ABSTRACT
In the openness of my heart, which was a violation of my nature, and which I had never felt before, I talked to Mallison of my new projects and purposes. I said, ‘I am but nineteen: What should ail me, that I should think the world at an end with me? I have health; I have youth; I have a plentiful estate. You, Mallison, by your kind and cordial communications, have made me feel, more vividly than I ever felt / before, that I have talents, the materials out of which a patriot, an ornament of his species, a benefactor of mankind, is to be formed. If I have done wrong, or rather if I have been misconstrued and calumniated, the world is not so unjust, as to allow no return to honour, to a youth of nineteen, who possesses all internal, and all accidental means, of courting its favour, and loading it with benefits. If then the world has not passed a decree of exclusion against me, neither will 1.1 will neither desert myself, nor hide what I am in a napkin. No: that which it is in my power to do, I will do strenuously. I have not yet fully digested what; but the task of human usefulness is a solemn office, and shall be well ruminated by me, before I buckle on my harness, and descend into the field/
