UC-NRLF 
 
 
\J:AUFORNIA 
 

 WORLD 
 
 WITHOUT 
 
 SOUL S. 
 
 " -Bat inania verba, 
 
 DAT SINE MENTE soiium." VIRGIL, 
 
 BY 
 
 W. CUNNINGHAM, A.M. 
 
 VICAR OF HARROW ON THE HILL. 
 
 SIXTH EDITION: 
 
 WITH GREAT ALTERATIONS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED FOR J. IIATCHARD, 
 
 BOOKSELLER TO THE QUEEN, 
 190, OPPOSITE ALBANY, PICCADILLY ; 
 MESSRS* CADELL AND DA VIES, 
 
 1816* 
 \ 
 
& COS-SELL, Printer, Little Queen Street, London. 
 
" 
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 FIFTH EDITION. 
 
 IT has seemed right to the Author to 
 meet the increased demand for this little 
 work, by the publication-of another edi- 
 tion. But, at the same time, it appeared 
 to be a duty which he owed, both to 
 himself and to the public, not to re- 
 publish a work, written at a very early 
 period of his life, without attempting 
 
 some correction of its more obvious 
 
 I* 
 faults. Accordingly, the fifth edition 
 
 is presented to the public with great 
 alterations. One new chapter had already 
 been added in the fourth edition, and 
 another is added in this. The Author 
 
 A 2 
 
 S33 
 
IV 
 
 has moreover bestowed no little pains in 
 qualifying both sentiments and expres- 
 sions which greatly needed such qualifi- 
 cation. It was also his wish, as well to 
 have cleared the work of an air of flip- 
 pancy and severity too prevalent in many 
 
 
 parts of it as to have simplified and 
 
 otherwise improved its style. But the 
 faults, both of manner and of compo- 
 sition, are in many instances so wrought 
 into the texture of the work, that it is 
 impossible materially to change the one 
 without destroying the other. He has 
 therefore only to request, that the pub- 
 lic, who have so charitably received it 
 in its original state, will extend their 
 patronage to it now that it appears, as 
 he hopes, with less glaring deficiencies 
 than before. 
 
 HARROW, 
 Jan. 11, 1815. 
 

 Befctcatton 
 
 TO A 
 
 IT is peculiar to Columbus and to me to 
 make the old world acquainted with a 
 new one. But it is not only thus gene- 
 rally that we resemble each other. Some 
 Spanish historians, who perhaps thought 
 that the hemisphere in which they them- 
 selves lived, must of necessity be the 
 best of all possible hemispheres; or who 
 imagined it of little use to have disco- 
 vered a world if it was not a strange 
 world ; or who suspected that the 
 
VI 
 
 achievements of some of their country- 
 men in America might, by the world in 
 general, be mistaken for murder endea- 
 voured to prove that the Americans had 
 no souls. Now, what was charged upon 
 his world, is true of that to which I in- 
 troduce you. They are without souls. 
 
 It may be thought that the history of 
 Columbus might have rendered me more 
 cautious in making known my discove- 
 ries. The irons, in which he was per- 
 mitted to moralize on the benefits of 
 enriching and improving mankind, are 
 doubtless kept ready, by the Inquisition, 
 for those who shall be weak enough to 
 repeat his offence. If, however, my 
 perils were greater than they are, I 
 should still not hesitate to encounter 
 them. " Being a man, all that is human 
 is dear to me ;" and I must not hesitate 
 
vii 
 
 to plunge into the gulf, if I may hope to 
 bury any of the vices or follies of the 
 world with myself. 
 
 Let me entreat, however, that nothing 
 I have said may lead you, for a moment, 
 to confound the discoveries of Columbus 
 with mine. It might have been well, if, 
 in addition to, or perhaps in the place of, 
 the gold of the western continent, Europe 
 had imported some of her rough virtues. 
 These, passed, if I may so speak, through 
 a Christian mint, might, by their sterling 
 weight, have served to displace some 
 baser metal from the circulation. But 
 my world, I fear, has few qualities which 
 it would be desirable to transplant to any 
 new soil. I leave you, therefore, with 
 this request, that, as a world with souls, 
 you will make a world without souls your 
 
 negative example ; by neglecting many 
 3 
 
Vlll 
 
 things which it does, and doing every 
 thing which it neglects. 
 
 A friend to yourself and an enemy to 
 your vices, 
 
 I. am, &c. &c. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
WORLD WITHOUT SOULS. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 WHENCE it is plain that these men 
 have no souls."* " Incredible !" said Gus- 
 tavus, as he read the sentence " the 
 Spaniard must be mistaken." " By no 
 means incredible,' 1 said M. who read 
 the sentence with him. 
 
 The two remarks were made beneath 
 the shade of an oak which frowned over 
 one of the wildest rocks of St. Fov. 
 
 / 
 
 Gustavus was seventeen; his friend was 
 sixty. They were the inhabitants of a 
 cottage, for whose foundation its build- 
 ers might be said to have wrenched a 
 spot of ground from nature. A little 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 level had been planed in the stubborn 
 surface, and their two rooms rested upon 
 the mountain like the nest of some bird 
 upon the bosom of the woods. 
 
 M. had brought his young companion 
 to Switzerland when an infant, and they 
 had not quitted it even for a day. Gus- 
 tavus had lost his parents before he 
 could learn their inestimable value. 
 There was therefore an easy translation of 
 his affection to the person of M. whom 
 he loved, as the heart is likely to love, 
 which has but few objects. For M. also 
 habit had in a great measure r done the 
 work of nature : and this son of his 
 adoption occupied that place in his bosom 
 which his own had left empty by an 
 early flight to Heaven. A simple, but a 
 solemn compact, seemed to have taken 
 place between them " I will be to 
 thee a parent I will be to thee a child." 
 
 I ought to describe the persons whom 
 I have thus introduced upon the scene, 
 and shall begin with M. Le Brun 
 
would have said, from his wrinkled 
 countenance, " he is a man familiar with 
 
 sorrows." If, however, he had ever 
 
 \ 
 
 tossed in a sea of troubles, it was evi- 
 dent that the storm was gone by. Piety 
 and peace had met together in his 
 bosom ; and, like the fabulous twins of 
 other days, this union had spread a 
 calm upon the waters. His manner, 
 perhaps, had suffered more than his 
 character ; it was absent, and sometimes 
 abrupt. His conversation was rather 
 surrendered than bestowed ; but it was 
 a generous and entire surrender when the 
 demand was made. If his sayings had a 
 flavour of salt in them, they had no bit- 
 terness. Like most men, he had pecu- 
 liarities; some of which were by no 
 means defensible. He valued knowledge, 
 for instance, but he sought it in unusual 
 channels. He loved virtue, but he 
 sometimes pursued it by questionable 
 courses. In the opinion of the world 
 his sentiments also upon religion would, 
 
 B 2 
 
I tear, be esteemed peculiar; his cha- 
 rities might by some be called extrava- 
 gance, and his piety enthusiasm but 
 then the judgment of the world is not 
 always to be trusted upon these points. 
 In the village of St. Foy the simple 
 people loved him as a father. And they 
 saw him too often and too clearly to be 
 much mistaken in him. 
 
 There is another portrait yet to be 
 sketched, but it is easily done. At 
 the age of Gustavus characters have 
 much the same features. Not indeed 
 that the mind is the mere sheet of white 
 paper to which some philosophers have 
 compared it. For, if as susceptible, it 
 is by no means as pure. Bat as, in our 
 way to manhood, the body universally 
 becomes a prey to a certain series of 
 known evils ; so the same diseases early 
 discover themselves in the human heart, 
 and display themselves in nearly the 
 same form, till modified by circumstances. 
 
 M. knew the heart of man, for he 
 
 3 
 
had studied it in his own ; and, in de- 
 pendence upon Divine assistance, had 
 consecrated all his skill to the cultiva- 
 tion of that of Gustavus: It is true, 
 indeed, that our first years seldom sup- 
 ply that sober ear which the lessons of 
 religion demand : but then every avenue 
 to the heart is open ; and whatever spirit 
 is introduced into the system, often 
 lives, though latent, and animates the 
 frame for ever. Early piety may some- 
 times languish, but then it is often but 
 for a season ; as M. would illustrate it 
 " rivers sometimes suddenly disappear, 
 but as-^ often rise again in a distant 
 spot with brighter waves and increased 
 rapidity." He added " Early scholars 
 in religion are the best, for they have 
 less to unlearn. Indeed it is rare to see 
 the grey hairs of Devotion silver the 
 head which was not early taught of 
 Heaven." The method, however, of 
 M. was, as we have said, too extraordi- 
 nary to be praised even in the event of 
 
 B 3 
 
6 
 
 its success. Nothing, however, very 
 remarkable appeared in the character of 
 his pupil. Nature, indeed, had endow- 
 ed him with a kind of naivet; the 
 scenes in which he had lived had thrown 
 a colouring of romance over his senti- 
 ments : his principles were those of M. 
 and he had gained something of his so- 
 lidity. He thought the world happy, 
 for he was happy himself; and virtuous, 
 because he knew more of what it owed 
 'to God, than of the manner in which it 
 discharged its debt. He was credulous be- 
 cause he was inexperienced. His good 
 and evil qualities, in short, were the 
 growth of St. Foy; and, though the 
 flowers of the desert may be the most se- 
 cure, they are seldom the most brilliant. 
 Gustavus had read to the line which 
 was quoted in a Spanish author of the 
 sixteenth century. I shall be expected 
 to say something of the object of this 
 writer, and the plan by which he pur- 
 sued it. As to the first, he was an apo- 
 
legist for the crimes of his countrymen 
 in America. It was, indeed, of import- 
 ance to justify, in the eyes of other 
 nations, and other religions, men who 
 had, in many instances, disgraced reli- 
 gion by the grossest crimes. The plan 
 of his apology was not at all unworthy 
 the end which the good Jesuit had in 
 view. He first imputed to the Ameri- 
 cans acts of stupidity which nothing 
 that had a soul could have committed,, 
 and which the Americans never did com- 
 mit ; and then, as a consequence of this 
 alleged stupidity, denied they could have 
 souls. 
 
 The common sense of Gustavus had 
 forced from him the exclamation we 
 have read, and the eccentricity of M. 
 the declaration which followed. M. as 
 we have said, loved experiments, and he 
 had determined to show his pupil the 
 world, through a singular medium. " If," 
 said he, " I can bring him to a conclusion 
 that those who live as the world live 
 
 B 4 
 
8 
 
 ran have no souls his next conclusion 
 will be that he, who has a soul, must 
 shun the follies and vices into which 
 they run." Thus was the point made 
 out. M. sighed to think, that, to make 
 Gustavus what he ought to be, he must 
 endeavour to render him unlike many of 
 his fellow-creatures. This regret, how- 
 ever, was not strong enough to check 
 his design ; and, as he was no longer an 
 old man when he had a new and favourite 
 project to execute, he rushed upon it at 
 once. "It is by no means incredible 
 then," said he to Gustavus, " that this 
 people should have no souls. Other writers 
 have held the same opinion of still larger 
 portions of the world. Mahomet, for 
 instance, knew the world, perhaps as 
 well as any uninspired person, and he 
 declares that women have no souls. Mon- 
 boddo, a great philosopher, even in a 
 country of philosophers, and who also 
 says he knew the world, contends that 
 men are only monkies who have rubbed 
 away their tails. A grave Spanish writer 
 
has made this theory more probable by 
 actually proving that the Jews had once 
 tails. Why then should the Americans 
 have souls?" Gustavus was unaccus- 
 tomed to contend, and was therefore 
 silent. " But this is not all," continued 
 M. : " there is nothing so profound as a 
 German metaphysician ; and many of 
 them doubt whether even a metaphysician 
 has a soul. The French Encyclopediasts 
 also the editors of seventy gigantic 
 volumes the authors of a more gigantic 
 revolution, assert the same thing; and 
 their disciples, the actors of a revolution, 
 appear to have embraced their opinion. 
 But you shall convince yourself I will 
 carry you to a city where they have no 
 souls." 
 
 " What is the soul?" said Gustavus. 
 
 " To that question," said M. "as you 
 may learn from the case of one of the 
 followers of Aristotle, it is not easy to 
 reply. His master thought the soul 
 immaterial, and therefore called it av 
 
 B5 
 
10 
 
 (a-ulos), which means ' immaterial.' Now 
 the good Dominicans happened to read 
 it av^og (aulos), which means a pipe. 
 The consequence of this error was, that, 
 in a public exercise, he brought fourteen 
 arguments to prove the soul a whistle. 
 But, as a royal author says, ' les sottises 
 * des peres sont per dues pour leurs enfants; 
 every man must have his own. Unde- 
 terred, therefore, by his failure, I will 
 venture to say thus much of jhe soul: 
 it is that property of man in which he re- 
 sembles God, and by which he is distin- 
 guished from the brutes. I may add, that 
 ,tbis resemblance, and this distinction, 
 both consist in virtue." 
 
 " The resemblance evidently ; but 
 there are surely other lines of distinc- 
 tion?" 
 
 " If they are lines, they are mathema- 
 tical lines, without any properties but 
 those which mathematicians assign them. 
 Some powers of animals are as strong; 
 some instincts are stronger. The dog of 
 
11 
 
 Ulysses remembered his master when His 
 family forgot him. The ants of Flanders 
 were more provident than the great Marl- 
 borough. He found himself (says one 
 of his annalists) on the plains of Ghent, 
 without a qrain of corn to subsist his 
 
 o 
 
 army ; but supplied them, for some days, 
 upon that which the ants had laid up for 
 their winter's provision." 
 
 " My lines of distinction, I see, are 
 points." 
 
 " And your points are air. All dis- 
 tinction but virtue is a mere breath. To 
 be happy, is sometimes the lot of ani- 
 mals ; to be good, is the privilege of man 
 alone. But, Gustavus, in my turn, I 
 must ask you some questions. Accord- 
 ing to our argument, if a man has a soul, 
 must he not, in all reason, endeavour to 
 be distinguished from the brutes ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Must he not endeavour to resemble 
 God ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 B 6 
 
 . 
 
" Are not his obligations to these 
 (endeavours so imperious, that if we find 
 a being, though in the shape of man, 
 who disdains them himself, and laughs 
 at them in others, we may conclude he 
 has no soul ?" 
 
 " I should think so" said Gustavus. 
 
 " Then I will pledge myself to show 
 you a multitude of persons such as these. 
 We will sail for the city of O. in a 
 week." 
 
 Before I embark with m}^ readers upon 
 this singular expedition, I must try to 
 obviate an objection to this history. 
 They will possibly tell me, that " it is 
 improbable M. would employ such argu- 
 ments, and still more improbable Gusta* 
 vus should be convinced by them." To 
 this charge I answer- that I never at- 
 tempted to justify M.; I have called his 
 plans " questionable ;" and this project 
 has proved that I have not so called 
 them without reason. As to Gustavus 
 though somewhat staggered by the con- 
 
13 
 
 elusion at which they had arrived, he 
 could not venture to doubt of its truth, 
 whilst he thought that he had seen and 
 handled every link in the chain of their 
 artrument Mv reader shoukl also re- 
 
 o 
 
 member, that, in his eyes, M. was 
 clothed in a kind of papal infallibility, 
 which shielded his opinions almost from 
 examination. But, more than this 
 Gustavus had rarely or never been de- 
 ceived. And it is an unusually bad 
 mind to which suspicion is natural or 
 which looks for snares before it has 
 fallen into them. For my own part, I 
 place little confidence in the man on 
 whom no stratagem ever succeeded ; and 
 I ever give that mind credit for the 
 greatest familiarity with truth, which 
 least questions the veracity of another. 
 He therefore who thinks with me, 
 will acknowledge, that credulity is that 
 weakness which lingers the longest 
 amidst the virtues; and in such a case as 
 that of Gustavus, if he admire him the 
 
less for it, will yet perhaps love him 
 the more. He will perhaps speak of 
 him as 
 
 " a brother, noble, 
 
 Whose nature is so far from doing harm, 
 That he suspects none/' 
 
15 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE, although he violates every 
 one of the unities, is yet a philosopher 
 and a poet. He says, 
 
 " Between the acting of a dreadful thing, 
 And the first motion, all the interim is 
 Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream." 
 
 Gustavus could attest the truth of 
 this, for he was to travel, and he was in 
 love. <c lt is hard," he almost murmured, 
 " to leave one who has a soul, for those 
 who have none." But it is those who are 
 left that are the greatest sufferers. All 
 is loss to them ; whilst those who travel, 
 if they lose in one scale, by shifting 
 scenes and new connexions, gain a 
 something in the other. " If they have 
 no souls, my Emily," he said, " at least 
 their hearts cannot be worth the having." 
 
}6 
 
 Emily was the daughter of a Mad. de 
 N. a widow, and an inhabitant of the 
 same valley. M. had known her in other 
 scenes. Each had been unfortunate ; 
 and each found, next to their heavenly 
 Friend, their best refuge in the tender- 
 ness of the other. Switzerland, till ruf- 
 fian feet had penetrated her recesses, was 
 a city of refuge to the miserable of every 
 age and country. The solitary grandeur 
 of her mountains harmonized with the 
 frame of their mind. Weary of man, 
 they often sought, and found, a shelter 
 in the untenanted scenes of nature. 
 
 These two little families were much 
 united, for they had the " bond which 
 no man breaketh," the bond of common 
 principles. M. used to say, " We want 
 no other chain of affection than the 
 knowledge that we are Christians. As 
 such, we must weep and we may rejoice 
 together; for we have been wrecked by 
 the same storm, and are rescued by the 
 same Redeemer." It was reasoning only 
 
17 
 
 jit for St. Foy, but her willies seemed to 
 clap their hands when they heard it. 
 
 It was upon the eve of their departure 
 that M. and his young friend walked for 
 the last time to the cottage of Mad. de 
 N. She had been long familiar with the 
 method of education which M. had 
 adopted. This last scheme was more ex- 
 traordinary than the rest, and she had 
 reasons of the heart and head for ventur- 
 ing to condemn it. But M.'s principles 
 so tempered his singularities, and the 
 good in his object generally so com- 
 pletely swallowed up all that was dubious 
 in the execution of his plans, that she 
 was obliged to submit. -" His igno- 
 rance," said M. " so favours the deceit, 
 and O. is so fair a theatre for it, that I 
 cannot refuse myself the pleasure of 
 forcing him to acknowledge how ill the 
 duties and the conduct of mankind ac- 
 cord." " He might," she said, " learn it 
 from himself" " Our own faults," said 
 M. " are die last which we make ouv 
 
18 
 
 preceptors." " He shall learn it from 
 me" said Mad. cle N. " Mahomet did 
 not know this woman," thought M. 
 
 The dialogue of the younger couple 
 may be conceived. Such sayings arc 
 like some of the wines of the south, de- 
 licious in their proper soil, but they will 
 not bear transporting. " I will write to 
 my Emily whether this people have 
 souls." " Mav Heaven," she answered, 
 
 V ' 
 
 " take the charge of your own !" 
 
 They travelled slowly, for the suns of 
 these vallies are the foes of activity : and 
 as they were not Englishmen, they did 
 not feel themselves obliged to move 
 as though they were running against 
 time. Foreigners are much astonished at 
 the celerity with which many English 
 travellers make the circuit of Europe. 
 " C'est un peuple hypocondriaque " 
 they sometimes say " a people 
 who travel to escape suicide." The fact 
 is, that too many Englishmen carry 
 through Europe the persuasion, that no 
 
19 
 
 country is worth examining but their 
 own ; and, thus, the same prejudices 
 which make travelling more essential to 
 them than to any other nation, by haunt- 
 ing them as they move, make it often 
 also more unprofitable. 
 
 " There are few men," says a French 
 author, " who know how to take a walk :" 
 if this be true, it will be scarcely dis- 
 puted that there are still fewer who know 
 how to make a journey. St. Foy, how- 
 ever, by the interest it was calculated to 
 give its inhabitants in the scenes of na- 
 ture, was a school in which such a lesson 
 could scarcely fail to be learnt ; and M. 
 had studied every page in the great vo- 
 lume of the universe with a curious eye, 
 He found 
 
 4t Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." 
 
 " There is something in the sweet hour 
 of prime," he said, as they once met the 
 ascending day, " which seems to give 
 
me another being. It appears like a new 
 creation, and I almost expect to hear the 
 morning stars again * shout together for 
 
 
 
 1 joy.* The people of O. sleep long after 
 the sun has quitted his eastern chamber." 
 
 " They can have no souls" said G. 
 
 " I am not surprised," continued M. 
 " that as the unenlightened nations see 
 the orbs of heaven rolling in brightness,, 
 they are tempted to adore them. It is 
 said that some of the tribes of America 
 worship the sun as the image of God." 
 
 " It is an error," said G. ; " but so 
 sublime an error, that the Spaniard must 
 be mistaken." 
 
 He lifted his eye to the Alps, which 
 towered around him. A better philoso- 
 phy was almost necessary to teach men 
 that they are not the pillars on which the 
 heavens are propped. " When one ob- 
 serves the immensity of their bases," he 
 said, " and the abruptness with which 
 they terminate, we cannot but imagine 
 that their heads soar far beyond the 
 
clouds in which we lose them." "They 
 do," replied M.; "and in this they shadow 
 out the true religion. Her base is as gi- 
 gantic, and we should wonder if her 
 summit were not wrapped in mysterio 
 which nothing hut the eye of Heaven 
 could penetrate." 
 
 Gustavus exclaimed, " Such must be 
 the religion of souls." 
 
 There was a pause, for there is some- 
 thing in moments such as these which 
 disposes the mind to silence. But then 
 again, the result of this is sometimes an 
 abundance of the heart, out of which the 
 mouth will speak. " How much do I 
 owe you," said Gustavus, " that you have 
 taught me to enjoy moments such as 
 these ; and, what is more, to improve 
 them ! If ever my mind feels as it ought, 
 it is at such seasons as these." 
 
 " I will repeat you some verses," said 
 M. " which say the same thing. They 
 were written on a winters morning, when 
 those who love the day are almost impa- 
 
tient of the slow steps by which it ad* 
 vances. 
 
 Sunk is that orb in endless sleep 
 
 Which usM to meet our opening eyes ; 
 
 And angry nature bids us weep 
 A polar night in southern skies. 
 
 Eye of the heav'ns ! perhaps thy sight 
 Has sicken'd at a world of crime ; 
 
 And (wrapp'd o'er us the pall of night,) 
 Thy rays will light some happier clime. 
 
