FROM THE MEMOIRS

JUNE 7TH, 1833.—­The first seedling apple-tree that I had observed on my return here just out of the ground was on the 22d of April.  It had grown slowly but constantly since, and had put out five or six leaves.  Last evening, after my return from Boston, I saw it perfectly sound.  This morning I found it broken off, leaving one lobe of the seed-leaves, and one leaf over it.  This may have been the work of a bug, or perhaps of a caterpillar.  It would not be imaginable to any person free from hobby-horse or fanciful attachments, how much mortification such an incident occasions.  St. Evremond, after removing into the country, returned to a city life because he found himself in despair for the loss of a pigeon.  His conclusion was, that rural life induced exorbitant attachment to insignificant objects.  My experience is conformable to this.  My natural propensity was to raise trees, fruit and forest, from the seed.  I had it in early youth, but the course of my life deprived me of the means of pursuing the bent of my inclination.  One shellbark-walnut-tree in my garden, the root of which I planted 8th October, 1804, and one Mazzard cherry-tree in the grounds north of the house, the stone of which I planted about the same time, are the only remains of my experiments of so ancient a date.  Had my life been spent in the country, and my experiments commenced while I was at College, I should now have a large fruit garden, flourishing orchards of native fruit, and very valuable forests; instead of which I have a nursery of about half an acre of ground, half full of seedlings, from five years to five days old, bearing for the first time perhaps twenty peaches, and a few blossoms of apricots and cherries; and hundreds of seedlings of the present year perishing from day to day before my eyes.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1833.—­Cold and cloudy day, clearing off toward evening.  In the multitudinous whimseys of a disabled mind and body, the thick-coming fancies often come to me that the events which affect my life and adventures are specially shaped to disappoint my purposes.  My whole life has been a succession of disappointments.  I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success to anything that I ever undertook.  Yet, with fervent gratitude to God, I confess that my life has been equally marked by great and signal successes which I neither aimed at nor anticipated.  Fortune, by which I understand Providence, has showered blessings upon me profusely.  But they have been blessings unforeseen and unsought.  “Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam!” I ought to have been taught by it three lessons:—­1.  Of implicit reliance upon Providence. 2.  Of humility and humiliation; the thorough conviction of my own impotence to accomplish anything. 3.  Of resignation; and not to set my heart upon anything which can be taken from me or denied.