It was natural for such a creature of sensation and passion to project such a regular task, but quite impossible for him to get through it.

The paper-book that he conceived would have recorded all these things turns out, therefore, but a very imperfect document.

Imperfect as it was, it has been thought proper not to give it entire.

Yet there we view a warm original mind, when he first stepped into the polished circles of society, discovering that he could no longer "pour out his bosom, his every thought and floating fancy, his very inmost soul, with unreserved confidence to another, without hazard of losing part of that respect which man deserves from man; or, from the unavoidable imperfections attending human nature, of one day repenting his confidence." This was the first lesson he learned at Edinburgh, and it was as a substitute for such a human being that he bought a paper-book to keep under lock and key: "a security at least equal," says he, "to the bosom of any friend whatever." Let the man of genius pause over the fragments of this "paper-book;"-- it will instruct as much as any open confession of a criminal at the moment he is about to suffer.

No man was more afflicted with that miserable pride, the infirmity of men of imagination, which is so jealously alive, even among their best friends, as to exact a perpetual acknowledgment of their powers.