 Perhaps thy last sad course was run 
 
 Through realms which fear and hate the day ; 
 
 Where ruffians curse the coming sun, 
 Where idlers sleep whole suns away. 
 
 E'en here thy burning view would see 
 Unblushing vice and passion rude, 
 
 And seldom bent the suppliant knee, 
 And still the lip of gratitude. 
 
 Or didst thou roll thy glowing wheel 
 Where dark Ambition goads her steed ; 
 
 And plotting statesmen whet the steel, 
 And bid the mortal battle bleed ? 
 
23 
 
 Or where the Gaul, from Lodi's bridge, 
 With slaughfer'd armies chokes the flood; 
 
 Or where he scales the Alpine ridge, 
 And dies its virgin snows with blood ? 
 
 Such scenes must wound the eye of Heaven 
 But has not Heaven, since time begun, 
 
 Flung all its million gifts around 
 On those who ne'er return'd it oae ? 
 
 O ! starting from thine almost death, 
 Mark, sluggard, now yon orb arise; 
 
 And ch.arge the morning's earliest breath 
 With incense to its native skies : 
 
 See yon blue arch the surface span ; 
 
 To guilty worlds, see day is given 
 O ! Heaven is still the friend of man, 
 
 Though man is still the foe of Heaven. 
 
 I have no obligation to tell my readers 
 in what direction our travellers journey- 
 ed. A few days however brought them 
 to a sea-port; the wind was favourable, 
 and a ship ready to sail. They had no 
 sooner lost sight of the fat and lazy plains 
 on the one shore, than the giant cliffs 
 of the other met their eye. G. was-sur- 
 
prised to observe the separating waters 
 so narrow. " Compared," he said, " with 
 the seas onp reads of, it is but a river, 
 and one is amazed to find its opposite 
 banks so different." " They are not so 
 different," said M. " as the people who 
 inhabit them. Those philosophers, by 
 the by, who think national character un- 
 der the sole guidance of climate, who 
 count the virtues of a people on a circle 
 of latitude, and who measure their genius 
 by a thermometer, would find this differ- 
 ence a difficult problem. I wish, however, 
 this difference of character were all. But 
 the stream which divides their countries, 
 whilst it is too narrow for their objects 
 to be different, is too wide for their in- 
 terests to be the same ; and in the con- 
 test for these, they have shed as much 
 blood as would purple all the waters be- 
 tween them." 
 
 " Their leaders, of course," said G. 
 " know they have no souls, and then to 
 spill this blood is little more than to dis- 
 turb the same quantity of water." 
 
CHAP. III. 
 
 ONE of the most obvious claims which ^ 
 reader has upon him who proposes to 
 amuse or instruct him, is some kind of 
 history of the characters of his drama. 
 On this ground I think it right to give 
 my readers a brief history of Mad. de N. 
 It is M. who tells it ; and if they begin 
 to know him, they will perhaps wish 
 to hear it from his lips rather than 
 from mine. I will first, however, state 
 the circumstance which drew forth this 
 history. 
 
 It is well known that love is the topic, 
 round which, as the bird round its nest, 
 a person in love will continually hover. 
 It was so with Gustavus ; and M. had 
 such pleasure in seeing him happy, that 
 when the conversation of his young com- 
 
 c 
 
panion thus settled to its centre, lie made 
 110 efforts to fly off from it. One kind of 
 philosophy, we read, proposed to govern 
 the mind, as conquerors* sometimes go- 
 vern the countries they subdue, by anni- 
 hilating every one who could resist But 
 with such philosophy M. had not thought 
 it necessary to make Gustavus acquaint- 
 ed, lie had taught him, however, the 
 philosophy of Christ ; which takes the 
 feelings as it finds them, and, leaving 
 what is good in the heart, disciplines all 
 that is rebellious. But it is not wonder- 
 ful, that at his age, and scarcely familiar 
 with his own principles, his feelings 
 should, as it were, break bounds, and the 
 turbulence of his love now and then es- 
 cape in unguarded expressions. 
 
 It was a singular incident that struck 
 out some expressions of this nature, and 
 these again drew from M. the history of 
 which we are in search. Our travellers 
 were divided from the inhabitants of the 
 uext apartment, at an inn on the road, 
 
99 
 
 by a very slight partition. But the walls 
 of Thebes would have been almost insuf- 
 ficient to fortify them against the thun- 
 ders of a tongue, which roared behind it. 
 To this some gentle female voice replied* 
 But the stronger animal appeared plainly 
 to have no ear for it, and loaded the 
 air with the most terrible imprecations. 
 At intervals Gustavus was astonished to 
 hear God and the soul summoned to sanc- 
 tion what seemed to be the threats of 
 fury, falsehood, and impiety. His first 
 inquiry naturally was, " how those who 
 had no saute, and could have no God, 
 could swear by them ?" 
 
 M. was somewhat perplexed by the 
 question, but at length answered 
 " There is nothing more usual. The an- 
 cients always swore by Styx, though not 
 one in a million believed in the existence 
 of such a river. They even made their 
 gods swear by it, although they must 
 know that the Styx never flowed through 
 any regions, but the brains of a poet. 
 
 c G 
 
28 
 
 In like manner atheists, perhaps more 
 than any other men, call God to witness 
 what they say. Or if this explanation 
 does not satisfy you, let the men of O. 
 themselves do it. Charge them with 
 oaths of this kind; and, to a man, they 
 will tell you ' that they had no meaning 
 ' in them :' so that you must not won- 
 der, that they talk nonsense, when they 
 mean nothing more." 
 
 " Thus far I must acknowledge," re- 
 plied Gustavus, " that those who knew 
 God vfonld scarcely desire him as a wit- 
 ness of their own fury ; and that those 
 who had souls would scarcely stake them 
 cither upon a trifle, or a falsehood." 
 
 The conversation naturally soon turn- 
 ed upon the contrast of voice, manner, 
 and character, which was displayed by 
 the combatants. 
 
 " These two things are obvious con- 
 cerning them," said' M. " that they are 
 man and wife, and that one is under the 
 influence of religion, and the other un- 
 
99 
 
 acquainted with it. Marriage, my dear 
 (Justavus, is like some exquisite instru- 
 ment, which can be tuned only by the 
 hand of Heaven. God, who made the 
 hearts, alone can harmonize them, by 
 the infusion of common views, and hopes, 
 and joys." It was here that those tem- 
 pestuous feelings in Gustavus of which 
 we spoke, broke out, and proved that 
 man sometimes bows to other idols than 
 those of wood and stone. 
 
 " Emily then being as good as she is/' 
 he said hastily, " Pmay love her ; but, 
 even were she otherwise, I should still 
 hope to make her my own. Let her have 
 lore and religion would follow."' 
 
 " I wished never to tell you the history 
 of Madame de N." replied M. in his some- 
 what abrupt manner, " till it could be 
 useful to you. This speech of yours con- 
 vinces me you ou:ht to hear it." 
 
 *- C.3 
 
 Gustavus rejoiced at this casual com- 
 pletion of a wish he had more than once 
 
 c3 
 
30 
 
 expressed in vain ; and M. thus pro- 
 ceeded : 
 
 " The first words which Caroline St. 
 Amand ever heard from the lips of her 
 parents were those by which they taught 
 her to honour God ; and her knees were 
 bent and her hands clasped in the attitude 
 of devotion long before it \vas possible 
 for her to know the object of prayer. 
 They loved indeed to see her rehearse, 
 from the first, those scenes of piety 
 which they trusted she would act upon 
 the stage of Jife. She lived with them 
 therefore as in a temple, and soon felt 
 every where that fear of doing wrong 
 which even the worst sometimes manifest 
 in spots sacred to religion, The happi- 
 ness of this small circle, however, was 
 soon to be disturbed. Those who are the 
 fittest for eternity seem often to be first 
 called to the enjoyment f it. Her father 
 died suddenly by a fever when she was 
 ten years old; and her mother did not 
 long survive him. The desire of her pa- 
 
31 
 
 rents had been, that Caroline should 
 be sent for the completion of her edu- 
 cation to the place of her birth a spot 
 no less retired and romantic than 
 St. Foy; and where a person resided 
 every way fitted for the task. It was 
 there she became that enthusiast in na- 
 ture we have found her; and it was there 
 she made her own those principles which 
 the last breath of a parent had bequeath- 
 ed to her. She, at first, respected reli- 
 gion for their sakes, and then loved it 
 for its own. At the age of eighteen, 
 however, she was summoned to the house 
 of one of her relations who had uuder- 
 taken the charge of her. He was a man 
 singular in no respect; but one who, 
 living in a capital, walked with the great 
 herds of it, neither bending to the right 
 hand nor to the left, to take an unusual 
 step in the way of virtue. As Caroline 
 quitted those oaks which, from a child, 
 had waved their broad arms over her in 
 defiance of the tempest, she thought 
 
 c 4 
 
whether the world would, Amidst its own 
 storms, provide her friends such as these ; 
 and as they bowed their tall heads to the. 
 passing wind, she acknowledged it as a 
 sort of silent language by which they 
 bad her farewell. e If,' she said to hSr 
 melancholy companion, ' the spirit could 
 ' take any visible form, you would often 
 ' see me wandering; amidst these shades 
 
 C5 
 
 ' we have loved together.' ( If not/ re- 
 plied her aged friend, * I shall hope to 
 * meet that spirit elsewhere.' Caroline 
 soon left her retirement, casting almost 
 that '..longing lingering look behind' 
 which they cast who are passing from 
 one world to another. 
 
 l( But she was at an age when our opi- 
 nions sit loosely iipon us ; and when, if 
 the tastes and passions seem to take a 
 Stronger hold, still they are ready to quit 
 it for any new object. It is not a matter 
 of surprise therefore, that she had not 
 been long placed in her new residence 
 before she began to feel the influence of 
 
33 
 
 that fascination which the walls of a 
 great city are known to exercise upon 
 those whom they encircle. The child of 
 solitude indeed, especially where the wide 
 difference between the world and retire- 
 ment has not been fairly stated, is very 
 apt to go into the world unprepared for 
 the conflicts of it. Caroline fell a victim, 
 in part, to this indiscretion. She had 
 exchanged the rocks and trees, her former 
 companions, for living creatures ; and 
 .she soon caught something of the sur- 
 rounding animation, and began rather to 
 court dissipation than to retreat from it. 
 " During this time, although the prin- 
 ciples she had at first learned, filled as- 
 large a place in her mind as ever, she na- 
 turally did not call them up to her view 
 as frequently as before. She had not in- 
 deed abandoned them, but she had in a 
 degree laid them by; little thinking that 
 negligence is scarcely less fatal to them 
 than opposition. I mention this state of 
 her mind because it explains thecircum- 
 
 c 5 
 
34 
 
 stances which followed. In this fatal 
 hour M. de N. was introduced. He was 
 a man to whose person and mind nature 
 had given the most noble and masculine 
 features; but she could not climb to 
 Heaven to steal for him that sacred fire, 
 without which, man had better have con- 
 tinued to slumber amidst his fellow-atoms 
 in the dust. Religion, however, was less 
 missed in him, who, without it, seemed 
 to' wear many of its graces ; and Caro- 
 line, especially, was not at an age when, 
 if she found what she admired, she was 
 likely to pause, and ask, whither it tend- 
 ed, and whence it came. She who had 
 studied man only in solitude, viewed him 
 as she would any other production of 
 nature; and, if the fruit appeared fair, 
 at once pronounced the tree to be good. 
 Every thing in the mind of N. was upon 
 a large scale. His passions were strong, 
 his imagination was warm, and his energy 
 erer awake. It perhaps arose from this, 
 that every day gave birth to some new 
 
35 
 
 scheme, and that he seemed restless till 
 an object or employment was found vast 
 enough to seize upon his mind, and fill it. 
 His quick perception of merit soon 
 placed him at the side of Caroline, and 
 his ardour and attractions in two months 
 made her his wife. 
 
 " As they stretched their hands across 
 the altar, he said, meaning to intimate 
 the daily increase of their affection, in 
 that figurative language which was pecu- 
 liar to him, ' The flames lighted at the 
 ' altar, Caroline, mingle more and more 
 ' as they go onward.' ' Yes,' she said, 
 * because they are each taking their way 
 ' to the same heaven.' N. smiled but 
 he had thought his image more signifi- 
 cant of love than of religion. 
 
 " It is obvious, that every circum- 
 stance had conspired to lay asleep the 
 principles of Caroline; but they had so 
 incorporated themselves with her very 
 nature, and were of so vigorous a consti- 
 tution, that they were sure soon to 
 
36 
 
 awake, and arise, and make themselves 
 felt. If she had married a man without 
 religion, it was . not because she for a 
 moment undervalued it, but because 
 she ignorantly imagined religion to be 
 too excellent to have few friends, or at 
 least N. too ;Ood not to be amonor them. 
 
 o o 
 
 If she ever suspected him, she yet 
 charged his failings upon the vehemence 
 of his nature and his want of opportu- 
 nities. ' Love,' she said, with you, 
 Gustavus, ' is the best school of piety; 
 * and if I have his heart in my hands, 
 6 can I not mould it as I will?' 
 
 " Love has been often called a deli- 
 rium ; and as, when a fever is oif, the 
 body feels doubly its first weakness and 
 disease, so the soul is never so much 
 itself, or the conscience so delicate and 
 severe, as when this mental delirium has, 
 in any degree, cooled. To this state 
 Caroline was brought by marriage. It 
 had not diminished her affection, but had 
 
37 
 
 sobered it and thus restored her to 
 what she was. 
 
 " Although N. was for a time far too 
 watchful of her happiness to give any 
 direct wound to her feelings, still there 
 is in religion or irreligion a kind of 
 omnipresence, by which they are seen 
 and felt in every thing which their pos- 
 sessors say or do. She soon saw there- 
 fore, that, if she attempted to touch the 
 string of religion, there was within him 
 nothing which answered ; that whilst she 
 hoped to walk as a stranger and pilgrim 
 in this world, he made it his home; 
 that if he did right, it was frequently 
 without a motive, or from a false one. 
 It was plain also, that he did not love her 
 for her piety, but rather winked at it ; 
 tliat he viewed it as her weak point as 
 a kind of dead weight, which her other 
 excellencies alone could balance. 
 
 " I need not explain to you the 
 effects of this discovery upon Caroline, 
 or her sensations, when she saw herself 
 
cast upon the world with such a guide. 
 I have often, in my own mind, compared 
 her situation to that of the unhappy 
 creatures, who, as it is said, not un fre- 
 quently, in the northern seas, quit their 
 boats in search of prey, and land upon 
 the floating fields of ice : where sudden- 
 ly some shock cuts off the morsel on 
 which they rest, and they are launched 
 into the vast deep, with no friend but 
 their icy carriage. 
 
 " Of her conduct I must say, and my 
 intimacy with both entitles me to speak 
 confidently, that she bent every nerve to 
 the task of reclaiming him ; that she 
 sometimes attempted to force, but 
 oftener to soften a way to his heart that 
 she never forgot to be a wife, because he 
 was not a Christian. 
 
 " But I have to explain the influence 
 of her conduct upon her husband. 
 
 " She had hoped that there was some 
 modification of an ambitious mind, by 
 which it might aspire to an union with 
 
39 
 
 God ; and that the eye which rejoiced in 
 every vast object, would naturally rest 
 itself upon eternity. But she was de- 
 ceived. Religion seemed, in his eyes, 
 to degrade every thing which it touched. 
 Although he looked above the world, he 
 never looked to Heaven. For some 
 years then he met her arguments and her 
 affection, when employed in the service 
 of religion, with almost equal insensi- 
 bility. Nor was this all. It was impos- 
 sible for such a mind as his to be long 
 satisfied with the middle point, and there 
 was therefore scarcely any place for him 
 between an enthusiast and an infidel. 
 In a short time, he found his little belief 
 a burden to him, and became the last. 
 
 " I have said, with how lofty a nature 
 he was endowed. His hopes and projects 
 were such as might be expected from 
 one thus const ituctd, and did not ac- 
 commodate themselves to the dull reali- 
 ties of life. Shall we wonder then, that 
 the visions he sought, continually eluded 
 
40 
 
 his grasp? This by degrees, however, 
 soured his disposition ; and, as the space 
 between the opposite extremes is seldom 
 great, the once sanguine N. sat down in 
 sullenness and despair. His love of 
 Caroline was indeed the last anchor 
 which the storm carried away. But as 
 he had not taken the ground of infidelity 
 from a clear and conscientious conviction 
 that it was the best, but had hewn it out 
 as a place of refuge from irresolution and 
 indifference; the subject of religion 
 became intolerable to him. Whenever, 
 therefore, her mild language or bright 
 example pressed it upon him, he felt it as 
 a wound, and began to dislike the hand 
 which gave it. It was with himself that 
 he was angry, but he soon vented his 
 spleen upon her. One act of unkindness 
 ever produces another, for * men always 
 ' hate those they have injured.' At the 
 end of six years therefore, when the last 
 sentiment which had lent any grace or 
 polish to the colossal features of his cha- 
 
41 
 
 racter was worn away, he stood like 
 sonic shapeless relic from the hand of a 
 great master whi oil we admire only for 
 what it has been. 
 
 " At the same time there were many 
 intervals during this period, in which h 
 seemed to start back into himself. I 
 shall mention one. Their only child was 
 our own Emily. As N. had now taken 
 a decided part in his hostilities to reli- 
 gion, Caroline trembled at the influence 
 he might have with her, when her ad- 
 vanced years should throw her more 
 into his society. During the first part 
 of her life, she herself naturally enjoyed 
 the almost exclusive management of 
 her ; and, throughout this period, she 
 watched with all the eagerness of a 
 mother's eye, every avenue by which 
 corruption could enter. She even felt it 
 her duty, painful as was the task to 
 her, to guard her child against the senti- 
 ments of its father; she did more, for 
 
42 
 
 she taught her to lift her little hands ia 
 supplication to God for mercy upon him. 
 
 " It was to a scene of this kind, that 
 N. was accidentally a witness. She had 
 been teaching Emity in what sense God 
 is the Shepherd of his people. The (taor 
 was not closed, and, as he stood there, 
 he saw Madame de N. in the attitude of 
 prayer her eyes lifted upwards, but dim 
 with anguish. Emily knelt beside her, 
 touched by her mother's sufferings, and 
 in childish accents repeating her peti- 
 tion, ' O thou great Shepherd, bring 
 ' back thy lost sheep to the fold. 1 There 
 was .something in the scene which spoke 
 to a heart strung like that of N. He 
 felt it, I believe, deeply. 
 
 " It was the same evening that he 
 stood for some time musing upon a 
 painting by a celebrated master of the 
 Roman school ; in which, whilst a holy 
 family are taking their flight to Heaven, 
 one despairing wretch among them is 
 struck to the ground by its thunders, 
 
43 
 
 lie seemed greatly agitated beckoned 
 Caroline in a hurried manner laid his 
 iinger upon the figure, and rushed out 
 of the room. 
 
 " Such lucid intervals (if I may so 
 call them) were however transient, and 
 every day more rare. About the middle 
 of the tenth year of their marriage, the 
 apathy of which I spoke had so com- 
 pletely fixed itself upon him, that it 
 would have almost been as easy to have 
 roused his statue as himself, to any 
 interest in the common circumstances of 
 life. 
 
 " There is but one employment (I dare 
 not call it amusement) to which such a 
 state of mind eminently disposes men. 
 It is said, that the ancient Goths, during 
 the time of peace, would doze away 
 whole years in the most senseless sloth, 
 unless called from it to gamble. It was 
 then that their eyes again lighted up with 
 savage fires, and their bosoms swelled 
 with wonted fury. Thus engaged, they 
 
44 
 
 would sit till one or the other party had 
 lost his property, his children, his arms, 
 and even his person; as though they re- 
 fused to live, except when they could 
 butcher their enemies or ruin themselves. 
 It is a ferocious picture of man ; but, alas ! 
 it is the portrait of N. The first time he 
 took the box in his hand, he seemed to 
 cast the die of his own fate. Having 
 once burst asunder the bands of his 
 lethargy, he seated himself at .these 
 tables of ruin, and scarcely ever quitted 
 them. He appeared to take a gloomy 
 delight in the convulsions of mind, 
 which were wrought by the vicissitudes 
 of his new employment; and, so that he 
 could feel, he seemed to care little, for 
 the nature of his sensations. The grief 
 of Caroline naturally kept pace with the 
 frenzy of her husband. It was not, 
 however, for herself she grieved, but 
 for him. From the history of other 
 gamesters, and from her intimacy with 
 the mind of N. she borrowed a kind of 
 
 ^ 
 
45 
 
 prophetic light by which she was enabled 
 to look through the shades of his future 
 destiny. She saw that it was impossible 
 for such a man to be a gamester, and not 
 to be undone. 
 
