the indulgence of this habit. It is, that friendship based on such a foundation, is never lasting. No; friendship must have love, not hate, for its element. If the intimacy of youth consists in evil speaking, and injurious thoughts, it soon becomes assimilated with the poisonous aliment on which it feeds. The friend becomes an enemy; and what is the consequence? The shafts of slander are turned against yourself, and the dark secrets you have revealed, go forth to the world as swift witnesses against you, as well as against those to whom duty and natural affection should have kept you true.
Besides which, there are few cases of human conduct where inexperienced youth can be a correct or sufficient judge. It may appear to you at the time you speak of family grievances, that a parent has been too severe, that a sister has been selfish, or that a brother has been unjust. But you are not even capable of judging of yourself, as regards the impression produced by your own behaviour upon others; how then can you pronounce upon the motives of others in their behaviour to you? more especially how are you to lift the veil of experience, and penetrate the deep mysteries of parental love? yet, how otherwise are you to understand
"The secrets of the folded heart |
There are hordes of human beings, once partakers with us in the privileges and enjoyments of our native land, now branded with infamy, and toiling in chains upon a distant shore, who have to regret, when too late, some guilty theft committed in early youth upon the property of a confiding and indulgent master. And the voice of our country cries out against them for the injury and ingratitude, as well as for the injustice, of what they have done. And is it possible
