhaps, originally intended to banish the melancholy reflections such an epoch is calculated to awaken.
My tables are so crowded with gifts that I might set up a _petit Dunkerque_ of my own, for not a single friend has omitted to send me a present.