 " It was one evening when N. had 
 gone from home under singular agitation 
 of mind, that she requested I would 
 follow him to a gaming-house which he 
 was known to frequent. This place was 
 celebrated for the pillage of all who 
 were not initiated in the crooked and 
 mysterious arts of those in whose hands 
 it was. As the police of Paris was at 
 that time the most vigorous in the world, 
 the owners of this institution contrived 
 so to fortify the approach to it, that, in 
 cases of alarm, they might remove all 
 the instruments of their trade before the 
 uiiicers entered. By secret means, how- 
 ever, I obtained an entrance; and I 
 opened the door as I should that of the 
 regions appropriated to the wicked. 
 When 1 entered, every one appeared to !><- 
 
46 
 
 full of his employment. As my business 
 was rather to see than to be seen, I took 
 my station in a place fitted to my pur- 
 pose. The scene which presented itself* 
 had for rrie a kind of terrific interest 
 which I cannot explain to you. When 
 I contemplated the faces around me, I 
 seemed to be introduced to a new set of 
 passions ; or to combinations of them 
 more terrible than those which usually 
 present themselves. I fancied in almost 
 every man a Cethegus or a Catiline 
 a conspirator against the happiness 
 of mankind. ^Enthusiast as I am in 
 liberty, I could have almost rejoiced, 
 when all the malignant humours of the 
 body politic seemed thus drawn to a 
 point, to have seen the hand of authority 
 forcibly cut them away. To this hour, 
 many of the figures of this society 
 haunt me. I saw hands which charity 
 never lifted, lips that never prayed, 
 knees that never bent, countenances 
 where, if I may so express it, ' God 
 4 
 
47 
 
 ' had forgotten to be gracious/ The 
 only ray of comfort which broke through 
 the awful gloom was that which showed 
 nie that each one in this assembly appear- 
 ed to be let loose against another as fero- 
 cious as himself. But even that vanish- 
 ed when I turned my eyes upon N. 
 Wan and emaciated, his forehead ridged 
 with a thousand storms, his eye fixed 
 and glaring, his manner sullen and despe- 
 rate; he recalled to my mind the first 
 murderer, when driven out as a fugitive 
 from God. His ' punishment' was 
 even now ' greater than he could bear.' 
 But let us hasten, my Gustavus, from 
 this unholy ground. I found an oppor- 
 tunity, during the night, of painting to 
 him in strong colours the terrors of his 
 situation ; but his answer indicated, that 
 he had looked his ruin too often in the 
 face, to be restored to virtue by any pic- 
 ture I could bring before him. I spoke 
 to him of Caroline; but he had, in his 
 new business, acquired a horrid familia- 
 
41 
 
 rity with the sufferings of others. 1 
 would have spoken of God but he 
 stopped me, by exclaiming in his vehe- 
 ment manner, ' Chance is the only God 
 * of a gamester/ In fact, I might have 
 remembered, that the gambling-room is 
 the temple of the Atheist. It is an em- 
 ployment in which there is a constant 
 appeal to some power without ourselves 
 that power which presents one side of 
 the die, and hides another. Men call 
 this c chance' and are they not Atheists? 
 " But let me finish this melancholy 
 story. N. after his last speech, abruptly 
 left me, resumed his occupation, and 
 seemed to pursue it with even a more 
 entire devotion of mind than before. 
 When I reflected that every step he took 
 in his present employment brought him 
 so much nearer to his ruin, I almost 
 ceased to wonder that some philosophers 
 should have called in the doctrine of 
 fatalism to explain the fatuity of human 
 conduct. They reasonably doubted 
 
whether man could become so emphati- 
 cally his own enemy, and therefore con- 
 ceived a sort of iron hand which lashed 
 him on to destruction. There was also 
 something of that expression in the face 
 of N. which might have heen expected 
 in the victim of such a destiny. The 
 alternations of loss and gain seemed no 
 longer to affect him ; he received the last 
 as a loan which he was immediately to 
 restore, and the first as his settled and 
 natural inheritance. 
 
 " I sat watching him for some time ; 
 but, as I knew, there was nothing his 
 high spirit could less endure than to see 
 a spy placed upon his movements, I 
 quitted the room, and returned to Ma- 
 dame de N. 
 
 " Her frame of body was such, that it 
 was likely to give way before evils under 
 which the mind might have stood. It 
 was indeed one of those nervous systems 
 which appear to feel and to bleed at 
 every point in which misfortune touches 
 
50 
 
 -them. Knowing this, I had long feared 
 -the effect of her sorrows upon her; and 
 /therefore had always thought myself 
 justified in showing them to her in the 
 least formidable aspect which they wore. 
 " Unfortunately I pursued the same 
 line of conduct in recording the events 
 
 o 
 
 of this evening. Had I done otherwise, 
 I should have better prepared her for that 
 spectacle of horror, to which she was now 
 to be brought at once and without prepa- 
 ration. I was soon obliged to leave her. 
 
 " Some hours after midnight N. re- 
 turned to his house. As usual, he hur- 
 ried to his apartment, and barred his 
 door against that bosom on which he 
 might profitably have rested all his cares. 
 Caroline heard his door close, and, al- 
 though she felt the cruelty and the de- 
 speration of that sorrow which refuses to 
 communicate itself, she little thought 
 that he had now shut himself from her 
 and from the world for ever. 
 
 " After I quitted him, the good for- 
 
51 
 
 tune or the knavery of his associates Iftid 
 put the last stroke to his undoing; and 
 the lofty N. was now a beggar. Pride 
 sometimes supports men under an ho- 
 nourable poverty, but no one is proud of 
 the desolation which his own hand .has 
 made. N. felt all the agonies of -a 
 wounded spirit, when he saw in himself 
 the executioner, as it were, of his own 
 dignity and happiness. In the solitude 
 of his chamber he was able to measure 
 his calamities on -every side. It was 
 here, that, with every thing except God 
 shut out, he found the eye of God too 
 strong for him ; and resolved, in order 
 to escape the certain evils of his present 
 state, to rush upon what (according to 
 his creed) were the tremendous uncer- 
 tainties of another. He determined upon 
 making the awful experiment whether 
 there was any hell worse than the bosom 
 of a gamester. In little more than an 
 hour the watchful Caroline heard the re- 
 port of a pistol in his room. Wild with 
 
 D2 
 
52 
 
 fear, she rushed to his door. It gave way, 
 and she reached him just soon enough to 
 mark those last struggles and convulsions 
 with which the soul tears itself from the 
 body. In the fixed contemplation of 
 this awful spectacle she lost her reason. 
 When I was sent for, I found indeed, 
 that they had forcibly separated her from 
 the corpse : but that the bleeding image 
 seemed to haunt her every where. She 
 did not, for a long time, notice me; and 
 at last threw on me only that vacant gaze 
 which indicates that the imagination and 
 the memory are too busy to let the senses 
 do their duty. By degrees, however, 
 the violence of her disorder subsided, 
 but her complete recovery was for a long- 
 time doubtful. Madness often delights 
 in some particular position or action ; 
 and the disordered mind will mischie- 
 vously act over again those scenes in 
 which its frenzy originated. I have 
 watched her sit for hours, with her hand 
 projected before her face, in the attitude 
 
53 
 
 of intense expectation. In this situa- 
 tion, if she heard the slightest noise, she 
 would shriek aloud, ' A pistol !' and 
 rush towards the sound. Even now, if 
 she sees the mountain sportsman, with 
 his gun, pursuing the wild chamois 
 amidst the rocks of St. Foy, she will 
 hasten to her room as if afraid to trust 
 the slight thread by which reason is held. 
 God however preserves that reason to 
 her, and she will use it, Gustavus, to 
 give Emily to none but a Christian," 
 
CHAP. IV. 
 
 IT was on the morning of Sunday that 
 Gustavus first opened his e} 7 es in O. He 
 had some difficulty in convincing him- 
 self that the elements were^not con- 
 vulsed. The darkness of a great city to 
 him, who had never quitted Switzerland, 
 \vas almost supernatural, and the sound 
 of coaches seemed like subterraneous 
 thunder. The footsteps around him 
 were loud and incessant. " These 
 people seem, at all events,"to have bodies" 
 he said. 
 
 It was some consolation to him to hear 
 the note of a distant bell, which hailed 
 the dawning of the Sabbath. It is far 
 less certain whether sounds move in lines 
 or circles, than that those who would 
 know the way to the heart, would do 
 well to follow them. Gustavus was 
 transported in a moment to St. Foy, and> 
 
 3 
 
55 
 
 in a moment, forgot O. its noises and its- 
 bells, in her rocks, in that small and 
 single bell to which they echoed, and in 
 her whom his memory ever summoned 
 when he thought of any thing he loved. 
 He saw her with her circle of little 
 mountaineers around her, teaching them 
 how praise might be perfected even from 
 lips such as theirs. It was a moment 
 favourable to the sex ; " they hwc& 
 souls," said he, " though Mahomet 
 might not know it." 
 
 In the course of the morning their 
 inclinations and habits forced them into 
 a church. M. said, as he entered it, 
 " How melancholy were those times, 
 when the inhabitant of any country 
 could not quit it without seeing temples 
 raised to other gods than his own ! The 
 Christian pilgrim now finds the altar of 
 his God through whatever civilized 
 land he bends his steps ; and his religion 
 has thus, in the best sense, made him a 
 citizen of the world." 
 
 D 4 
 
The prayers, though indifferently read, 
 soon attracted the attention of Gustavus, 
 and he could scarcely wait for a pause in 
 the service to express his admiration of 
 them. " Are these the prayers/' he said. 
 " of a people without souls ?' 5 
 
 " When I told you/' answered M. 
 " what these people are, I did not tell 
 you what they have been. They are 
 the relics of a great and good people. 
 These prayers are not the production of 
 the day, but the pjrayers of their ances- 
 tors of men who had souls, and who 
 felt and acted as though they had. 
 Would that this nation had known reli- 
 gion to be the best legacy, and with the 
 soil had inherited all the virtues of their 
 ancestors !" 
 
 As M. had taken pains to select from 
 the mass of the clergy one more espe- 
 cially suited to his purpose, Gustavus 
 had almost immediate occasion to re- 
 mark that the two divisions of the service 
 did not strictly harmonize. A shadowy 
 
67 
 
 form at length took possession of the 
 pulpit. He preached languidly for 
 eleven minutes, prayed more languidly 
 for two, and then dismissed his audience 
 with a cold eye and a whispered benedic- 
 tion. 
 
 " The sermons of St. Foy," said Gus- 
 tavus, " are longer." 
 
 " Eleven minutes," answered M. 
 " would ill satisfy ears greedy of intelli- 
 gence from Heaven. Such sermons are 
 a kind of spiritual apparition: airy, un- 
 substantial, appearing for a moment, and 
 then dying away. Such evanescent di- 
 vinity would not be endured at St. Foy 
 but then its inhabitants have souls 5 
 the preacher of to-day knows his audi- 
 ence have none. But," continued he, 
 as they paced the street, " the sermon is 
 worthy of examination, in order to as- 
 certain the point for which we travel. 
 We must, however, lower our tones in 
 conversing on this subject; for these 
 people have the same superstitious foible 
 
 i) 5 
 
58 
 
 with some of the most renowned Greeks 
 that of conceiving all grave discourse 
 to be ominous. The Athenians banished 
 even the word 'sleep* from polite society, 
 because they conceived sleep to be an 
 image of * death. 9 ' 
 
 " But the Greeks had souls," said 
 Gustavus. 
 
 " They thought they had none, and 
 the reality and the supposition render 
 men equally absurd. But to return," 
 continued M. ; " if either the preacher 
 or his audience had souls, these conse- 
 quences would follow. The soul is 
 more important than the body he would 
 therefore speak more of it. The soul 
 may perish he would have shown its 
 danger. The soul may be saved he 
 would have adverted to the .Saviour of 
 it. What can you say of such a people, 
 Gustavus ?" 
 
 " I must say, I fear," replied Gusta- 
 vus, " what the Spaniard said they 
 have no souls.' 1 
 
69 
 
 As, in the course of conversation, they 
 had returned to the door of the church 
 they had quitted, accident threw the 
 preacher in their way. G. expressed a 
 strong desire to converse with the first 
 of this race whom he had seen in canoni- 
 cals; and M. was equally desirous of 
 gratifying it. They accordingly joined 
 him, and soon found, that, as far as an 
 acquaintance with a certain number of 
 texts, and with the exact manner in 
 which the world never fails to apply 
 them, could prepare him for the defence 
 of his opinions he was prepared. 
 
 After various observations of the 
 preacher, M. said, " The principal object, 
 then, of your discourses, is to restrain 
 the ardour of religion, which, you say, 
 is the besetting sin of your city?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly, Sir. And are we not 
 cautioned in the book you so loudly 
 praise, against being ' righteous oi'cr- 
 miicli?" M. whispered, "This is the 
 madness of a physician, who, with a pa- 
 
60 
 
 tient chilled by an ague, should use all the 
 medicines which are prescribed for a 
 fever." He turned to the disputant. " I 
 had been taught," said he, " to think that 
 this expression inculcated the shunning 
 an ostentatious display of piety, and the 
 sacrifice of all idle ceremonies of reli- 
 gion, to our real social duties. I will 
 allow, however, that an interpretation 
 which requires of every man only that 
 precise quantity of piet}- which is most 
 agreeeble to him. is far more conve- 
 
 O ' 
 
 nient. 1 " 
 
 "Why, yes, Sir; and such is the 
 spirit of religion : for is it not said that 
 * charity covereth a multitude of sins f 
 
 " You mean," said M. " that our 
 laxity to others ensures the mercy of 
 God to ourselves. But give me leave to 
 hint, that this interpretation also, may 
 have some objections. What, for in- 
 stance, is meant by charity ?" 
 
 " Almsgiving" said the preacher. 
 
61 
 
 " We employ it almost exclusively in 
 that sense." 
 
 " In the plural pronoun you have used, 
 Sir, you do not, I presume, include the 
 apostles and fathers of the church. St. 
 Paul, on the contrary, says, ' If I give 
 ' all my goods to feed the poor, and have 
 ' not charity, it profiteth me nothing.' 
 He took the portrait of Charity warm 
 from a divine original, and therefore 
 made philanthropy one of her features; 
 but at the same time his canvass glows 
 with many others. Pie does not chain 
 her to this world ; but displays her 
 touching Heaven while she stands upon 
 Earth, and bowing down to practise 
 among men that good will she has learned 
 above. Study his portrait, and you 
 will say, that ' Charity is love to man, 
 ' founded iipon love to God.' The 
 Apostle never imagined that we could 
 compromise for our neglect of the Maker, 
 by acts of mercy to the thing made ; or 
 conceived, as Catholics have paraphrased 
 
 4 
 
62 
 
 the doctrine you deliver, that when * the 
 1 money jingled in the chest, the soul 
 ' ascends to heaven.' Charity, Sir, as it 
 seems to me, knows nothing of ' cover- 
 ' ing' or mitigating the offences of man in 
 the view of his God, though, to her 
 own sight, she ever softens the com^ 
 plexion of another's crime, by the deep 
 colouring with which she imbues her 
 
 own.' 
 
 The heart of Gustavus burned within 
 him as he heard him speak. The ha- 
 rangue, however, had scarcely reached 
 the preacher ; for he and the " deaf 
 adder" had a property in common, which 
 rendered the head and heart equally im- 
 pregnable. Some tones, indeed, he 
 caught, which differed from the honeyed 
 accents with which some of the fairer 
 members of his congregation were accus- 
 tomed to address him. At length he 
 said, " If, Sir, it be true, as you seem 
 to suspect, that I take out of the scale 
 of Piety, it must, however, be remarked,. 
 
63 
 
 that I load that of Morals. And to this 
 kind of holy barter the present state of 
 the nation forces us. We have, Sir, 
 among us, men who preach the damn- 
 able heresy of ' faith without works." 
 
 " There is no heresy more atrocious," 
 said M. "if you mean the doctrine that 
 good works are unnecessary to a true 
 Christian ; and your accusation is pro- 
 bably just as far as respects a very few. 
 It is possible also, that still more, either 
 through carelessness, or through eager- 
 ness upon merely doctrinal points, have 
 used a more doubtful language on this 
 important subject than became them. 
 But, as to many against whom the charge 
 is brought, I would ask, how is this fact 
 ascertained ? Have you read their works, 
 or heard their sermons?" 
 
 " No; nor would this, perhaps, have 
 convinced me; for, by some ingenious 
 contrivance, 1 understand that they 
 manage to treat at large, and to enforce, 
 every moral virtue." 
 
64 
 
 " Their lives then are, perhaps, worse 
 than those of others?" 
 
 " On the contrary, they might be 
 Stoics for their austerity." 
 
 " This is marvellous," said M. " be- 
 cause habitual good conduct can flow 
 only from good principles. To say of any 
 one * he believes that which must make 
 ' him a good man' is at once to define a 
 Christian. Be ware therefore how, when 
 you thus see the pulse of morals beat, 
 you declare religion to be dead in the 
 heart, or how you suspect him that 
 denies himself, to have denied his God. 
 No, Sir if these men live as you 
 say, I am led to think they cannot 
 preach the doctrine you impute to them. 
 It is next to impossible that men should 
 preach less rigidly than they act, or, in 
 other words, give others more liberty 
 than they take themselves." 
 
 " But if their lives appear to justify 
 them, you will at least allow some 
 weight to the number of their accusers?" 
 
" Are they more numerous than those 
 who raised a similar accusation against 
 the great father of the Reformation? 
 The Church of Rome loudly proclaimed 
 Lutheran Antinomian; so that the crime 
 of preaching the detestable doctrine of 
 ' faith without works' was charged upon 
 one, who was a saint in life as well as 
 principle, by men whose doctrine was 
 not more licentious than their practice. 
 The clamour of which : you speak may 
 often originate in the same causes in 
 misconception or in jealousy. But," 
 continued M. " as you ' load the scale of 
 ' Morals,' you doubtless insist upon all 
 the strictness of the men you describe r" 
 
 " By no means, good Sir. Have you 
 never read, * My yoke is easy T ' 
 
 " The cords of the scale," whispered 
 Gustavus, " are in no danger." 
 
 " But surely, Sir," said M. " the words 
 you quoted may be referred to the 
 deliverance from the irksome ceremonies 
 of Judaism, and the freedom from guilt 
 
which Christ purchased for his genuine' 
 disciples by the sacrifice of himself." 
 
 " Downright Puritanism," said the- 
 preacher : " as we can have no real liberty 
 till every man does as he pleases; so 
 religion must give us the same privileges, 
 or an f easy yoke' has no meaning." 
 
 " Surely," said G. " this doctrine is^ 
 true Antiriomianism ; this really is to- 
 preach the doctrine of * faith without 
 'works.'" 
 
 " If not," said M. " it is to preach- 
 something worse. But tell me, Sir," he 
 proceeded, "if faith is- not to be felt, 
 and works are not to be practised, how, 
 in the name of common sense, are we to 
 be saved ?" 
 
 Instead of replying to this question, 
 this self-constituted guardian of religion, 
 feeling a somewhat unusual burden, like 
 Atlas, in similar circumstances, resolved 
 to get rid of it by thrusting it upon the 
 shoulders of another. Putting, there- 
 fore, a card into M.'s hand, " Honour, 
 
67 
 
 me, Sir,'' he said, " with a visit, and I 
 will introduce ycu to a man who has, 
 more than I have, made these matters his 
 study." With three strides the body 
 vanished. 
 
 " Are there then ministers," said Gus- 
 tavus, " who have not made these mat- 
 ters their study ?" 
 
 " Yes," said M. " in a nation" wbo 
 have no souls" 
 
CHAP. V. 
 
 THEY had given no express orders about 
 the time of dinner, but had confided 
 their fates to the keeping of Custom, the 
 only goddess of fashionable society. 
 
 Gustavus was astonished, that, at a 
 peried three hours after that assigned at 
 St. Foy for this great purpose of our 
 being, he could discover no herald even 
 of its approach. As he had risen at his 
 usual hour, and had forgotten the fact 
 which M. had mentioned, that this new 
 world did not quit their feathered graves 
 till five hours later, he could not conceal 
 his astonishment at this delay. 
 
 " This people without souls" said he, 
 " appear, however, to have unusual 
 powers of body." 
 
 " If that were true," said M. " it 
 would not be singular : for camels live 
 
69 
 
 Vithout water for many days; wolves 
 fast for a week." 
 
 They had finished their meal, when a 
 servant entered the room, and said, " I 
 
 have discovered a place of the kind YOU 
 
 / 
 
 mentioned." 
 
 " It is well," said M.; " we shall be 
 ready at the time." He quitted the room. 
 u I intend conducting you this even 
 ing, Gustavus, to a scene which you 
 might expect to wound your feelings 
 to a mad-house." 
 
 " I am confident that you will not 
 take me where I ought not to go." 
 
 " You have heard me condemn those 
 who hunt even in the straw of the ma- 
 niac, the food of an impertinent curio- 
 sity who darken the little crevice 
 through which alone light ever enters 
 his dungeon, by robbing him of his 
 only consolation, that of being unseen. 
 But such is not my intention. It is a 
 property of the madness which I desire 
 to show you, that it is careless of spec- 
 
70 
 
 tators ; nay, that it even desires them, 
 because it hopes, that, by gazing, others 
 may contract the same disease." 
 
 " Such malice is singular." 
 
 41 You will see that, in fact, they 
 have no malice, but that they only desire 
 for you what constitutes their happiness." 
 
 " Charity could do no more but what 
 is madness ?" 
 
 " Rather than define it, I will distin- 
 guish it from idiotism, with which also 
 some acquaintance may hereafter be use- 
 ful to us. An idiot thinks or acts un- 
 reasonably upon a reasonable idea : and, 
 viceversa, a madman thinks or acts reason- 
 ably upon an unreasonable idea *. An 
 idiot, for instance, supposes himself, as 
 he is, a man; but acts like any other 
 animal. A madman, on the contrary, 
 supposes himself, which he is not, an 
 emperor; but then he acts like an em- 
 peror." 
 
 * Vide Locke's Essay on Human Understanding. 
 
71 
 
 c< In what then are those mad whom 
 we are to see this evening ?" 
 
 " In this, that they suppose (which, 
 as men of O. is impossible) that they 
 have souls, and then, according to the 
 above definition of madness, act as 
 though they had souls. An inhabitant 
 of O. who, thinking he had a soul, should 
 act as though he had none, would, you 
 see, according to this rule, be neither 
 pure madman, nor pure idiot, but would, 
 in his own miserable person, comprehend 
 the qualities of both." 
 
 " Have these people any particular 
 jiame?" asked Gustavus. 
 
 "The most common," replied M. "is 
 that of Enthusiasts." 
 
 " What is the meaning 'of Enthu- 
 
 siasm r" 
 
 " Its proper meaning is an excessive 
 devotion of the mind to any particular 
 employment or opinion. This afflicted 
 people (as naturally their range of ideas 
 
7* 
 
 is small) have chained it to religion 
 alone." 
 
 " But surely I have seen the word in 
 some works applied as a term of com- 
 mendation ?" 
 
 " You have. According to the nomen- 
 clature of the world without souls-, en- 
 thusiasm in science is genius ; in vice, it 
 is spirit ; in religion, it is madness." 
 
CHAP. VI. 
 
 THEY quitted their hotel at the appointed 
 hour. G. walked the streets with eyes 
 dazzled by the flitting by of the birds of 
 dissipation, that were now in flocks upon 
 the wing. The carriages were innume- 
 rable. " These people of course," said he, 
 '* keep no commandment^ or the needless 
 employment of 'cattle' upon this day 
 would be impossible." 
 
 " You do them injustice. They keep 
 this branch of the commandments with 
 some limitation ; every thing is* allowed 
 a kind of repose but cooks and horses, 
 chairmen and mantua-rnakers, tailors, 
 publicans, and prime ministers. T 
 wants of bodies are numberless and vora- 
 cious when they have no soul to silence 
 their clamours ; like Esau, they will al- 
 
 E 
 
most barter heaven for a mess of pot- 
 tage." 
 
 " But have they no veneration for the 
 -sabbath?" 
 
 " Yes, out of respect to it they even 
 change the nature of their 'amusements. 
 The females select a church where all 
 genteel Christians resort, where the mu- 
 sic is good, and the preacher senti- 
 mental. The males, for the most part, 
 either travel or write letters." 
 
