He was liable, from a very early period of life, to that interruption in the process of digestion which arises from deep and anxious thought, and which is sometimes the effect, and sometimes the cause, of depression of spirits."-- ED.] [Footnote B: In the Preface to the "Narcisse."] But to our solitude.

So true is it that this love of loneliness is an early passion, that two men of genius of very opposite characters, the one a French wit and the other a French philosopher, have acknowledged that they have felt its influence, and even imagined that they had discovered its cause.

The Abbe DE ST.

PIERRE, in his political annals, tells us, "I remember to have heard old SEGRAIS remark, that most young people of both sexes had at one time of their lives, generally about seventeen or eighteen years of age, an inclination to retire from the world.

He maintained this to be a species of melancholy, and humorously called it the small-pox of the mind, because scarce one in a thousand escaped the attack.