ing; so, that if you could write from your memory it would save you a deal of trouble, because, as you told it, I could put it down."
"No, you couldn't. You can't help me at all; so don't teaze me. I cannot be assisted by you, I see plainly, unless you could do something towards a novel; do you think you have any head for that?"
"I think I could write a great deal about the love, and the sorrow, and—and—other things."
"What other things, child?"
"The glimpses of hope and comfort, that come across the mind like sunbeams, without any apparent reason, and the way in which, without a cause (or, at least, a new cause, and when, on the whole, prospects are mending), the heart sinks all at once, as it were, into an abyss of anguish, increasing the pains of absence a thousand fold, by the fears and terrors of an awakened imagination."
"That's all very well; but do you know nothing of any sorrows but those of love?"
"Oh! yes, mamma, I could do the sorrows of poverty very decently, I dare say, and tell something about the happiness of relief, and the pleasure of helping those one loves. I could also say a great deal against riches being the medium of happiness, and the inadequacy of grandeur to supply the wishes of an humble, tender heart."
"I dare say you could; I have no doubt you could pour out as much nonsense as other fools of your age.