 " Did you not tell me," said Gustavus, 
 " that the park you showed me was in 
 much request on Sundays?" 
 
 " Yes," said M. " there the females 
 'font une promenade & voiture.' The 
 males select an adjoining row, and * font 
 ' une promenade a cheval." 
 
 " So that," said Gustavus, " women, 
 who yet would probably challenge to 
 themselves the title of amiable, do their 
 utmost, by forcing horses and servants 
 upon unnecessary employments, to de- 
 
75 
 
 fraud two beasts of their lawful rest, and 
 shut out two souls from heaven." 
 
 " True," said M. " At the hour of 
 dinner," he continued, " by a social li- 
 cense, not indeed strictly Protestant, the 
 Sunday seems to finish, and they as- 
 semble in large conventions to discuss 
 and to supply the wants of body" 
 
 " But did you not say that the places 
 of public amusement are shut ?" 
 
 " I did ; but this depends not upon 
 individuals, but upon the legislature; and 
 you will have endless occasion to remark, 
 that in no country is fashion so tho- 
 roughly at war with law." 
 
 " But how do you know that it is the 
 laws alone, and not the purity of the 
 people, which thus lock the doors of 
 public places r" 
 
 " Because, famished in public, they 
 increase the private meal ; the rout and 
 the concert, for one night, do the duty 
 of the playhouse and the opera, and pa- 
 trole the town for the security of the ge- 
 
 2 
 
76 
 
 neral dissipation. But here observe the 
 cunning peculiar to this species : these 
 meetings, as though names could conse- 
 crate things, are often sanctified with the 
 title of i Concerts of sacred Music.' ' 
 
 " And are what?" 
 
 " Concerts of music composed by per- 
 sons who had little religion, and sung 
 often by those who have less : fre- 
 quently without words; and if the words 
 be good, they lose their character by the 
 foreign lisp with which they are tor- 
 tured. Even this would not go clown, if 
 now and then an Italian sonnet did not 
 break the dulness of the word of God. 
 With this leaven the lump is palatable." 
 
 " I am confounded." 
 
 " You can conceive in. the mean time, 
 how, in the glare of this Italian sun, the 
 modest plant of devotion must flourish ; 
 how much this festive harmony resembles 
 those sighs over which the angels in 
 heaven are said to rejoice ; and how cor- 
 rect an image this assembly furnishes of 
 

 that which, formed of the spirits of the 
 just made perfect, shall to harps of 
 gold shout the glories of a crucified Re- 
 deemer." 
 
 " They have souls" said Gustavus, 
 " who shall be thus employed. But do 
 these people offer no vindication for 
 themselves ?" 
 
 " Yes ; and because some of them, as 
 we have seen, dabble in Holy Writ, they 
 pretend to find their vindication there. 
 It rests upon two phrases : ' Old things 
 ' have passed away :' ' What was binding 
 * upon the Jews, is not upon us/ As 
 though Heaven had not destroyed merely 
 the ceremonial law, but the moral also, 
 and were able to make that false to-day 
 which was true yesterday. Truth, it 
 should be remembered, is immutable ; 
 and the morals of this moment will bj 
 the morals of eternity. If this argument 
 fail, they have a scriptural ' corps de 
 ' reserve ;' ' the sabbath was wade for man, 
 ' and not man for the sabbath' As if, be- 
 
 E 3 
 
78 
 
 ,cause the Christian sabbath gave a man 
 liberty to be useful, it also allowed him 
 to be vicious or idle." 
 
 " There is a reading of this passage," 
 said G. " which Monboddo's system 
 would justify, and which would at once 
 set this people at ease 4 The sabbath was 
 ' made for monkies.' ' 
 
CHAP. VII. 
 
 1 IILY now approached the place of their 
 destination, and Gustavus found it with 
 all the exterior of a church. And such, 
 in fact, it was ; for M. had feared the ef- 
 fect of showing Gustavus, even in O. 
 only those preachers or places of worship 
 where the offices of religion were negli- 
 gently discharged. He who sees religion 
 only in bad company, will be tempted to 
 degrade it to the rank of its associates. 
 And he was well persuaded that the church 
 of O. supplied many clergy \vho would 
 dignify and adorn the principles they 
 profess. It was his object, therefore, on 
 the present occasion, to introduce him to 
 a minister of this character. But the 
 plan he had originally proposed to him- 
 self obliged him to veil his design under 
 
 E 4 
 
80 
 
 the pretended scheme of visiting a mad- 
 house. 
 
 " You are to keep in memory, then," 
 said he, as they ascended the steps, 
 ' that the madman may be perfectly con- 
 sistent with himself may be like the 
 perfect actor of an assumed character. 
 If the mind once admit the delusion that 
 he is what he appears to be, he may do 
 nothing to undeceive it. Only assume, 
 therefore, that the preacher and people 
 we are about to see have souls, and you 
 will perhaps discover nothing in them 
 unsuited to their circumstances;" 
 
 The preacher opened the service by 
 devoutly reading the noble Liturgy, to 
 which Gustavus had before listened with 
 so much satisfaction. It had several 
 properties remarkably calculated to at- 
 tract the young its eloquence, its bene- 
 rolence, and its cheerfulness. It was 
 precisely the language of children reve- 
 rently and affectionately addressing a 
 father. Gustavus heard it with deep 
 
81 
 
 attention; but was almost breathless with 
 impatience when the preacher, who had 
 so strongly interested him in merely of- 
 fering up the words of others, ascended 
 the pulpit to speak to the people in his 
 own. His countenance was very striking. 
 Time had, as it were, gently laid his hand 
 upon him ; so that the wrinkles on his 
 brow appeared to be simply those of age; 
 of age, that is, almost unmixed with 
 those of sorrow or care. They were like 
 the furrows of the winter field the meek 
 and honourable ornaments of a head sil- 
 vered with the frost of seventy years. 
 His eye might be said to bear a sort of 
 testimony to the truth of the revelation 
 on which it rested, indicating, by its still 
 vivid glance, how independent the soul 
 is of the body. There was something 
 in the general scene which reminded 
 Gustavus of the scriptural picture of 
 the dying patriarch blessing his children.* 
 The words from which he preached were 
 these: " Finally, my brethren, farewell; 
 
 E 5 
 
"'82 
 
 be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one 
 mind ; live in peace, and the God of 
 love and peace shall be with you." And 
 it soon appeared that this veteran soldier 
 of the cross, feeling the infirmities of 
 age, had determined to retire from the 
 public post he occupied, and that he was 
 now addressing his people for the last 
 time. Such circumstances were evidently 
 very favourable to the developement of 
 his sentiments and feelings. I do not 
 attempt, however, to give more than a 
 very brief sketch of either in this his- 
 tory. 
 
 He began by telling them that the 
 words which he had read contained a 
 wish for the welfare of the people to 
 whom they were addressed some ad- 
 vice to assist them in securing this wel- 
 fare and a promise to those who should 
 follow that advice. After which he thus 
 proceeded : 
 
 " The ' wish for their welfare ' is ex- 
 pressed in that single word 'farewell ; 
 
83 
 
 ' may you prosper, may the blessing of 
 ' God rest upon you !' And need I say, 
 my friends, how exactly that word ex- 
 presses my present feelings? The hus- 
 bandman desires that the grain he has 
 sown should spring up and ripen; the 
 builder, that the house should rise, of 
 which he has laid the foundation ; the fa- 
 ther, that'the child of his bosom should 
 grow up to manhood. You, then, are 
 
 the seed which I have sown you are 
 
 / 
 
 the temple which these feeble hands have 
 been endeavouring to rear you are the 
 children of this aged bosom. Therefore > 
 I say, farewell;' may you prosper; 
 may every cloud of heaven break in 
 blessings over your head; may the hand 
 of mercy never be closed ; may the star 
 which God has so long lighted up in 
 your path, neither go down, nor hide its 
 h >ly beam, till it has led you to the feet 
 of your Saviour there to bend the 
 knee and offer the tribute of a thankful 
 heart." 
 
 E 6 
 
. 
 
 84 
 
 Gustavus observed, that even this 
 simple wish found its way to the hearts 
 of the old man's hearers ; and that they 
 answered him by their tears. He thus 
 went on : 
 
 " The Apostle, however, loved the 
 people to whom he wrote too well to be 
 satisfied with bequeathing them merely 
 a general wish for their welfare. He 
 proceeds, in the next place, to tell them 
 what was necessary to secure it. And, 
 to this end, he first bids them strive to 
 * be perfect ;' that is, to complete or 
 ' perfect' the work of religion which 
 they had, by the aid of God, begun. And 
 thus would I say to you. The father 
 coulcl not be satisfied to see his child* 
 stand rooted in the feebleness and sickli- 
 ness of perpetual infancy. And it would, 
 indeed, bring my gray hairs with sorrow 
 to the grave, if I could believe that 
 these my children were likely thus to 
 disappoint my hopes, and prayers, and 
 labours. No, my friends ; ' be perfect :' 
 
 4 
 
85 
 
 you have, as I trust, laid the foundation 
 of your hopes in the great principles of 
 religion in a deep conviction of your 
 own guilt of the necessity of a Re- 
 deemer to atone for that guilt and of 
 the Spirit of God to raise our nature 
 from its ruined state : you regard the 
 world as the valley seen in the vision of 
 the Prophet scattered and defiled with 
 bones, the emblems of devastation and 
 death : and day and night you call upon 
 God to breathe over this scene of ruin, 
 and bid ' these dead bones live.' Go on, 
 then, I would beseech you, to erect upon 
 the basis of sound principles the super- 
 structure of a heavenly temper and prac- 
 tice : ' perfect' what is thus begun : fill 
 up the outline of the Christian character. 
 Add to religion, morality to the love of 
 Christ, the love of man to all that ho- 
 nours God, all that sweetens life, that 
 lights the aching eye, and cheers the 
 broken heart. You will find many who 
 are ignorant or wretched, lying prostrate 
 
86 
 
 in your path; O take care that you 'pass 
 * not by on the other side.' Nor excuse 
 your negligence of some duties by your 
 regard to others. There is a crown 
 which all the, servants of Christ shall, at 
 
 **""""* .7 1 ! ^i;^ JtoflJ 
 
 the last day, cast at the foot of his 
 throne : endeavour that in yours no 
 single gem shall be wanting, that all 
 shall be there which adorned the brow of 
 Christ himself. 
 
 " St. Paul next bids them 'be of good 
 1 conifort.' There are persons who, I know, 
 will tell you that religion is but ano- 
 ther name for melancholy. The Apostle, 
 however, describes it as a source of 'com- 
 1 fort.' And the address which was the 
 usual herald of our Lord's approach, 
 was, ' Peace be with you.' And O, my 
 friends, take it, if not upon far higher 
 authority, yet upon the authority of one 
 whom you have so kindly trusted for 
 fifty years of one who, at least, never 
 meant to deceive you, of one who, stand- 
 ing on the verge of heaven or hell, is 
 
87 
 
 not likely either to deceive or to be de- 
 ceived, that a life of religion is a life of 
 peace and joy. If I have not been quite 
 happy, it is because I have been far from 
 good. But even I, thank God, who has 
 rescued me from some of the vices of 
 the profligate and the worldly have felt 
 how happy those must be whose own 
 hand does not dash away the cup which 
 the mercy of God presents them. Even 
 I, at the base of the mountain, have 
 caught a ray of that beam of joy which 
 sheds perpetual sunshine on its top. The 
 good man melancholy ! What, can he be 
 melancholy whose happiness is bound up 
 with that of God himself; who, when he 
 lays his head on his pillow, feels that if 
 he dies in his bed he shall rise to glory ; 
 who ' knows that his Redeemer liveth,' 
 and that he shall * lead him by living 
 ' fountains of water, and wipe away all 
 * tears from his eyes?' Can he be melan- 
 choly, who, when the * sun shall be red 
 ' as blood, the stars fall from heaven, and 
 
88 
 
 ' the stoutest hearts fail for fear/ has the 
 command of God to lift up his head 
 with joy, because his redemption draweth 
 nigh who sees by the eye of faith, in 
 the air, in the seas, amidst the tumult of 
 war or the fires of persecution, the sign of 
 the Son of man the cross of Christ 
 the throne of his Master's triumphs and 
 his own who hears, as he bears on his 
 neck the iron yoke of self-denial and 
 humility, a voice which says, f To-day 
 4 shalt thou be with me in Paradise?' 
 
 " After this the Apostle proceeds to 
 point out a chief source of the ' comfort' 
 of which he has spoken ' be of one mind.' 
 And I feel it right to say, that no virtue 
 is more neglected, no pearl more trod- 
 den under foot, than the spirit here re- 
 commended. It seems too generally to 
 be taken for granted, that men must 
 of necessity widely differ. But why? 
 Has truth a multitude of faces, amongst 
 which every man is at liberty to 
 choose which he will? Have we not 
 
89 
 
 the same God the same Gospel the 
 same nature the same Spirit to teach, 
 and the same Saviour to die for us? Can 
 the ' God' who ' is love' delight in dis- 
 cord ? Is not the general feature of na- 
 ture harmony ? and shall man, the lord 
 of nature, he destitute of it? Shall all the 
 harps of heaven he, as it were, moved by 
 one hreath, touched by one hand, and 
 employed in one song and shall no echo 
 of the heavenly chorus be heard below? 
 * Be of one mind,' my friends. Desire 
 union, even though you cannot obtain 
 it. Supply your link to the golden 
 chain, though others refuse theirs. 
 I know that union cannot be forced 
 that you cannot compel each man to 
 bring his stone to erect the temple of 
 concord and charity. But endeavour to 
 lay the basis in humility and prayer in 
 humility 9 which may correct your own 
 judgment; and in prayer, which may se- 
 cure the direction of God; and, without 
 the sound of the hammer or saw, the 
 
90 
 
 edifice shall arise never to fall, because 
 on its walls are inscribed that ' charity' 
 that * never faileth.' One mind shall 
 animate all its worshippers; and that, 
 like the mind of God himself, be one 
 yast impulse to do good. 
 
 " The last advice of the Apostle is, to 
 ' live in peace' There may be those 
 from whom, notwithstanding every ef- 
 fort, you must differ, because they 
 differ from God. But, even with such 
 * you may live in peace.' They are in- 
 deed prodigal children, but still they 
 are the children of God. And it is not 
 for you to shut up your heart from those 
 who are welcome to the arms of our 
 common Father. 
 
 " Having thus taught them as Jie him- 
 self was taught of Heaven, St. Paul 
 goes on, by the high authority with 
 which he was invested, to promise the 
 blessing of God to those who received 
 his lessons ' live in peace,' he says, 'and 
 6 the God of love and peace shall., be with 
 
91 
 
 ' you.' How sublime is the title here 
 given to God ' the God of love and 
 * peace !' All love and peace then de- 
 scend from heaven. Discord is our 
 work harmony is His : ours are the 
 earthquake, and the wind that rends the 
 mountains His is the small still voice. 
 And this -God, he says, shall ' be with 
 'you' icitli you, not as he frowned from 
 behind the cloud of vengeance on the 
 impious hosts of Egypt not as he spake 
 amidst the thunders of Mount Sinai but 
 as with mitigated splendour he de- 
 scended in the temple of his chosen land, 
 to fill the mercy-seat, and proclaim the 
 promises of Heaven. My brethren, I 
 know of no circumstances on which this 
 assurance of the presence of God does 
 not shed a ray of hope and joy. This 
 star the missionary sees, as he roams over 
 the ocean, or climbs the dark mountain 
 of idolatry this shines on the cell, 
 and dries up the tear of the true penitent 
 this cheers the eye of the saint, even 
 
in that awful hour when the light of 
 day is ceasing to visit his eyes for ever. 
 And if I may venture to apply the sub- 
 ject to ourselves, this may well comfort 
 us under our present circumstances. The 
 feeble voice which has hitherto so imper- 
 fectly taught you, shall soon be silent in 
 the dust. But what if it is? I hear a 
 voice from heaven, saying, * Jam with 
 ' you to the end 5 ' 1 will never leave you 
 * nor forsake you. JJ 
 
 Something more the old man said 
 but too indistinctly to be heard. He 
 shed also a few tears -the last probably 
 he ever shed. His congregation felt all 
 their value ; and I doubt not they are 
 preserved by Him who counts and trea- 
 sures up the tears of the good. 
 
 Gustavus was much affected by the 
 scene, and instantly asked of M. whe- 
 ther, " amongst a people who had souls, 
 such characters as this preacher and his 
 followers might not be expected to 
 abound ?" 
 
93 
 
 " They might," saidM.; " for they 
 would know they had souls, which the 
 madman of O. only supposes." 
 
 " What, therefore, is madness in them, 
 would he religion in me, who have a 
 soul?" 
 
 "Assuredly/ 5 
 
CHAP. VIIL 
 
 " You will allow," said M., edging away 
 From some conversation which had em- 
 ployed them after breakfast, " that we 
 form most of our opinions of other* 
 from what we know of ourselves." 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 " You will admit, for instance, that 
 scarcely any argument would convince 
 an African, who had done nothing but 
 pant and scorch among his ebony com- 
 patriots under the suns of the line, that 
 there was a man as fair as you are." 
 
 " That is true." 
 
 "To carry this farther If a person 
 were to meet ^you, and to say, * Be as- 
 
 * sured, Sir, your pulse is at a hundred 
 
 * and twenty your skin is parched 
 
 * your tongue bleached your drought is 
 
 * insatiable and not only yours, but 
 
95 
 
 ' such is the state of many such is that 
 1 of the nation be blooded all, or you 
 4 perish' what should you conclude?" 
 
 " That he had a fever himself, and 
 therefore gave me credit for being in the 
 same condition." 
 
 " If then I could show you some of the 
 men of O. affirming publicly that other 
 men have no souls who assuredly have 
 arguing about them, and treating them 
 as though they had none, what would be 
 your conclusion ?'* 
 
 " That what our Spaniard imputes to 
 the Americans was true of these men 
 of O." 
 
 It was about two when M., in conse- 
 quence of this conversation, carried his 
 young companion to the house where the 
 representative senate of O. is assembled. 
 
 " A senate of this kind," said M. as 
 they walked, " is an assemblage of a few 
 men who are supposed to represent the 
 interests of the community." 
 
 3 
 
96 
 
 "Apparently then," said Gustavus, 
 " like the x and y of Algebra, not 
 always great in themselves, but some- 
 times respectable from their unknown 
 signification." 
 
 " These of course," continued M. 
 " among a people endowed with souls, 
 will be' carefully selected. In O. man is 
 but a body ; and therefore as Frederick^ 
 falsely called the Great, said of war 
 ' La guerre est dans les centres des 
 * soldats' Members sometimes grope 
 their way to the hearts through the appe- 
 tites of their constituents Merit, ac- 
 cordingly, often means strong beer in 
 the nomenclature of O." 
 
 It was some time before our travellers 
 could contrive (for the crowd) to squeeze 
 each an ear within a door, which dis- 
 played to their strained eyes the senate 
 of O. " Considering they are nothing 
 but bodies themselves," said G. " they 
 Blight have a little more respect for ours." 
 
97 
 
 <k You will find," answered M. "here- 
 after, that they have none for their own." 
 
 The dehate had hegun, and a speaker 
 was at that moment upon his legs. M. 
 had purposely concealed the subject of 
 discussion from Gustavus, as he was un- 
 willing that any part of the impression 
 it was calculated to communicate should 
 be \vasted. G.'s first employment, there- 
 fore, was to discover the object of the 
 speaker. Amongst the earliest words 
 which caught his ears were these : 
 " What grounds of complaint are there, 
 when twenty inches are allowed for the 
 stowage of each ?" " This must mean 
 bales of goods," said G, The crowd 
 was so great, and indignation or applause 
 rendered the assembly so clamorous, that 
 an interval elapsed befo another sen- 
 tence reached him. 
 
 At length said the orator, " They are 
 driven to a fair market, and sell accord- 
 ing to the condition in which they are.'* 
 " They must be live stock," thought 
 
 r 
 
9% 
 
 our hero. Again he listened : " The 
 colour of their skin, the flatness of the 
 forehead, the smallness of the under 
 jaw, their malignity, and their dulness, 
 create considerable douhts as to the spe- 
 cies in which they should be classed." 
 
 " They are monsters" said G. 
 
 There was another moment in which 
 nothing found its way to our auditors. 
 Truth, however, has lungs of iron, and 
 the concluding sentence of the harangue 
 echoed along the remotest walls. " The 
 days of chivalry let us be thankful-- 
 are gone, and those of sound wisdom 
 have succeeded. Expediency has assert- 
 ed her rights, and taught us, that what 
 is profitable alone is right. Let not 
 then a canting philanthropy go Quix- 
 oting for adventures upon the fields of 
 Humanity. If you tell us that cruelties 
 are exercised upon the parents, we give 
 this sufficient answer buying is cheaper 
 than breeding" 
 
 " It is no monster," thought G. " of 
 
99 
 
 eur hemisphere, for men would not dare 
 to justify such treatment of them by 
 such reasoning. Tell me," said he, 
 breathless with impatience, " is this man 
 (from his technical language) a butcher, 
 or a representative of butchers?" 
 
 " They are excluded," answered M. 
 " from the juries of O. Would they, 
 think you, be admitted into her senate?" 
 
 " Who is he then?" 
 
 " A friend, or a representative, of 
 slave-dealers." 
 
 11 Of what monster does he speak r" 
 
 " Of men of men who by birth arc 
 Africans, and whom frequently the most 
 complicated villainy makes slaves." 
 
 " Let me escape," said G. ; " I am your 
 convert." 
 
 " But stay," said M. " this trafficker 
 
 V ' 
 
 in blood will surely find an opponent." 
 One was found upon an opposite seat. 
 His eye testified that he had taken within 
 him the sacred resolution of not aban- 
 doning the cause till the arm should 
 
 F2 
 
100 
 
 wither which had so often attested its 
 truth. It said, and it had borrowed the 
 expressions at the lips of Him whftse 
 vicegerent in this cause he is, " I will 
 never leave thee, nor forsake thee." 
 
 " I ever meet you," he said, " upon 
 occasions such as these with the most 
 touching sorrow; for I blush that these 
 walls should echo to such a contest as 
 this. But my indignation gets the better 
 of my grief. If I were to be silent, the 
 stones would cry out. 
 
