The Thinking Bayonet

? a fortune sure in ten years.' He is hard with me, and narrow- souled. I would not be undutiful; but I can write it here, where no man will see it. Perhaps, after all, there is reason enough for his disappointment. Certainly I am fit for no profession or occupation. "I read and think, and am where I am. Is it fog? or do I see things more profoundly than the men about me? I am bound down now with Fatalism. I am not a Fatalist; but the thought haunts me, that very possibly I may have no free will, until all my power is chilled. I know the couplet,?where God is apostrophized, ? ' Our wills are ours, we know not how : Our wills are ours to make them thine.' But are they ours ? If I believe in an Infinite Being, I must believe that he knows every thing.. If he knows every thing, he knows the future as well as the past. In his mind, therefore, the future course of every living creature is marked out. There is my course laid down through the years to come as through past years. I cannot alter it, any more than I can my deeds already done. Each moment I can do but one thing; and that one thing God has known from all eternity. It was down in the Infinite Mind, that, an hour ago, I was to take my seat at my study table; that, a few minutes after, I was to rise to put more coal upon the fire (even these trivial things) ; that presently I was to open my diary, letting the book upon the edge of the table fall upon the floor; that I was to hear the peddler rap at th...