 " This night's discussion calls me and 
 my friends to a combat, where, I cannot 
 but think, we have been continually 
 victors. We wished originally to have 
 contended with you upon the vantage- 
 ground of religion, which forbids man 
 to enslave the creatures whom God has 
 made free. You taught us that religion 
 was to be interpreted by the maxims 
 of worldly policy. We next took the 
 field of justice, and dared you to show 
 by what rights you punished thase Who 
 
101 
 
 'had never offended. You convinced us, 
 that the justice of a trading community 
 is too often as remote from benevolence 
 as it is from dishonesty that it is mea- 
 sured by convenience, and guarded 
 by the hangman. We might have 
 touched the string of humanity, and have 
 called up the spirits of a million mangled 
 wretches to swell the tone of our com- 
 plaint; but we felt that those feelings 
 which resisted the plain statement of 
 our facts, would not bleed if men should 
 have arisen from the dead to attest their 
 sufferings. We have at length hunted 
 you to the entangled and dishonour- 
 able ground of policy, and have heard 
 how men could reason, who made this 
 principle the corner-stone of their system, 
 that virtue is not always virtue that 
 what is morally wrong can be politically 
 right. 
 
 " If we are intended to be taught by 
 this doctrine, that, in states, dishonesty 
 is the best policy, we would answer, that 
 
 F3 
 
such a sentiment is founded only upon a 
 narrow and beggarly view of the conse- 
 quences of human actions. It is an 
 universal law, that ' like begets tike,' and 
 consequently, evil must produce evil. 
 If, therefore, dishonesty may be profit- 
 able for a moment, still it must, on the 
 whole, be pernicious. The life of indi- 
 viduals is indeed so short, that it is some- 
 times left to eternity to correct the errors 
 of time, and men are there punished for 
 crimes perpetrated here. But the life of 
 states is long enough for crimes to pro- 
 duce their full fruits, and the political 
 sins of one century are therefore gene- 
 rally visited upon the people of succeed- 
 ing centuries. Besides, I would have 
 such reasoners consider, that though dis- 
 honesty may seem to strengthen the 
 hands of a nation, by putting for the 
 moment a new weapon into them, yet 
 other nations will soon feel themselves 
 privileged to use the same weapon; and 
 we shall get nothing but villainy when 
 
103 
 
 our competitors are equally villain*. 
 And still further though a bad prin- 
 ciple, applied by legislators to a parti- 
 cular end, may seem to profit us, yet it 
 is impossible to calculate the evil conse- 
 quences which may eventually spring 
 from the national recognition of such a 
 principle. Apply this to slavery. , They 
 who have acquired a kind of familiarity 
 with slavery are dangerous to freemen. 
 In whatever degree they influence the 
 legislative policy of their country, in 
 that degree their influence is mischievous ; 
 and since the effects of crimes can never 
 be definitely foreseen, we know not but 
 that those who have touched the awful 
 bulwarks of Liberty, may at length as- 
 sault her inmost citadel. But if those 
 who maintain ' that what is morally 
 ' wrong may be politically right/ mean 
 to teach us, that a nation is under no ne- 
 cessity of employing the same moral law 
 as individuals, I would then ask of 
 them What number constitutes a na- 
 
 F 4 
 
104 
 
 tion ; whether the interposition of a 
 mountain or a stream can change the 
 eternal rule of truth; whether nations 
 are not made up of men, and therefore 
 their duties are not the duties of the 
 individuals who compose them? It is 
 
 found in statics that systems of bodies 
 
 j 
 
 affect each other, as if they were re- 
 spectively collected at their centres of 
 gravity. It is equally true, that the 
 mutual relations of states should be regu- 
 lated by the same maxims which influ- 
 ence the mutual relations of individuals, 
 and that every system of public duty 
 should be founded upon the basis of 
 private morality. Justice is meant, in- 
 deed, to begin and to centre at home, 
 but she must grasp in her circumference 
 every point in the universe. Men are to 
 wield the sword for their own nation, but 
 they are to carry the scales for every 
 other ; and, in all questions of morality, 
 to give to every man the right hand of 
 brotherhood, as fellow-subjects of that 
 God who is the monarch of the world. 
 
105 
 
 " Instead of returning hypothesis for 
 hypothesis, we have argued from the 
 most stubborn and incontrovertible 
 facts*. You might have learned from us 
 
 O i 
 
 that the capital employed by this trade is 
 comparatively small f that in general it 
 is un profitably employed that many 
 channels are yet neglected where the 
 returns would be, at least, as certain, 
 as rapid, and as abundant J. You might 
 have learned that, at the most, it em- 
 ploys a trifling part of your navy that 
 no ship ploughs the African wave with- 
 out purpling her keel with the blood of 
 multitudes of her seamen . You have 
 been taught also, that a fresh importation 
 is unnecessary to maintain the stock of 
 
 their plantations. Nature would do the 
 
 
 
 work of this terrible commerce if you 
 would not thwart her operations ||. 
 
 " You might learn besides, that when 
 
 * See Note A, at the end of the volume. 
 
 f See Note 13. J See Note C. 
 
 See Note D. || See Note E. 
 
 F5 
 
W6 
 
 you enslave the bodies, you enslave also 
 all that is excellent in the nature of men. 
 You destroy their power and their will 
 to labour. Give them the hands of 
 freemen, and they shall teach you what 
 freemen can do. They will find heads 
 to conceive, and hands to execute, the 
 double of what is now wrung from them 
 by an angry despotism and screwing 
 avarice. 
 
 " It is a provoking circumstance, that, 
 far from yielding to our opinions, our 
 adversaries refuse to understand them. 
 Many political lessons are read us upon 
 the madness of taking the yoke from 
 those who only value liberty as a means 
 of licentiousness ; and who, if they are 
 free, will be barbarouslv free. But we 
 
 ' / 
 
 do not need such instructions. Whilst 
 we insist that the abolition of the traffic 
 should we complete and immediate, we 
 ask only for the gradual and measured 
 emancipation of those who are already 
 slaves. There is an infinite difference 
 between choking your prisons with no 
 
107 
 
 more captives, and rashly liberating 
 all who had been confined there. Your 
 prior conduct, indeed, best instructs us 
 why we must not be as generous as we 
 could be. It is one consequence of vice 
 to make virtue difficult; and our cruel- 
 ties have so degraded these poor crea- 
 tures, that they would probably lift the 
 hands we freed, against themselves and 
 us. Instant emancipation would resemble 
 the barbarous mercy of dragging those to 
 the light whose organs of sight were 
 previously weakened by the damps of a 
 dungeon. You must now, therefore, 
 deal out in successive drops the blessings 
 of freedom, when you might have open- 
 ed the floodgates of mercy upon half the 
 world. But whilst we plead only for 
 gradual emancipation, and ask you but 
 by degrees to file away the chains from 
 their bodies, we call upon you, without 
 a moment's delay, to force away those 
 which shackle their minds. It is know- 
 ledge and religion, which, when gene- 
 
108 
 
 rally diffused, constitute that pre-exist- 
 ent soul of liberty that will render prac- 
 tically free any form of government it 
 may animate. These temper liberty 
 where it is, and create it where it is not 
 " Such are the facts and opinions we 
 have stated. What is their effect ? You 
 have not confuted our arguments you 
 could not controvert our facts, but, with 
 a stubborn hostility, you have gathered 
 up and launched again the darts which 
 the shield of humanity had repelled. 
 Once more then we call upon you to 
 desist from what I cannot but name this 
 legalized butchery. We once more be- 
 seech you to gladclen the eye of Heaven, 
 by displaying to it in this island, one 
 spot at least in its creation, where this 
 detestable traffic is without a patron. 
 This is the last appeal we may be allowed 
 to make, or you to regard. The cause 
 of this miserable people has been, long- 
 enough, matter of cold speculation, or 
 cruel contempt; even now clouds have 
 
109 
 
 gathered, in the western hemisphere, 
 which threaten to burst over us in 
 showers of blood. Every day seems 
 big with the most awful prophecies, that, 
 if men any longer refuse to liberate 
 Africa, God at length will make her 
 free." 
 
 There was that in Gustavus which vi- 
 brated to every word that he uttered. 
 u Such a man," said he, " almost redeems 
 his countrymen from censure. Who is 
 he r" asked lie. 
 
 " An Enthusiast" answered M. ; " one 
 of our madmen a man, as they of O. 
 define it, who may, indeed, love God, 
 but certainly hates his fellow-creature." 
 
 " O for an atmosphere," said G. 
 " which would make such madness epi- 
 demic!'" 
 
 " Such an atmosphere," answered M. 
 " is the very breath of Heaven." 
 
 u The people of O. then possibly 
 could not live in it?" 
 
 " Not as they do live," said M. 
 
110 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 ' THE verses," said G. " which you re- 
 peated to me on your journey, were not 
 your own?" 
 
 " I told you," answered M. " that you 
 would never know their author. Love, 
 however, of every kind, and sorrow of 
 some kinds, dispose the mind to versify; 
 and the last made me a poet for the first, 
 and, with one exception, the only time 
 in my life." 
 
 G. was silent, for there was an ex- 
 pression in the countenance of M. which 
 showed him that he was endeavouring to 
 cast his cares upon the same bosom 
 where his child was laid. 
 
 " There, take the verses, my Gus- 
 tavus," continued M. "This you may 
 believe, that I have not adorned my child 
 
Ill 
 
 with qualities which did not belong to 
 him : there was in him a seed of piety 
 which promised every thing. One day I 
 saw him a wholesome plant his root 
 spread around him, and the dew lay upon 
 his branches I passed by, but his place 
 knew him no more. Take the verses ; 
 and if they show you that I am no poet, 
 they will, at least, convince you, that He 
 who took my child, had mercifully taught 
 me how to lose him. 
 
 * Yes thou art fled, and saints a welcome sing ; 
 
 * Thine infant spirit soars on angel wing : 
 
 ' Our dark affection might have hop'd thy stay, 
 
 * The voice of God has call'd his child away ; 
 
 * Like Samuel early in the temple found, 
 
 * Sweet rose of Sharon, plant of holy ground, 
 
 * O ! more than Samuel bless'd, to thee 't is given 
 
 * The God he serv'd on earth, to serve in heaven.'** 
 
 Gustavus had read these lines, and was 
 musing upon them, whilst M. sat plunged 
 in thought. At length said M. " I know- 
 no fitter opportunity than this of making 
 you acquainted with those circumstances 
 
of my life which drove me to St. Foy. 
 It has long been my wish ; and accident, 
 in the conversation we have had, has fur- 
 nished a kind of preface which makes 
 my task sit lighter on me. I must not, 
 however, dwell upon the minuter parts 
 of my story ; not that my memory 
 would fail me, for every moment as it 
 went has stamped some image of itself 
 upon my heart. But I willingly forget 
 them, or I should relate things which 
 would wound us both, without improving 
 either. I tell you this story, among 
 other reasons for this, that I am willing 
 to justify to you my retreat from the 
 active duties of life to the rocks of Swit- 
 zerland." 
 
 " It was a retreat," answered Gustavus, 
 " to which I owe so much, that I am not 
 very likely to condemn it." 
 
CHAP. X. 
 
 ' I SHALL not dwell," said M. " on the 
 early stages of my life. My situation 
 gave me rank, and most of those things 
 which men principally covet. My 
 mother was a second time married to 
 a person of distinction. They were 
 both, perhaps, of inferior talents ; and 
 both, but he particularly, paid a more 
 devoted homage to wealth than might be 
 expected from those who have long been 
 familiar with it. I had one sister, many 
 years younger than myself; she inherited 
 from her mother great personal endow- 
 ments but her mind was cast in a finer 
 mould than that of her parent. That 
 quickness, which is in some degree the 
 property of her sex, was eminently hers. 
 With an almost painful rapidity her 
 
114 
 
 winged thoughts roved from topic to 
 topic. I may say also, that she was 
 frank, constant, and affectionate. Qua- 
 lities such as these she had in common 
 with others ; but, alas ! she had a sensi- 
 bility which was all her own : it was dis- 
 eased and it was her ruin. Had this 
 sensibility been put under the control of 
 religion, I should have been less fearful 
 of its effect upon her happiness. But 
 when I saw acuteness of feeling cherish- 
 ed in her education, and piety wholly 
 neglected, I seemed to see, as it were, 
 the fillets put on, in which this sweet 
 victim was to be led to the slaughter. I 
 had, from my earliest years, felt strongly 
 on the subject of religion, and this cir- 
 cumstance, strange to say, had in a mea- 
 sure alienated the other members of my 
 family from me. My father and his suc- 
 cessor in my mother's love overlooked me 
 as one who refused the ambitious course 
 which they pursued : my mother feared 
 me as one who, in her career of dissipa- 
 
115 
 
 lion, haunted her as a kind of external 
 conscience. In her distresses, indeed, she 
 always sought a refuge in my arms. 
 With my sweet Emily, however " 
 
 " Was her name Emily ?" said Gus- 
 tavus. 
 
 " It was," answered M. " We both 
 love the name. With her I had some 
 influence, and, on many occasions, I em- 
 ployed it successfully, but against her 
 Sensibility always in vain. ' You must 
 ' learn, my Emily,' I have said, * either 
 4 to be a Stoic or to be a Christian. To 
 ' be a Stoic is to destroy the feelings, 
 * and of course to be in no danger from 
 ' them.' ' This,' she answered, ' is the 
 4 virtue of a coward.' ' To be a Chris- 
 ' tian,' I continued, ' is to give the heart 
 ' an object, at once so great and so pure, 
 ' that there is little danger, either of lov- 
 ' ing it too much, or loving it impro- 
 ' perly. Religion, without destroying 
 4 the feelings, controls and employs them 
 ' and thus, like the fabled transmuting 
 
1 power, turns all it touches into gold.' 
 ' If it did,' she said, c all the world would 
 ' be Christians. 5 Such conversations is- 
 sued differently. Sometimes all good 
 was borne away on the wings of an un- 
 conquerable levity. Sometimes she would 
 weep ; but then she would run from me, 
 to shed as bitter drops for an insect who 
 had crushed a limb, or a flower which 
 the wind had torn. My employments in 
 the army soon carried me out of the 
 kingdom, and I remained abroad more 
 than four years, I hurry over this inter- 
 val to describe the melancholy state in 
 which I found matters on my return. 
 The wheel of life had not waited for me, 
 but had carried away with it every relio 
 of domestic joy. Three months after I 
 quitted her she had thrown away the 
 jewel of her affections upon one of the 
 creatures who are too commonly found 
 in society. His person was fine; and in 
 his knowledge of the heart, and his 
 power to deceive it, he was inferior to 
 
117 
 
 none. In the catalogue of the world he 
 was a man of honour ; in the eye of 
 Heaven I judge him from his works 
 he was a villain. A tone of sentiment, 
 with which he well knew how to colour 
 his conversation, won the affections of 
 Emily. In her present situation, how- 
 ever, he could enjoy no more of his tri- 
 umph than to harass the heart which 
 he had gained. Some months hrought 
 an admirer of another character to her 
 feet, and whom her parents, distrusting 
 the intentions of the first, solicited her 
 to marry. For half a year she resisted; 
 she wept, she prayed. It was in vain. 
 Every domestic manoeuvre was played 
 off to make a vicious sensibility take the 
 
 
 
 part of parental authority, and she at 
 length yielded a breaking heart to her 
 mother's desires. This mother led her to 
 the altar, like the Grecian princess*, a 
 sacrifice to a parent's follies. The head, 
 
 * Iphigenia. 
 
us 
 
 in minds such as hers, is ever the dupe 
 of the heart, or Emily would have 
 known, that though such authority may 
 deny, it cannot oblige ; though it could 
 prevent her from marrying where, they 
 thought, it would not make her happy, 
 it could not force her to marry where 
 she had reason to believe it would ren- 
 der her miserable. For a short time, the 
 steady efforts of a husband to give her 
 pleasure, the gaieties into which he plung- 
 ed her, and the witcheries of novelty, 
 had their effect ; and she was about half 
 as happy as she might have been in the 
 society of a man she loved. Another 
 month, and every eye saw the star of 
 her happiness begin to set. She was a 
 sickly plant the airs of heaven were 
 too rough for her, and the suns of heaven 
 too faint she wanted a heated and arti- 
 ficial soil, and had not found it. Her 
 husbaad was sensible, but he was some- 
 what dull ; he was in love, but not with 
 her folljes ; he was without vice, but 
 
 3 
 
119 
 
 then he was also without romance. He 
 bad heard from her before their marriage 
 the candid history of her own feelings, 
 and had told her that * a part of her heart 
 ' Was better than the whole of another's; 
 1 and that a never-failing love would win 
 from her the little she withheld.' Such 
 afrection, it is true, in a well-disciplined 
 mind will sometimes accomplish its ob- 
 ject ; but he who had never studied in 
 
 the school of sensibility could have no 
 
 / 
 
 conception of the mighty and mysterious 
 working of a heart like hers. The re- 
 sources of dissipation are poor, and he 
 soon saw her eye sicken at the painted 
 bubbles with which he had supplied it. 
 He was without religion, and therefore 
 could not warm her heart with that flame 
 which expels every unhallowed fire. In 
 her virtue, however, he placed an unlimit- 
 ed confidence, and, with a rash genero- 
 sity, he resolved to restore her peace by 
 the sacrifice of his own. He invited to 
 his house T , the person of whom I 
 
120 
 
 spoke, and who still, from the den of his 
 debaucheries, kept the eye of a tiger on 
 his prey. He came ; her old fires re- 
 kindled the eye again was lighted the 
 cheek flushed the nerve strung and 
 her husband saw her all he wished her 
 but not for him. The effect of this ex- 
 periment soon appeared : he had hoped 
 merely to restore her spirits, but had re- 
 vived her love. Concealment on either 
 side was impossible. He was too fond 
 to bear a rival ; and she too ingenuous 
 to pretend an affection which she now 
 felt less than ever. They agreed there- 
 fore to part ; and she resolved, in future, 
 
 to see neither T nor her husband ; 
 
 or to receive them only among the 
 crowd. Soon, however, T was sin- 
 gled from it, and scandal imputed to her 
 the crime she had not committed. She 
 was deserted, and what was scandal be- 
 came truth. Too young in guilt not to 
 be shocked at her situation, she at once 
 saw her crime in its darkest colours. She 
 4 
 
121 
 
 had a child, of which T was the fa- 
 tl>er ; and, perhaps, for a moment forgot 
 her crimes in the tumults of a mother's 
 love. But, with this companion, she 
 might by degrees have become reconciled 
 to her offence, and Heaven, in mercy, 
 took it from her. It was at this moment 
 
 T also forsook her ; he had plucked 
 
 the fruit, and then tossed this rifled and 
 withering branch to the burning which 
 awaited it, My wife and child had long 
 l>een dead, and therefore Emily, as to hu- 
 man things, was all in all to me. She 
 was that little bark which I meant to 
 pilot through tl>e perilous seas of life. I 
 had felt, therefore, during my residence 
 abroad, a sort of sickness of the heart 
 till I could see this darling sister. Picture 
 to yourself then the moment when I land- 
 ed, unacquainted with the events of more 
 than two years. At every point I met a 
 dagger ; for every hint or question was 
 answered by a crimson fact. I hastened 
 to a cottage which she occupied, and 
 
 G 
 
her rush, almost a spectre, into my arms. 
 Could I thrust her from me? Shocked 
 and contrite, she fell from my neck to my 
 feet. As her fine hair curled about my 
 legs, I remembered a sacred picture 
 which resembled this, and which seemed 
 to mingle a ray of hope with my despair. 
 It softened also the severity of my an- 
 ger. You must conceive what followed. 
 " In subsequent conversations, I soon 
 discovered the value of those principles 
 \vith which, in her earliest years, I had 
 endeavoured to make her acquainted. 
 They are often like stars, whose fires 
 seem quenched for a time, but which, 
 some round in the wheel of nature re- 
 stores. At first I did not attempt to 
 check her sorrow, but rather opened fresh 
 avenues for it. I remember saying to 
 her, * It is indeed dreadful, Emily, that 
 4 you should have dishonoured your fa- 
 * mily blasted your reputation burst 
 * one of the most sacred bonds by which 
 'fcoc.ety is held together; that you 
 
123 
 
 < should have given your example to the 
 
 * cause of vice : but this is a small part 
 
 * of the evil you are at enmity with 
 
 * God, you have pierced the side of 
 : Him who died for you.' She would 
 answer me by one of those tumultuous 
 sobs, which are the expressive language 
 of a broken heart. ' Penitence/ I added, 
 
 * requires more than a tear or a sigh. 
 You must grieve indeed, and with a 
 grief measured by the purity of that 
 
 t God whom you have offended : but this 
 4 is not all. You must pray, Emily, and 
 ' pray in that language so congenial to 
 
 i J CJ C7 O 
 
 * u troubled soul " Spare me, good 
 
 * Lord ; spare me, whom thou hast re- 
 
 * deemed with thy most precious blood, 
 
 * and be not angry with me for ever !'* 
 
 * And finally, you must strive to live in 
 1 the spirit of your prayers lest you 
 
 * " resolve, and re-resolve, and die the 
 
 * same." Such penitence, and such 
 4 alone, is acceptable to God.' After 
 these conversations I could see some* 
 
 08 
 
124 
 
 times despair extinguish every other 
 feeling; and sometimes the beams of 
 hope dry up the tears of despondency, 
 
 " I must not dwell, Gustavus, upon 
 our subsequent meetings, but hurry on 
 to t\ie period which shut her from the 
 world for ever. I may tell you, how- 
 ever, that the Most High so touched her 
 heart, by the agency of his Spirit, that I 
 cannot doubt her tears are registered in 
 heaven. For nine months I watched her 
 through the stages of an unremitting 
 penitence. She was humbled to the 
 dust she trod on ; the asking eye con- 
 tinually informed me where the heart 
 was prostrate ; the subject of her hourly 
 lamentation was, that she could not 
 make any reparation for the wrongs she 
 had done. ' Do you try to repair them, 
 4 my brother/ she said, ' by holding me 
 'up as a beacon to others.' t God/ I 
 answered, ' will, I hope, repair them by 
 1 making the warn ing effectual.' 
 
 " During the many months I spent 
 
125 
 
 with her I saw her health visibly decline. 
 I took her to sea, in hopes that some 
 breeze of the Atlantic might cany heal- 
 ing in its wings. But if the body lan- 
 guished, the soul appeared daily to be 
 shaking off its incumbrances. The 
 smile of religion seemed now to banish 
 its tears. At this period I cannot de- 
 scribe to you the moments of solemn 
 joy and of soft melancholy we passed 
 together; when, with minds tuned to 
 each other, we used to contemplate those 
 scenes of nature which call up our better 
 feelings. There was something in her 
 sight which sanctified the scenes over 
 which it wandered. Hurrying over pre- 
 sent things, she ever borrowed some 
 touches from futurity to give them a 
 celestial colouring. Some of these 
 moments were deeply affecting. It was 
 once, on a summer's evening, when she 
 hung upon my arm, and opened her 
 languid forehead to the fresh breeze, 
 that she watched the sun sinking upon 
 
 G 3 
 
126* 
 
 . 
 
 the breast of the waters. I shall never 
 forget the tumultuous emotion with 
 which she pointed to the setting orb, and 
 fastened her full eyes upon me. I was 
 too intimate with her mind not to feel 
 her melancholy meaning. 
 
 " Wearied with motion, she express- 
 ed a desire to be carried into Switzer- 
 land. We did not reach St. Foy. In 
 less than a month I was called to her 
 dying bed. Her disorder had little im- 
 paired her beauty; for consumption had 
 shed its hectic ray upon her cheek, and 
 her eyes had that kind of artificial 
 brightness which often precedes death. 
 I could have almost thought her frame 
 that incorruptible body which is to be 
 the soul's last covering. The alarms 
 which had hitherto haunted her, seemed 
 now to have left her for a more celestial 
 inhabitant. She spoke with a holy con- 
 fidence of frer forgiveness ' He has 
 
 * borne our sorrows' by his stripes ' we 
 
 * are healed.' c If grief,' she added, ' has 
 
127 
 
 ' any part in moments such as these, it is 
 * because I must leave you but I seem to- 
 ' feel that it is not for ever.' This thought 
 had called the last tear to her eye we 
 wept and we prayed together. One 
 hand rested upon the book of God it 
 was opened at the page where the history 
 of another penitent is found. * Is it not 
 4 written,' she attempted to say, * Neither 
 ' do I condemn thee?' Her lips closed upon 
 the words. It is, sweet spirit and 
 thou art ' gone, to sin no more. 9 
 
 11 This is not all. A scene of horror 
 was still to be transacted upon this dark- 
 ened stage. I crossed the seas with all 
 that now remained to me of this once 
 cherished sister, and I then accompanied 
 the body to the burying-place of her 
 fathers. It was on my journey thither, 
 that a servant gallopped up to the pro- 
 cession, and asked to whom it belonged. 
 He rode with us till we met a carriage. 
 I saw upon it a ducal coronet, and stop- 
 ped instinctively. * Who is it? said 
 
 G 4 
 
J28 
 
 some one that had shrunk with a kind of 
 superstitious dread within. The servant 
 told him. At once a hand darted 
 through the window, and the man re- 
 ceived a violent blow upon his breast. 
 * Villain, you lie ; ask again' The man 
 said, ' I have asked : it is Lady Emily. 9 
 -No answer succeeded, but in its 
 place, that wild and ferocious laugh by 
 which madness tells it has not a tear to 
 shed. He became frantic. It was T. 
 Heaven had crazed the brain which had 
 conceived this mischief, and he stood, 
 like some oak which the lightning 
 scathes, the gloomy monument of its 
 hallowed indignation. His furies have 
 never quitted him, but for moments, in 
 which he might again learn his guilt, and 
 again bleed for it. 
 
 " I have little more to add. My con- 
 stitution was shattered by my eastern 
 campaigns, and the scenes which suc- 
 ceeded rendered me unfit for society. I 
 have often told you, my Gustavus, of 
 
129 
 
 the manner in which your dying father, 
 a soldier and a Christian, gave you into 
 my hands* It is in a bloodless field he 
 reaps his laurels. The heart has a 
 mournful satisfaction in familiarizing 
 itself with its own sorrows, and in 
 Switzerland 1 knew they would meet me 
 at every step. I therefore carried you 
 thither, and excused my absence from a 
 world which I could not serve, by my 
 devotion to you whom I could. You 
 must teach them that they have not 
 been wronged by my desertion." 
 
 There was no reply. 
 
 M. said, as he rose to quit the room, 
 "I told you I was more than once a 
 poet. These verses are on her tomb : 
 
 " Weep not for us, thou sainted child of light : 
 
 No shade of woe shall dim thy bright abode : 
 Our raptur'd eye hath trac'd thine upward flight; 
 
 Faith pierc'd the veil, and pointed to thy God, 
 11 Nor vain the vision if unhallow'd joys, 
 
 By vice illura'd, the truant heart inflame, 
 Thy name, Emilia, shall the small still voice 
 
 Of conscience whisper, and a soul reclaim. 
 
 G 5 
 
130 
 
 * God of Elijah, to thy servants give, 
 As erst, the robe which joy'd the prophet's eye ; 
 
 O ! from her sorrows let us learn to live, 
 O ! from her triumphs let us learn to die," 
 
131 
 
 CHAP. XL 
 
 SOME days elapsed before they renewed 
 their inquiry. It was one morning that 
 M. lifted his eyes from those daily prints 
 in which constitutions and fortunes are 
 pressed upon the people of O. and in 
 which any little character they may 
 chance to have is taken away, with this 
 remark " These people are very inge- 
 nious. Ingenuity, in great part, consists 
 in fitting means to ends. Now, a main 
 object with them is the extirpation of 
 that species of madness, which, as you 
 said, amongst a people with souls, would 
 gain the name of religion. And their 
 ingenuity is shown in the means employ- 
 ed by them to accomplish this end." 
 
 " What are these means?" asked Cu&- 
 tavus. 
 
 c6 
 
132 
 
 n They are innumerable ; but they 
 have one school, or rather hospital, ap- 
 propriated to it." 
 
 " Show me something of its nature." 
 
 " The first great object of the con- 
 ductors is to secure the delusion of those 
 who enter it; and, as names are always 
 found to govern weak minds, they some- 
 times entitle it, 'The School of Virtue." 
 
 " They mean, I suppose, the virtue 
 of O." 
 
 " Which, to be sure," said M. " is 
 little better than another name for vice. 
 But this," he continued, " is not the 
 only advantage they take of the infir- 
 mities of those with whom they have to 
 deal. It is known, for instance, that 
 this people always think themselves safe 
 if they are doing what others do. The 
 hospital therefore is so constructed as to 
 admit a number of patients at the same 
 moment. Again you are to remember, 
 that this is a kind of moral cure to be 
 practised upon a half-reasoning animal. 
 
133 
 
 In such a creature, the influence of the 
 senses is without limit. It is to these, 
 therefore, the managers chiefly address 
 themselves. The ear is supplied with 
 impure songs, and the eye with licen- 
 tious dresses." 
 
 " May not this," said Gustavus, " have 
 another advantage? As the hite of the 
 tarantula is cured by music, so the bite 
 of this madness, or religion, may have 
 its remedy, in a strong infusion of the 
 fine arts, thus adulterated, taken the last 
 thing going to bed." 
 
 " I ought to tell you," said M. " that, 
 relying on that influence of names which 
 I have mentioned, they call their dif- 
 ferent movements and operations in the 
 eyes of the patients, ' holding the mirror 
 ' up to nature! And, indeed, this is in 
 some degree tAie, But then they take 
 special care to select some of nature's 
 worst specimens for this exhibition. 
 They rake society to the very dregs to 
 produce objects for the entertainment of 
 
134 
 
 eyes perhaps hitherto unsullied by scenes 
 of vulgarity and vice; they show na- 
 ture naked, in short, to many who 
 would otherwise have seen her only clad 
 in the decent dresses of civilized society. 
 I need not tell you, that a familiarity 
 "with vicious scenes and characters is 
 seldom profitable. Man does not want 
 to be taught how bad he may be. He 
 who generally finds himself above par, 
 will soon think himself privileged to 
 grow worse; and he who continually 
 looks into the mirror reflecting nothing 
 but bad faces, is not unlikely to deem 
 himself handsome enough whilst he has 
 a single feature better than the rest." 
 
 " Every fact," said Gustavus, " in the 
 account of this people makes the hypo- 
 thesis of their having no souls more pro* 
 bable, by always proving them to have 
 some quality in common with animals 
 which certainly have no soul. It is said 
 of the chameleon, I believe, that it takes 
 the colours of whatever object it looks on ; 
 
135 
 
 and, like it, these people seem, by your 
 account, no sooner to look on vice than 
 they become vicious." 
 
 " The next point at which they aim," 
 continued M. " is to prepare the patient 
 for the reception of their own drugs, by 
 the removal of some impediments which 
 his nature or his habits may have intro- 
 duced. Such are, his prejudices about the 
 character of God; his respect for virtue, 
 and his hatred for vice, as such : in males, 
 the spirit of charity ; in females, the love 
 of modesty. We must separately examine 
 the wards in which these several opera- 
 tions are carried on." 
 
 " Can there, then," said Gustavus, 
 " be more than one conception of the 
 character of God?" 
 
 " Without doubt," answered M. " if 
 every one consults his fancy instead of 
 his Bible. The Greeks had sixty thou- 
 sand gods, most of whom had qualities 
 for which a man would, in modern days, 
 have been hanged. One ward then is 
 
employed to physic down those notions 
 about God, which their ancestors and 
 their Bibles had bequeathed to the people 
 of O. Now mark the process. A com- 
 pany of intellectual physicians is engaged, 
 who make use of all the artifices of dress, 
 gesture, action, and elocution, to instil, 
 the necessary doctrines." 
 
 " Is it ever found," asked G. " that 
 these lecturers become converts to the 
 doctrines they deliver?" 
 
 " It is," replied M. " Their lives too 
 commonly attest the sincerity of their 
 
 / * 
 
 conversion. Biographers record the vir- 
 tues of any one of them, as they would 
 the health of a man who, alone of hun- 
 dreds, should have escaped the devasta- 
 tion of a plague. 1 am unacquainted 
 with the history of an individual among 
 them which proves him to be a devout 
 man. And, as to the mass, they are said 
 to be among the most dissolute charac- 
 ters in O." 
 
 " Fit teachers, to be sure," said Giis- 
 
 3 
 
137 
 
 tavus, " for a School of ' Virtue.' It is, 
 however, plain, that, if the lecturers had 
 souls, they would have too much regard 
 for them to engage in such a profession ; 
 er, if the people had souls, they would 
 have too much humanity to encourage 
 them." 
 
 " But let us return," said M. : " these 
 lecturers violate the dignity of the Most 
 High, by taking his name in rain, and hy 
 scoffing at his laws. Nor is this enough 
 they not only thus tear God from his 
 throne, but they place an idol in it. 
 Love is made the divinity of the place. 
 One of them, for instance, thus addresses 
 a procuress : * Thou angel of light, let 
 * me fall down and adore theeV They 
 demand the homage for this idol which 
 fhould be rendered to Heaven. ' Men/ 
 said one of these priests of Venus, * are 
 ' generally hypocrites or infidels ; they 
 1 pretend to worship, but have neither 
 
 * The Relapse. 
 
138 
 
 ' faith nor zeal : how few, like Valentine, 
 * would persevere unto martyrdom * !' 
 Woman, indeed, according to this theo- 
 logy, is the real heaven of man. We find 
 a worshipper of this altar r in a fit of de- 
 votion, thus addressing a female : 
 
 * There 's in you all that we believe of Heaven 
 
 * Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, 
 
 * Eternal joy, and everlasting lovef.' 
 
 It has joys also so exquisite at its com- 
 mand, that the happiness of Heaven, in 
 some concentrated or condensed shape, 
 alone can equal them. It was of a single 
 kiss, for example, one Bellamour pro- 
 nounced, ' Eternity was in that moment J.' 
 This love also grasps and will hurl the 
 thunders of futurity. ' My soul/ says 
 -a very high authority among them, ' de- 
 f spairs to be forgiven, unpardoned, love, 
 6 by thee.'" 
 
 "These physicians get their diplomas^ 
 
 * Love for Love. f Venice Preserved. 
 J Old Bachelor* The Stranger. 
 
139 
 
 I suppose/' said Gustavus, " from Pa- 
 phos." 
 
 " Let us go on," said M. " to another 
 ward. In this it is intended to relieve 
 the patient from any troublesome relic 
 of the love of virtue, or hatred of vice, 
 which may have survived the fall. In a 
 world without souls ridicule is a natural 
 test of truth. The first attempt, there- 
 fore, of the orators in this department is 
 to make virtue ridiculous. For this pur- 
 pose, they conjure up a parson who is 
 a glutton, or a pedant, or a miser. The 
 great object in these fictitious characters 
 is to wed hypocrisy, meanness, and folly 
 to religion. The eye of the patient, once 
 familiarized with these shadows, ever 
 afterwards identifies, or at least asso- 
 ciates the qualities thus forcibly con- 
 nected with each other." 
 
 " Habit," said G. " had in like manner 
 led me always to associate a human shape 
 and soul, till you taught me better." 
 
 " To lessen the hatred of vice," cou- 
 
tinned M. " an operation of the same 
 ward, they adopt two methods. They 
 make the most amiable qualities its inse- 
 parable allies; and they make it success- 
 ful whenever it takes the field. If, for 
 instance, the personage is debauched, 
 they give him generosity ; if a spend- 
 thrift, good humour; if a liar, good 
 temper; if vindictive, successful courage. 
 The spectators naturally both learn to 
 value the bad qualities for the sake of the 
 good ones associated with them ; and to 
 deem success an unequivocal proof of 
 merit" 
 
 " On this ground," said Gustavus, 
 " men ought to embrace a carcass for the 
 sake of the spices with which it is em- 
 balmed; and should acknowledge the 
 religion of Mahomet to be the true reli- 
 gion, because it has more disciples than 
 that of Christ. But you have yet to tell 
 me how they attempt to destroy, in males 
 the spirit of charity, and in females the 
 love of modesty." 
 
141 
 
 44 They are the works of different di- 
 visions," answefed M. ; " but I can de- 
 scribe the process in a breath. A physi- 
 cian in buskins undertakes the first, and 
 usually accomplishes it by exalting bold 
 revenge into a virtue. As to Modesty, it 
 commonly falls a victim to a singular 
 property of the place. The cause of it is 
 as entirely concealed as the cause of gra- 
 vitation but as soon as the female 
 patients enter the building, however 
 much they blush at home, they rarely or 
 never seem to blush. Here any thing 
 may be said or done in their presence. 
 The sun of decency seems from that 
 moment to have set upon them, and to 
 colour the cheek with its glowing hues 
 uo longer. The lecturer of course suc- 
 cessfully avails himself of this circum- 
 stance." 
 
 " But such ail attempt," said Gustavus, 
 " must surely be of momentary opera- 
 tion r" 
 
 " On the contrary," answered M. " it 
 
142 
 
 has a permanent influence. The eye for 
 ever after is apt to confound or mistake 
 every object it sees. ' Licentiousness/ 
 for instance, is mistaken for t spirit/ and 
 6 a reformed rake' is coveted as ' the best 
 < husband.' " 
 
 " As if," said G. "it did not require 
 more spirit to do right than wrong; and 
 as if he who is perhaps but half cured is 
 likely to be stronger than he who, never 
 was ill." 
 
 " I should tell you," continued M. 
 " another end which is accomplished in 
 this edifice. The rulers of O. think, that 
 of all aristocracies that of virtue is the 
 worst, and therefore hasten to blot out 
 those distinctions which used to separate 
 the good from the bad. In the hospital 
 accordingly all sorts of people are huddled 
 together the good and bad are equally 
 welcome, and meet here to laugh and to 
 cry in company." 
 
 " The scene," said Gustavus, " must 
 resemble the face of a chess-board, black 
 
143 
 
 and white, prostitution and innocence, 
 drunkenness and philosophy, the swindler 
 and the tradesman, mingled in monstrous 
 confusion/' 
 
 " Yon see," added AI. " the ad vantages 
 which result from this, to the object at 
 which the governors aim. Vice soon 
 begins to hold up her head, when she 
 finds herself exalted to the same rank 
 with Virtue; and Virtue learns to despise 
 herself, when she is reduced to the same 
 level with Vice. Fellow-citizens, there- 
 fore, of this unnatural republic, they 
 soon shake hands." 
 
 " Is this institution," asked G, " new 
 to the world ? v 
 
 " It is the height of dexterity," an- 
 swered M. " to employ those instruments 
 for the cause of evil which have been 
 sanctified hy their employment in the 
 cause of good. It was thus that the 
 Prince of Cheats used Scripture on a 
 memorable occasion. This institution 
 originally in the hands of the Greeks, 
 
144 
 
 was made a vehicle of praise to the 
 gods." 
 
 " Perhaps it is still," said Gustavus, 
 " to the same gods." 
 
 " It was found, however, impossible," 
 continued M. " to employ it in the ser- 
 vice of virtue, and it was therefore con- 
 demned by the first of Grecian law- 
 givers*. Rome refused it a place within 
 her walls, till the same nianf, in one 
 moment, sheathed his sword in her li- 
 berty and in her virtue. I have only 
 one fact to add. During the progress 
 of the most ferocious revolution which 
 ever shocked the face of heaven, these 
 hospitals in a single city of a neighbour- 
 ing country multiplied from six to 
 tweny-five. Now one of two conclu- 
 sions follows from this: either the spirit 
 of the tfmes produced the institutions, 
 or the institutions cherished the spirit of 
 the times." 
 
 41 This would go to prove then," said 
 * Solon. f Pompey. 
 
145 
 
 Gustavus, "that they are either the pa- 
 rents of vice, or the offspring of it." 
 
 " Will you, Gustavus," asked M. "visit 
 this place? You are perhaps cased h\ 
 your principles from all danger?" 
 
 " I may be so,'* replied G.; " hut even, 
 if I might safely hare my bosom to the 
 blast, should I, by my example, do my 
 utmost to tempt a thousand hectic 
 wretches to the same experiment?" , 
 
 " You are right, Gustavus.' 1 
 
 " And so," said Gustavus. " I begin 
 
 7 O 
 
 to think, is Monboddo. But can you 
 not conceive the stage, for this is your 
 hospital, I perceive, among a people 
 with souls, so regulated as to minister to 
 the wants of the soul ?" 
 
 " In theory I can; but every experi- 
 ment contradicts the hope. I fear the 
 stage has never improved the morals of 
 a people. Either the temptation of gain 
 lias led the writers of plays to accommo- 
 date their sentiments to the worst feelings 
 
 o 
 
 of our nature ; or the characters of the 
 
 H 
 
actors have been such as to defeat the 
 operation of better sentiments. It is 
 incredible that either the actors or their 
 speeches shouH reform the age ; when, 
 with very rare exceptions, both fall be- 
 low the standard of ordinary morality. 
 When I say this, Gustavus, you must 
 not think that I am either an enemy to 
 recreation, as such or that I undervalue 
 that which is afforded by fine acting. 
 As to the first, I am persuaded that re- 
 creation is necessary to fallen man. And, 
 as to theatrical representations, I can 
 conceive scarcely any thing more calcu- 
 lated either to display the genius of man, 
 or to captivate his imagination. Such is 
 the gratification they "bestow, and such 
 the benefit which, if consecrated to a 
 right end, they might impart, that I 
 could heartily wish the wise and the 
 pious would bend all their faculties to 
 discover whether it is impossible to ren- 
 der that innocent and useful which is so 
 delightful" 
 
147 
 
 CHAP. XIL 
 
 IT is long, gentle reader, since I have 
 addressed myself particularly to you; 
 and so occupied am I with Gustavus, 
 that I should have even now gone oa 
 quietly with his story, if a peculiar sus- 
 picion had not occurred to me. 
 
 Since that Jewish law was done away, 
 which forbad any man to intermarry 
 with another family, the genealogical 
 trees of society have become exceedingly 
 confused. It is possible, therefore, that 
 some drop of the blood of O. may roll in 
 your own veins and if so, that you 
 are anxious for an additional proof that 
 you have no soul. I will endeavour to 
 satisfy you upon this point. Such 3 
 proof indeed (though I should be sin- 
 cerely sorry to know it was) may be of 
 
148 
 
 great moment to you; for, without it, 
 to live as you do live, and be either safe 
 or happy, may be quite impossible. 
 
 To satisfy, then, any qualms of con- 
 science you may feel, I beg to ask why 
 you should think human bodies must 
 have souls ? Epimenides, a Cretan, tells 
 us he had a power of dismissing and re- 
 calling his soul ; which shows, you will 
 allow, that he had. a power of doing, at 
 least for a time, without it. Is the ve- 
 racity of Epimenides questioned? I 
 answer, He was a Cretan. 
 
 Again, St. Anthony says he saw his 
 own soul ascend to heaven and descend 
 to earth again, and this continually. 
 Will any one question St. Anthony's 
 authority? I answer, He is a Popish 
 Saint. 
 
 Once more, one J. Browne wrote a 
 book upon a controverted topic, which 
 he dedicated to a queen of O. entreating 
 her " royal prayers for himself a man 
 without, a rational soul." If I am told 
 
U9 
 
 that this man was mad, I reply, That is 
 quite impossible, for He wrote a booh 
 upon a controverted topic. 
 
 Fourthly, a certain German, the idol 
 of metaphysicians, has determined tho 
 soul to be made up of such qualities, that 
 if there be no other soul but such as he 
 describes, we may rest assured there are 
 no such things as souls. Some will re- 
 mind us that this very German* for the 
 two last years of his life conceived him- 
 self a goose, and that therefore he may 
 have been one long before that period. 
 I answer simply, He was the idol oj' me- 
 taphysicians. 
 
 Again, another philosopher, a profes- 
 sor, and an inhabitant of Rostock, affirms 
 that his soul and body have no sort of 
 connexion with each other. He always 
 speaks of his body like Caesar of himself, 
 in the third person. When his body is 
 
 * Kant is said for the last two years of his life 
 to have believed himself a goose, and to have busied 
 himself in pointing out his feathers to his visitors. 
 
 H 3 
 
150 
 
 tortured with hunger, our professor says 
 only, " HE seems hungry, / must feed 
 him." When racked with disease, he 
 only whispers, HE seems distressed, / 
 must carry him to the doctor." Now, 
 if his authority be contested I maintain 
 it upon these three satisfactory grounds 
 He is a philosopher, professor, and an 
 inhabitant of Rostock *. 
 
 Before, however, you draw any con- 
 clusions from these facts, it is but just 
 to mention a theory which, it has been 
 supposed, would solve many of the phe- 
 nomena of O. It has then been conjec- 
 tured that this people really have souls; 
 but souls united to the body by a very 
 peculiar covenant. The following con- 
 tract is conceived to have taken place 
 between them. 
 
 It is stipulated on the part of the 
 body, 
 
 1st, That although the soul dwell in 
 
 * This man is also well known to the literati of 
 Germany. 
 
151 
 
 the body, it shall never interfere with it 
 in any of its enjoyments; for instance, 
 in eating, drinking, licentiousness, or in- 
 dolence. Agreed. 
 
 2dly. That the soul, as in the mar- 
 riages of O. shall never show itself in 
 public with the body. Agreed : if the 
 body will at least once a year with its 
 lips acknowledge the soul's existence in 
 a church. 
 
 3d. That the soul shall never perplex 
 the body in private. Agreed. 
 
 4th. That the body shall be suffered 
 to sleep if the soul should be called upon 
 to listen to sermons. Agreed; if the. 
 body will keep watch, should the soul 
 also be disposed to sleep. Amended, 
 upon the suit of the body ; if the soul 
 may sleep full as often as the body. 
 
 5th. That the soul shall not attempt 
 to warp the body to any fanatical prac- 
 tices, such as prostration, kneeling, 
 wiping away rouge, giving away money. 
 Not absolutely agreed; because, by 
 
 H 4 
 
such external acts, much worldly reputa- 
 tion would accrue to both. 
 
 6th. That the soul shall not employ 
 the eyes of the body in reading the 
 Bible. Agreed ; as the signing this con- 
 tract indisposes the soul as much as the 
 body to the Bible. 
 
 7th, That the soul shall take all the 
 burden of religious duties upon itself. 
 Agreed ; if the body will eat the bread at 
 the sacrament, and kiss the book, for a 
 place under Government. 
 
 8th. That the soul shall never disfigure 
 the face of the body with a blush. 
 Agreed; when the soul shall be a little 
 hackneyed in the ways of Q. 
 
 On these conditions the body consents 
 to receive the soul into garrison. 
 
 I collect this treaty from sources 
 known only to myself. In O. though 
 it is said to exist, from the abuse of 
 words, it may wear a different aspect. 
 Do you, however, reject the contract as 
 visionary and disgraceful ? Have you 
 
153 
 
 no conception of a soul which could 
 submit to such terms? No\v then re- 
 examine the cases I have adduced. They 
 are examples of men proclaiming in 
 themselves, cither the total want of a 
 soul, or its temporary absence. But that 
 others may be without a soul, is a proof 
 that you may be without one; and that 
 no other solution can be imagined of 
 your conduct, is surely a sufficient proof 
 that you actually are. 
 
 This point then being established, 
 enjoy, I beseech you, every moment of 
 your bright career. Ye puppets of an 
 empty show ye figures of an useless 
 .series ye shadows of threescore years 
 ye moving dust and ashes dead to vir- 
 tue, and furious with appetite, deem the 
 breath of life an enduring substance, and 
 eternity a bubble. Proceed, illustrious 
 bodies, to your glorious destination : eat 
 drink sleep and perish. 
 
 H 5 
 
154 
 
 CHAP. XIII. 
 
 J VENTURE to hope, that, by this time, my 
 readers are not altogether uninterested in 
 Emily. If so, they will not be sorry to 
 read one of her letters: and a part at 
 least of one of them they shall read, if 
 they will also read my preface to it. 
 
 The estimation in which females are 
 held is a measure in our hands of the 
 civilization of states The polished 
 Greeks made Wisdom a goddess. 
 
 M. had remarked this to Gustavus. 
 
 <e In O. you see," he added, " the thing 
 is otherwise ; the males deem the females 
 their inferiors, and consequently give 
 them an inferior education The pre- 
 science of the stronger animal informs 
 him that women cannot learn he takes 
 his resolution they shall not be taught'' 
 
155 
 
 " Mahomet," said G. " has many dis- 
 ciples/' 
 
 " Where there is no soul, as in O." 
 continued M. "I have no anxiety to 
 stand umpire between the sexes but 
 where there is a soul, it often lodges its 
 finest qualities in the fairest bosom. I 
 know females in whom, if wisdom has 
 lost any thing of her depth, she also 
 wants all that harshness which occasion- 
 ally disfigures her in the other sex in 
 whom, if the lines of science are soft- 
 ened, yet the figure is by no means erased 
 More than this if there be a some- 
 thing of vanity in their constitution, and 
 if their spirit of trifling or love of pleasure 
 be sometimes such as not easily to incor- 
 porate with serious religion; still there 
 is in them a meekness which the hand 
 of Heaven easily bows into humility, and 
 a tenderness which forbids them to re- 
 peat those crimes for which a Saviour 
 has bled." 
 
 I have been often found a mourner at 
 
 H6 
 
156 
 
 the grave of M. and if the cause of 
 some of the tears I have there shed be 
 asked, I answer, I lament the loss of 
 his piety in an age when a single tomb 
 will bury more ashes than piety can 
 spare of his quiet benevolence of his 
 generous, I might almost say, chival- 
 rous respect for women. 
 
 I would not, however, to support the 
 female sex, maintain, in the language of 
 C. Agrippa, that when they wash their 
 hands, they do not sully the purity of 
 the water ; whereas men may wash as 
 often as they will, and the stream will 
 yet suffer from the pollution of the flesh 
 it bathes. Nor do I quote other equally 
 high and unsuspected authorities who 
 have sung of marvels quite as great as 
 this. But this I mean to say, that 
 women owe much of their inferiority to 
 the tyranny of men. Give them the 
 opportunities of man, and they would 
 perhaps, as to most points, equal his 
 attainments. My business, however, is 
 not to panegyrize females, but to give 
 
157 
 
 one of Emily's letters. It is written in 
 all the confidence of those who have 
 loved each other from childhood. 
 
 " We sadly want you back again, 
 Gustavus ; for every thrng seems to go 
 wrong without you. I am sure that I 
 do. You know, for instance, with what 
 delight we used once to look at all the 
 works of nature. But now things 
 around me seem changed. I take the 
 same walks we have loved together, but 
 without the same feelings. The moon 
 wanes, but she strengthens again ; the 
 ilower shrinks, but it opens again; 
 Gustavus goes, but he does not return. 
 Once, every wind seemed to carry its 
 peculiar treasures along with it. Now, 
 if it blows from St. Foy I have caught 
 myself saying ' Gustavus cannot come' 
 if to St. Foy * Gustavus will not 
 1 come.' 
 
 " I know this is wrong, Gustavus, 
 and do not seriously wish to blame any 
 one but myself. I believe that this sum- 
 
 4 
 
158 
 
 mer has been as bright as the last, and 
 the winds as fragrant, and the flowers as 
 gay but you know one likes to have 
 just a single person to tell how very 
 sweet every thing is. Mamma is so 
 feeble, alas ! that I can seldom get her 
 out. Else she first taught me to love na- 
 ture; and even now she seems to grow 
 young again, for a moment, when she 
 can climb the hill at sunrise, and see the 
 
 lake 
 
 4 One burnish'd sheet of living gold.' 
 
 " But do not think, Gustavus, that I 
 am either quite idle, or really unhappy, 
 The school increases, and I go to it 
 every day. I visit the cottages too more 
 than ever, I think, particularly when I 
 am a little low for I find that looking 
 at and trying to lessen the real sufferings 
 of the poor, is one of the best cures for 
 our light distresses. La Roche *, our 
 
 * Every one who has read the exquisite tale of 
 1 La Roche' in the * Mirror/ will know why the 
 author has been glad to borrow this aaine for the 
 Minister .of St. Foy, 
 
dear minister, goes among them as mucli 
 as ever. Mamma said yesterday, as she 
 saw him labouring up the high hill behind 
 the house, ' How beautiful on the moun- 
 
 * tains are the feet of them that bring 
 4 glad tidings of peace !' And indeed he 
 does carry ' peace/ Gustavus, wherever 
 lie goes. I had the happiness to meet 
 him about ten days since at La Valette's' 
 cottage, which you remember, hanging 1 
 over the little brook. I was standing 
 and watching the water as it bubbled by 
 beneath me. ' Ah, dear Emily/ he said 
 as he came up, ' these shining bubbles 
 ' are an emblem of what is passing within 
 
 * the cottage. Poor La Valette has 
 4 sparkled her moment upon the stream 
 c of life, and is now melting into the 
 
 * vast ocean of eternity.' 'But not, Sir/ 
 I said, ' to be lost or forgotten there.' 
 ' No/ said he ; * God counts the tears of 
 1 his saints and her penitence and love 
 ' have, I doubt not, come up as a memo- 
 
1(50 
 
 * rial before him. Shall we go in and 
 ' see her, Emily ?' 
 
 " I was of course rejoiced to go ; and 
 may I never forget the scene ! She is 
 much reduced in strength and wasted in 
 health since you went; but her spirits 
 are better than ever. If I wished to 
 take any one to the happiest house in 
 the village, I really believe I should 
 carry him there. I think she said, 
 ' Thank God!' twenty times during this 
 one short visit. And yet there is nothing 
 presumptuous in her manner for you 
 know her almost incessant prayer is, 
 ' God be merciful to me a sinner !' But 
 then, while she distrusts herself, she 
 seems to have an unbounded confidence 
 in God. La Roche took her by the hand 
 * You seem very happy, La Valette. 
 ( Is He not our Father?' she answered. 
 
 * I should be quite happy, Sir, if it were 
 ' not for remembering how often I have 
 ' crucified afresh that Saviour who loved 
 
 * me so tenderly. One thing more some- 
 
Iff) 
 
 * times distresses me. When the cords 
 ' which keep me here seem almost 
 ' broken, and I am longing to spread my 
 1 wings, and flee away and be at rest, I 
 ' suddenly revive, and feel for a moment 
 ' as if the happy hour of my dismissal 
 ' was not come. It is like having nearly 
 c reached the port, and being driven out 
 
 * to sea again to that stormy sea, where, 
 ' but for you, or rather, but for that 
 ' God who sent you to me, I had well 
 
 * nigh foundered.' ' He, 9 said La Roche, 
 1 who has so long carried you in his 
 ' arms, has said, that his sheep shall 
 ' never perish, and that none shall pluck 
 
 * them out of his hand.' ' And I doubt 
 ' not, 5 she said, ' he will fulfil his pro- 
 
 * mise. Young lady/ she continued, 
 after a little pause, and turning to me, 
 ' you are young, and cannot yet have 
 ' proved the power of that religion which 
 
 * I trust you love. " I have been young, 
 ' and now am old" she almost rose up 
 in her bed as she spoke, and a new light 
 
162 
 
 darted into her eyes " yet saw I never 
 ' the righteous forsaken." I have proved 
 ' religion in the varied scenes of a very 
 ' stormy life, and I have found that her 
 
 * sun never goes down, and her anchor 
 ' never gives way.' As she said this, she 
 fell back, and I really thought her last 
 struggle was over. You can fancy the 
 countenance of La Roche during the 
 whole of this scene. La Valette had 
 thought nothing of religion, I have 
 heard, till he first knew her ; so that she 
 was a sort of child of his old age. The 
 mixture of emotions seemed almost to 
 overwhelm him. It was like the struggle 
 of the sun and the shade for victory. 
 At length he said, ' Let us together 
 
 * thank God, for having raised up this 
 
 * monument of his mercies; and pray 
 
 * that our lives and our latter end may be 
 ' like hers.' ' Not your lives, Sir,' 
 Valette meekly said. La Roche kneeled 
 down, and I need not tell you how 
 simply, ardently, and sublimely he 
 
163 
 
 prayed. You know his way of dwelling 
 on those two words * Our Father !' We 
 soon after quitted the cottage; and the 
 last words I remember to have heard her 
 utter were, ' Thy rod and thy staff, they 
 1 comfort me.' 
 
 " Here I must stop, Gustavus, only 
 grieving that I cannot better describe 
 what I so deeply felt. But you will 
 kindly forgive, and supply all my defi- 
 ciencies. 
 
 " I had almost forgot to ask if the 
 smoke of the city you are in, suffers you 
 to see our favourite star. It still comes 
 first of the heavenly travellers like the 
 eye of night, looking out if it be time 
 for the others to rise. How often has 
 this star lifted my thoughts to its Maker, 
 and scarcely ever without a prayer for 
 Gustavus ! If then you receive blessings, 
 think them those which were prayed for 
 by your Emily," 
 
164 
 
 CHAP. XIV. 
 
 THE science of love is the philosophy of 
 the heart. Emily lectured in the last 
 chapter; in the present I shall conduct 
 the student to the groves of a severer 
 learning. And here, reader, I must 
 caution you. If fevery wise or very 
 foolish, come not, Svith me, to this 
 porch of philosophy. For, if very 
 wise, I have the vanity to believe, you 
 already think as I do ; and, if very 
 foolish, you will never think at all. If, 
 however, you are among those who 
 never saw a modern philosopher, and 
 think the sight of one would not startle 
 you ; if you have a plain mind and an 
 
 honest heart: if the nerves of vour head 
 
 / 
 
 are strong; and you do not heed the 
 gales, not absolutely Sabean, which fan 
 the temples and cloud the room of a 
 
165 
 
 philosophical student; come on and, 
 in the cause of human nature and com- 
 mon sense, we will take the field against 
 all the philosophers in the universe. 
 
 It will he recollected that the divine of 
 O. had promised to introduce our wan- 
 derers to one of her philosophers. I 
 copy from a letter of Gustavus the ac- 
 count which he sent to Mad. de N. of 
 tliis visit. 
 
 "It was only yesterday, my dear 
 Madam, that we paid our promised visit. 
 Our clerical conductor ushered us into 
 the room, and then ahandoned us to 
 some antiquated skin and hones which 
 half occupied a three-cornered chair in it. 
 1 soon perceived that philosophy, or at 
 least the philosophy of O. does not 
 always smooth the brow of care. M. 
 managed the conversation with the art 
 which is peculiar to him; and our 
 shrivelled companion soon proved him- 
 self, if I may he permitted to say it, 
 dull, mistaken, and dogmatical. St. 
 
166 
 
 Foy, my dear Madam, has rescued us from 
 all but the sterling philosophy the 
 philosophy of God : but you shall for a 
 moment become a student in the school 
 of O. ; your rocks and mountains shall 
 laugh to see what inhabitants they have 
 escaped, and glory in the brown sons of 
 labour who climb them. I send you 
 that part of our conversation in which 
 the theory was detailed, by which the 
 animal wisdom of our philosopher pro- 
 poses to secure the morals of his country- 
 men *. 
 
 " * I had very innocently made use of 
 ( the word Conscience? 
 
 " * You are but young in these mat- 
 
 * ters,' said the Philosopher, ' or you 
 
 * would have known that conscience is a 
 
 * The author cannot possibly, in any part of 
 this chapter, be suspected either of any personal al- 
 lusion, or of any disrespect, to the individual of 
 great talents and virtues by whom this system has 
 been chiefly promulgated in our schools and univer- 
 sities. 
 
 3 
 
167 
 
 ' banished term : we no more think of 
 ' it than Centaurs or Phlogiston. Ex- 
 6 pediency is now the only rule in morals.' 
 
 " ' What, Sir,' I asked, ' do you mean 
 ' by expediency ?' 
 
 " ' I will give you my system/ said 
 the Sage, * to explain the word. The 
 ' chief object of philosophy is to answer 
 " the question, " What is virtue r" Now 
 ' then take this fundamental proposition 
 ' That " Heaven wills the happiness of 
 ' its creatures." 
 
 ' ' If you include eternity,' said M. 
 
 * this cannot be questioned. Some would 
 4 prefer to say that God, here, wills the 
 4 improvement of his creatures; that he 
 ' desires to make them happy in another 
 ' state, by making them good in this. 
 1 Let it, however, be admitted, that, even 
 ' here, God w ills simply the happiness of his 
 
 * creatures; and that, therefore, plagues, 
 
 * for example, are plainly sent to release 
 'superannuated misery; whirlwinds, to 
 
168 
 
 ' keep the sea from corruption ; war, 
 ' to give young officers promotion ; fa- 
 
 * mine, to rest the earth ; earthquakes, 
 6 to rock our cradles/ 
 
 " ' Taking this for granted/ continued 
 the Philosopher, ' my disciple, in his 
 ' search after virtue, will, if true to his 
 ' system, argue thus : To know what 
 1 is my duty, or what is virtue, in any 
 
 * particular case, I have nothing to do 
 e hut to discover what, in this particular 
 ' case, will promote the happiness of the 
 4 creatures of God. My virtue is simply 
 ' this, to promote the worldly happiness 
 < of God's creatures. Observe, Sir, the 
 c simplicity of this system. It reduces 
 
 * all the virtues within a small circle, and 
 
 * renders them alike accessible to the 
 1 highest and the lowest.' 
 
 o 
 
 " ' Captious opponents, 5 replied M. 
 { might say that it rendered virtue thus 
 ' equally possible to high and low, by ren- 
 ' dcring it utterly impossible to any; and 
 
* that it simplified the virtues by lopping 
 4 away the larger half of them.' 
 
 " * But captiousness, Sir, is not ar- 
 
 * gument. Perhaps, as you can assert 
 
 * for these cavillers, you can also argue 
 4 for them.' 
 
 " ' I will attempt it,' replied M. 
 ; They would possibly endeavour to prove 
 t the system inapplicable, thus : God 
 v wills the happiness of his creatures: 
 
 * therefore virtue is the promoting this 
 4 happiness. Now, in order to apply this 
 
 * doctrine, we are of course supposed to 
 
 * know by what steps or by what results 
 
 * in each case, this happiness would be 
 ' promoted ; but the misfortune is, that 
 4 we are in utter ignorance of them.' 
 
 " ' How so, Sir?' said the startled Phi- 
 losopher. 
 
 " * Your adversaries would say, Sir/ 
 replied M. f that we cannot know what 
 ' will advance the real happiness of any 
 
 * individual, at the present moment; and 
 ' that if we could, the happiness of to* 
 
 i 
 
170 
 
 * day may be the misery of to-morrow; 
 
 * or the joys of to- morrow the ruin of 
 
 * eternity. But suffer me still to be the 
 
 * spokesman of your opponents, and to 
 
 * ask you to apply your principles to the 
 
 * solution of a case in life. I see a beg- 
 ' gar, almost broken down with the 
 ' variety of his afflictions. Ought I to 
 6 relieve him ?' 
 
 " The Sage knit his brow. The dis- 
 tortion of his countenance plainly indi- 
 cated either that cases of charity were 
 not those with the solution of which he 
 was most familiar; or, that the solution 
 of any case was not with him the labour 
 of a moment. 
 
 " At length he said, * You should have 
 t argued thus: Is it expedient for the 
 6 beggar that I should relieve him? Will 
 i it benefit him now ? Will it benefit 
 
 * him upon the whole ? Will it benefit 
 
 * the universe ? 
 
 " f Let us then,' said M. ' reason the 
 6 case after this manner : I give the beg- 
 
171 
 
 * gar a shilling: he buys mutton with it; 
 ' the mutton may be mangy, and his 
 ' health sutler from it I will give him 
 c no shilling. Rut the disease may dis- 
 ' pose him to religion I will give him 
 
 * a shilling, Put if he thinks of religion, 
 " and again neglects it, he will have the 
 
 * guilt of neglected opportunities I 
 ' would not for worlds give him a shil- 
 
 * ling. His perdition might make others 
 
 * cautious 1 would not for worlds but 
 
 * give it him. Thus, before a point was 
 ' settled, the chain of reasonings would 
 
 * reach from pole to pole, and the poor 
 
 * wretch would inevitably starve.' 
 
 " * You push matters too far. Sir,' said 
 the Philosopher. 
 
 " ' Those, Sir, for whom I argue/ re- 
 plied M. ' would say, this was impossible. 
 4 In your system, I know nothing, if I 
 ' do not know all. Before I can justly 
 ' decide upon the expediency of a single 
 ' case, and therefore upon what is my 
 
 * duty in that particular case, it forces 
 
 i 2 
 
172 
 
 * me to condense infinity to a point; to 
 
 * deeypher the map of eternal Provi- 
 ' deuce; to collect, compare, combine, 
 
 * and enumerate the ever-shifting occur- 
 < rences of futurity, and unerringly cal- 
 
 * culate their results. If this ;be true, it 
 
 * is demonstrated that the system of ex- 
 
 * pecliency is useless because inapplicable? 
 
 " At this -moment Philosophy quitted 
 the bosom of this her favourite son .; and 
 those opponents of his theory, whom M. 
 had undertaken to represent, were -com- 
 mitted, with considerable emphasis, to 
 all the winds, waves, and furies of the 
 universe. At length, in a voice mingled 
 with fear, curiosity, and passion, he de- 
 sired M. to attempt the making good 
 their second assertion ; that ' his system 
 ' simplified virtue by lopping away one half 
 
 " l They would reason thus,' said M. : 
 
 * You have said that "Virtue is the 
 
 * promoting the happiness of others" 
 4 But can any account of virtue be com- 
 
 * plete which cuts off all the obligations 
 
173 
 
 * man owes to himself, and all he owes /0 
 ' his God? A monarch would take a 
 
 * strange way to simplify the government 
 4 of a province, who should begin by a 
 4 slaughter of two thirds of its inhabit- 
 4 ants.' 
 
 " Now here, my dear Madam, I can- 
 not but think that M. forgot the presence 
 in which he stood. Such an argument, 
 to a man who had a soul, would have 
 been irresistible; for it seems plainly to 
 be virtue in him to save this soul, and 
 honour the God who gave it him. But a 
 few feet of breathing clay can have little 
 respect for itself, and less for the hands 
 which shaped it. A sneer upon the face 
 of the Philosopher soon taught me that 
 of all arguments, those which related to 
 a soul, the least affected him. I was so 
 lost in my musings upon this extraordi- 
 nary scene, that I listened to nothing 
 for some time, till I heard M. say, ' My 
 ' objection to the system of expediency 
 ' is, that it does not take man as it finds 
 
 i 3 
 
174 
 
 * him, and employ his nature ; but, on 
 
 * the contrary, attempts to square the 
 
 * man to the theory.' 
 
 " ' You astonish me, Sir,' said the 
 Sage. ' Man is a reasoning animal, and 
 ' my system would in every situation 
 ' make him reason. He is before every 
 ' action to compare events and calculate 
 
 * consequences. He is not even to suc- 
 
 * cour a parent, or nourish a child, till he 
 
 * has reflected upon and calculated the 
 ^ consequences of such conduct. It is 
 ' thus the Scythian finds it expedient to 
 ' dine upon his grandfather, because, if 
 ' he did not eat him himself, his coun- 
 1 trymen have so little veneration for age, 
 
 * that they would probably starve him 
 
 * first, and devour him afterwards. In the 
 ' same manner the Chinese deem it ex- 
 ' pedient to drown such of their children 
 < as they do not admire, in the canals of 
 4 Pekin ; because useless citizens cannot 
 
 * make a better use of a land, full of 
 ' people and barren of provision, than 
 
175 
 
 * to find a grave in it. Each determines 
 4 wisely, " for whatever is expedient if 
 
 " Do you not, my dear Madam, 
 tremble ? What a system is this, whiclh, 
 if even a world were shaking to dust, 
 would set its disciple, unmoved and in- 
 different, upon the last relic of creation, 
 to weigh in his balance and number the 
 atoms as they fell ? Shall I confess to 
 you, that, bursting with conviction and 
 indignation, I exclaimed, * If Monboddo 
 
 * had given philosophers as many tails as 
 4 the Grand Seignor gives his Bashaws, 
 
 * I could believe him.' The Philosopher 
 appeared confounded at my exclamation - 
 and it then, I confess, occurred to me, 
 that there might be a secret cause for his 
 confusion. If the theory of Monboddo 
 be not universally true, may not this be 
 a distinguishing curse gone forth against 
 philosophers? Philosophy has always 
 some secret, and may not this be the 
 secret of to-day ? 
 
 i 4 
 
176 
 
 " M. however soon recalled me from 
 3iiy meditation upon the possible forma- 
 tion of philosophers, and the Sage from 
 his lamentation over it, by addressing 
 this master in ethics : ' This is mon- 
 
 * strous, Sir. Is expediency to trans- 
 
 * plant and naturalize the worst crimes of 
 ' barbarians in the soil of O. ? It has 
 
 * been said, that the wits of no animal 
 ' returns upon itself; such reasonings, 
 
 * however, happily carry their confuta- 
 
 * tion with them. But I repeat my ac- 
 
 * cusation ; your system is not Jitted t& 
 ' the nature of man. Man reasons, in- 
 4 deed, as you say : but then he also 
 'feds; thought works in him, but so 
 1 does conscience : the heart speaks when 
 ' the head is silent; the moral instinct some- 
 
 * times lives in him when every other 
 
 * spark of the mind is extinguished. 
 ' You reduce his powers to those of an 
 ' arithmetician. You drive him for mo- 
 
 * tives through a ledger-book of profit 
 
177 
 
 * and ofloss, when he would find the best 
 1 counsellor in his own bosom.' 
 
 " ' Conscience moral instinct feeling ! 9 
 said the Philosopher, and rubbed his 
 eyes, as though to ascertain in what 
 world he was : ' What, Sir ! using this 
 ' term conscience for some blind, un Intel- 
 
 * ligible, and capricious feelings of the 
 ' mind, are we to use her eyes, and lean 
 
 * upon her decisions in morality ?' 
 
 " ' As the " term conscience," ' replied 
 M. * finds a place in the Bible, it should 
 ' find a place in every system which 
 
 * pretends to govern the morals of men. 
 
 * But we use it for very different feelings 
 
 * from those which you enumerate. We 
 
 * use it for feelings which the Chinese 
 ' violates when he exposes his child, and 
 'the Scythian when he dines on his 
 grandfather; for feelings, which check 
 
 * ingratitude, which revolt against mur- 
 ' der, which persuade to justice, which 
 c intimate the being of a God. Of these 
 ' feelings we say they are (vvitli iu- 
 
 J 5 
 
178 
 
 1 numerable others like these) defined 
 ' simple and intelligible invariable in the 
 
 * same circumstances always at unity with 
 themselves, and with the word of God 
 and living alike in the breast of all man- 
 kind: we use the " term conscience" 
 
 * for feelings implanted by God, and in- 
 
 * struct ed and governed by reason and re- 
 ' velation.* 
 
 " ' But would you/ asked our dispu- 
 tant, ' build a system upon feelings ?' 
 " ' They must lay the first stone, and 
 
 * reason and revelation erect the edifice. 
 
 * Laws grow out of these as their first 
 
 * elements. They are corollaries from 
 
 * propositions, which the feelings, thus 
 
 * taught and regulated, establish. I 
 f would add one observation : If man- 
 
 * kind were not already agreed as to the 
 ' point, your own system supposes the 
 
 * very feelings which you refuse to em- 
 ' ploy. You would estimate conse- 
 
 * quences; but must not the nuud weigh 
 
 * consequences before it can number 
 
179 
 
 * them ? Must we not value before we 
 ' can calculate? In this moral arithme- 
 ' tic, as much as in any cither, two is not 
 1 more than one till we have/e// the value 
 1 of two and one. Your theory thore- 
 
 * fore, with patricidal hand, would anni- 
 4 hilate the very feelings on which alone 
 ' it depends.' 
 
 u I then entreated M. to take a case, 
 and compare the influence of the two 
 systems by bringing them to act upon 
 it. 
 
 " ' I will,' said M. ' We are told that 
 
 * the Duke of Marl borough received a 
 ' letter in an unknown hand, assuring 
 ' him that his life depended on meeting 
 ' the writer of it in one of the aisles of 
 Westminster Abbey. Now suppose the 
 
 * Duke to have gone, and the ruffian to 
 ' have rushed upon him, and by threats 
 
 * of death to have extorted a solemn 
 
 * promise that he would deposit a certain 
 
 * sum in the same spot at some future 
 6 time ought the )uke to fave returned 
 
180 
 
 1 to deposit it? Of this case I would 
 
 * affirm, and you, Sir, will unite with 
 
 * me*, that although expediency should 
 
 * balance the pro and con for ever, she 
 
 * would not arrive at a solution. The 
 4 Duke must, according to your theory, 
 4 reason thus : " By going I save my life; 
 
 * and others, by taking my line of con- 
 4 duct, may, in similar circumstances, 
 1 save theirs. Expediency therefore di- 
 
 * rects me to go. But, on the other 
 
 * hand, if J go, villainy prospers, and 
 
 * the success in this case may be the 
 
 * prelude to unlimited extortion. Expe- 
 c diency therefore directs me not to stir 
 a step." Thus would expediency undo 
 
 * with one hand what she did with the 
 ' other.' 
 
 " * But,' said I, ' would an appeal to 
 
 * his conscience in this case have done 
 
 * more for him ?' 
 
 " ' The moral instinct,' replied M. 
 
 * would have instantly and powerfully 
 
 Vide Paley's Moral Philos. rol. i. 
 
181 
 
 1 taught him, that he must not become a 
 
 * villain because he had to deal with one.' 
 
 " The Philosopher, because, as I sup- 
 pose, he was beaten upon his own ground, 
 whirled us away through ages, and over 
 seas and continents, to the schools of 
 ancient Rome. ' Would you, Sir,' he 
 said, 'thus discard the " utile" of the 
 ' ancients, which in fact answers to our 
 ' expediency ?* 
 
 " * You would in vain,' replied M. 
 1 shelter your system beneath a Pagan 
 ' wing. I would not discard their 
 ' " utile" but I would retain and improve 
 1 upon their " honestum" Those of your 
 
 * school have confessed that the errors to 
 4 which a mere calculation of conse- 
 ' quences leads, induced the ancients to 
 
 * add the " homstum *." We may believe, 
 4 Sir, that had some of these philosophers 
 
 * enjoyed a revelation to instruct and 
 
 * regulate the feelings, they would have 
 
 ? Vide Paley's Moral Philos. vol. u 
 
18* 
 
 ' matureel the system of which they have 
 ' scattered the rich seeds to posterity, 
 ' and have planted a Roman soil with 
 1 Christian virtues.' 
 
 " The Philosopher had read enough 
 Greek to know that generals had gained 
 almost as much renown by a masterly 
 retreat as by a successful contest. 
 Having tried his strong hold, he there- 
 fore gave up the field, and skirmished 
 with a few light troops, while the main 
 body made away. One of the last as- 
 sertions, I remember, was, that there 
 was a 'fashion in every thing, and Phi- 
 f losophy must wear the prevailing habit, 
 
 * or society will not receive her. Expe- 
 4 diency is enthroned in the cabinet, and 
 
 * she must be seated in the schools.' 
 
 " ' O, no, Sir!' said M. emphatically: 
 ' worlds may die away, but Morality is 
 ' as unchangeable as the God from 
 ' whose mouth she proceeded. There is 
 
 * a good old way in morals, and I beseech 
 ' you not to wander from it* Heavea 
 
183 
 
 ' gives us bodily instincts, and we are 
 
 * glad to profit from them; it gives us 
 4 moral instinct*, and we must abide by 
 1 them. Do not substitute arithmetic for 
 % fttlingy nor thiuk things good only 
 4 because you can number their excellta- 
 
 * cies, but because God, speaking in the 
 4 heart, tells you that they are good.' 
 
 41 You will observe, my clear Madam, 
 as before, that this address was in 
 many parts only applicable to one who 
 had a soul. The Philosopher, by his not 
 heeding it, convinced me that he had 
 none. M. indeed soon perceived his 
 mistake, into which the agitation of 
 debate had, no doubt, hurried him. He 
 \vas silent the philosophy of his oppo- 
 nent was any where but in his counte- 
 nance and we quitted the house. 
 
 " My beloved Madam, I have never 
 
 > i 
 
 been a pupil in the school of expediency. 
 I love you and Emily, not becavue I 
 counted your excellencies, but because 
 I felt them. I will learn no other doc- 
 
184 
 
 trine ; for, when the power to number 
 shall decay, and only the balance of the 
 sanctuary remain, we know of a love 
 which never faileth. Thus only, there- 
 fore, can I be for ever 
 
 " Your 
 
 " GUSTAVUS." 
 
185 
 
 CHAP. XV. 
 
 I SHALL now follow our travellers through 
 some more of their wanderings. 
 
 M. took an early opportunity of con- 
 veying Gustavus to one of those mid- 
 night orgies which are celebrated in 
 O. to the deities of dissipation. I stop 
 for a moment to describe it, because 
 posterity may be as curious to hear of 
 these rites, as we are to inquire into the 
 mysteries of the Dionysia and of Paphos. 
 
 It has been said, that all the miracles 
 which the Roman Catholics impute to 
 their saints are borrowed from the fables 
 of heathenism : there is also a curious 
 resemblance in the t\v r o above-mentioned 
 feasts of Greece and Rome to that of O. 
 which we are discussing. If to satisfy 
 the God of Vineyards and the Goddess 
 
186 
 
 of Love, it is only necessary that throngs 
 of imperfectly dressed women should be 
 assembled ; that goblets of wine should 
 crowd the tables ; that the limbs of 
 animals should be devoured ; that some 
 should hymn the praise, and feel the 
 inspiration of love and wine take again, 
 ye laurel and vine crowned deities, your 
 stations on Olympus, and be assured 
 that the votaries ye have lost in Naxos 
 or in Paphos have built your altars in O. 
 Gustavus had been astonished, on 
 entering this temple of pleasure, to find 
 the multitudes by which it was peopled. 
 " Those, " said he, " who are all spirit 
 (alluding, no doubt, to the winged 
 inhabitants of Pandemonium), and who 
 are all body, seem, in similar circum- 
 
 V ' ' 
 
 stances, to have a similar power of con- 
 traction." He, at length, ventured to 
 remonstrate with a transparent form, to 
 whom he had been introduced, upon the 
 absurdity of some things he saw. 
 The person simpered an assent, u That 
 
187 
 
 others then," said he, continuing the 
 conversation, " should pursue and cul- 
 tivate them, who think them right, 
 is intelligihle. But what are your mo- 
 tives for doing them?" 
 
 " I always do zvhat others do" 
 Gustavus turned to M. " Mooboddo is 
 right," he said; " for we are told, that in 
 countries where cocoa-nuts are found, 
 those who collect them, afraid to climb 
 the slight branches on which they hang, 
 throw stones at the monkies which inhabit 
 the trees, who return a shower of cocoa- 
 nuts for this simple reason, that mon- 
 kies always do what others do.' 9 
 
 He had sought a refuge from the din of 
 voices in a part of the room which was 
 planted with tables, at which usually 
 four persons were seated. Each person 
 held in his hand certain oblong papers, 
 mysteriously spotted, which he seemed 
 to take up for the very important purpose 
 of laying down again. Their silence 
 was almost without interruption; but 
 
188 
 
 the faces of some of them, in which occa- 
 sionally fatigue, anger, disappointment, 
 and avarice, were painted the cloud of 
 the eye, the curl of the nose, the storm 
 of the brow, were sufficiently expressive 
 of the state of their minds. 
 
 " If these persons had souls," said 
 Gustavus, " and consumed, as they 
 seem to do, three hours per diem of the 
 twelve in this employment, what a cu- 
 rious article it would form in the book 
 of final account ! * Item, One fourth of 
 * life spent in watching painted papers.' * 
 
 The historian is privileged to comment 
 upon the opinions of those whose his- 
 tory he writes. I must observe, there- 
 fore, that I, who have in general a pro- 
 found respect for the opinions of M. 
 can never imagine that he measured the 
 religious state of an individual by the 
 degress of his hostility to a few parti- 
 cular amusements. Some amusements 
 there are which fly in the face of reli- 
 gion ; these M*. treated as her enemies, 
 
and as his own. Others arc only equi- 
 vocal. They have little in their nature 
 which piety condemns, but then their 
 consequences are more or less formi- 
 dable. Cards take their rank among: 
 
 o 
 
 these last. Now shall I be thought pre- 
 sumptuous in attempting to supply a sort 
 of rule by which such amusements may 
 be tried? so that, whilst other legislators 
 are hanging or quartering the vices of 
 mankind, I may endeavour to convict 
 those pleasures from which hall' these 
 vices have sprung. Nothing paints so 
 forcibly as contrast. Let me therefore, 
 in order to condemn guilty amusements, 
 point out such as it would be impossible 
 to condemn. 
 
 If they are not easy of abuse ; if the 
 advantages they produce balance their 
 mischiefs when abused; if their direct 
 or chance expense does not break in 
 upon our charities; if they are not 
 so closely allied to the amusements of 
 the bad as to confound and incorporate 
 
190 
 
 men of the most opposite sentiments; 
 if they have no tendency to wean society 
 from more profitable employments; if, 
 lastly, they do not improperly encroach 
 upon that brief period bestowed upon 
 man to do the business of eternity : if 
 all this be true of any of them, I will 
 say of him who uses such amusements, 
 he may be a Christian, and a very good 
 Christian; but the most distinguished 
 Christian will need them the least. For 
 he will seek his pleasures chiefly in the 
 field of his duties ; and though he suffers 
 mere amusement, and is even thankful 
 for that, as for every thing else, when it 
 comes, will neither anxiously court it, 
 nor repine at its absence. 
 
 I suspect that the lovers of cards will 
 not now be anxious to bring them to the 
 bar of my judgment. If I am thought 
 too severe in wishing to rid society of 
 this amusement, let me add, as some 
 mitigation of my offence, that I believe 
 these implements of idleness are often 
 3 
 
191 
 
 found in more conscientious hands than 
 they deserve. If the threadbare argu- 
 ment is pressed upon us, that the state 
 of society makes them necessary I 
 borrow the sentiment of the opposers of 
 our poor-laws " Destroy the poor- 
 houses ; and the poor, having no public 
 hand on which to lean, will use their 
 own." la like manner I would say, 
 Banish cards ; and society, wanting a 
 refuge for indolence and imbecility, may 
 become active and intelligent. To make 
 the idle happy, is to cut off the only 
 bridge by which they might return to 
 the society of the wise and good. The 
 present age, indeed, according to my 
 plan, must suffer by being robbed of 
 their crutch ; but, in consequence of it, 
 the next age will perhaps walk alone. 
 I return to Gustavus. 
 
 M. had some difficulty in convincing 
 him that he was in a place of amusement. 
 The "Dance of Death" of Holbein 
 rushed into his memory as he observed 
 
192 
 
 some of the ghosts which glided down 
 the dance ; nor could he comprehend the 
 texture of some of the female nerves of 
 0. which, too feeble for even the most 
 quiet duties, seemed to rejoice in the 
 heat of a furnace, the noise of a cata- 
 ract, and the wild confusion of a field of 
 battle. Less than all this could he -com- 
 prehend how four creatures could volun- 
 tarily nail themselves for a quarter of the 
 sun's daily course to the same surface of 
 green cloth could for that period con- 
 tract with each other to abstain even 
 from the appearance of an idea; and 
 welcome to their breast a thousand feel- 
 ings which nothing but an exorcist could 
 <5xpe1. But I hurry onto a second anec- 
 dote. 
 
 Some kind of pause had occurred in 
 the quartette before their eternal " da 
 capo" commenced, when one of its per- 
 formers lifted a languid eye to the face 
 of Gustavus : " You have lately come 
 among us?" 
 
"Yes." 
 
 " Do you like us ?" He did riot wait 
 for a reply " Un sage pettple" said he, 
 "0w * amuse si bien on ne fait que samu- 
 
 ser" 
 
 He resumed his occupation, and Gus- 
 tavus stood wondering by what curious 
 analysis an inordinate appetite for amuse- 
 ment was discovered to form a consti- 
 tuent part of "sagacity." 
 
 It was three days after this that he 
 was walking with M. in one of the most 
 industrious streets of O. Several mon* 
 kies were elevated on a stage, and, iu 
 spite of the example around them of 
 men, horses, and asses, striving for their 
 daily bread, continued their fantastic 
 gambols, as though they alone had a char- 
 ter to be indolent amidst a busy creation. 
 The contrast between them and the 
 bustling citizens beneath, their inces- 
 sant antics and absurdities, were not 
 lost upon Gustavus. "Un sage peuple," 
 
194 
 
 said he, " on s amuse si bien on nejait que 
 samuserTM. could not help smiling 
 at these strange confirmations of his 
 theory. 
 
195 
 
 CHAR XVI. 
 
 ACCIDENT had, early in the morning, 
 carried our travellers to the Park which 
 we formerly mentioned. Gustavus was 
 surprised to discover six well-dressed 
 men already in possession of one corner 
 of it. Two of these, apparently much 
 at their ease, held some kind of surgical 
 apparatus in their hands. Two others 
 were obviously busy in adjusting ti*e 
 position of the remaining couple, and at 
 length planted them vis-&-vis t in marble 
 dignity, at the distance of fifteen paces.. 
 "NVhat was our hero's astonishment when 
 he saw one of the two last, as he ima- 
 gined, passive creatures, with unruffled 
 nonchalance, level a huge pistol, and dis- 
 charge it at the breast of his companion ! 
 It missed; the other fired, and the fiiyst 
 
 K 2 
 
196 
 
 fell. Immediately one of the medical 
 bystanders of whom we spoke, rushed 
 upon him, and conveyed him in his ta- 
 lons to a carriage. The rest were speedily 
 enclosed in other conveyances, and the 
 party had vanished almost hefore the 
 wonder of Gustavus allowed him to reach 
 the spot. For a moment he stood petri- 
 fied and speechless. 
 
 M. heard him bursting* from his trance 
 by some broken phrases " Thus to 
 brave the Almighty's thunder to stake 
 eternity on the turn of a ball to rush 
 unbidden into the presence of God to 
 fling away the soul ! n 
 
 " Do you remember," said M. " our 
 definition of an idiot?" 
 
 "As opposed to a madman, ''answered 
 Gustavus, "he is a man who argues 
 irrationally from a rational idea: he 
 thinks himself, as he is, a man> but acts 
 like any other animal." 
 
 " Did not I tell you that an acquaint- 
 with this definition would be of use 
 
197 
 
 -tons? Behold in the warlike animals of 
 to-day the idiots of O. These are per- 
 sons, who know, that, though without 
 souls, they have bodies, and yet act, 
 when they fight a duel,' as though they 
 had none.'' 
 
 " I long," said Gustavus, " for a 
 proof of this; for I was thinking, that 
 if the notion of a God and an immortal 
 soul were removed, this practice was 
 calculated to secure the rights, and 
 polish the manners of society." 
 
 " What benefits then," asked M. " do 
 you conceive society to derive from 
 duelling?" 
 
 " One plainly," answered Gustavus 
 " I mean reparation" 
 
 " In general," said M. " the law in 
 such cases will assist him. It is true, 
 however, that there are situations w.iere 
 the law does not interfere, and in which, 
 without some'interference, the character 
 of the injured person might suffer. 
 
 K 3 
 
Now, then, in these you seern to think a 
 man gains a ' reparation' by challenging 
 his enemy ?" 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " Let us examine this point. A is 
 injured by B; would his wrongs be re- 
 faired by A's proposing, and B's consent- 
 ing, that each should leap the same pre- 
 cipice? If, indeed, he could force B 
 a lone to take the leap, and the shortening 
 another's life could lengthen his own, 
 this might be a sort of compensation 
 for his wrongs. Otherwise it is not 
 Besides, suppose A, a rector, to be 
 of twice the specific gravity, and half 
 the muscular force of B, who is but 
 a curate, so that the leap which is 
 easy to the last breaks the bones of the 
 first, A could scarcely be thought a 
 gainer by the scheme. But this is paral- 
 lel to the case where B is a much better 
 shot than A." 
 
 " Before I can admit that the scheme 
 of the precipice is an exact parallel to 
 
that of the pistol," answered Gustavus, 
 " you must prove that the consciousness 
 of a good cause would not steady the 
 hand of A, so as to give him a manifest 
 superiority." 
 
 " Consciousness of having a right 
 cause might indeed," said M. " string his 
 nerves; but doubt about the means he 
 was employing to maintain it, would 
 unstring them. Besides, if B were a 
 hackneyed shooter, practice would give 
 him more firmness than right would give 
 to A. Nor is it probable that any con- 
 sciousness of wrong would most affect 
 the worst of the two, because great 
 offenders are usually more at ease than 
 small ones." 
 
 " I see," said Gustavu?, " the conclu- 
 sion to which you would come." 
 
 " Undoubtedly," answered M. " if 
 our definition of idiotism be accurate, 
 these men would appear to be as much 
 idiots as a slobbered chin, an acre of face, 
 and saucer eyes could make them. Hav- 
 
 E.4 
 
200 
 
 ing bodies, and knowing they have them, 
 they act as though they had none. In 
 order to obtain * reparation ' for one 
 wound, they only expose themselves to 
 another." 
 
 " If, however," said Gustavus, " you 
 will not allow the injured individual to 
 gain any ' reparation' by calling out his 
 antagonist, you must admit that the 
 state is benefited by the clkastisement of a 
 delinquent whom her laws could not 
 reach." 
 
 " By no means, In (X the laws pro- 
 Tide a court of honour, which is not 
 employed, only because her people think 
 gunpowder a better measure of rights 
 than laws. The state, therefore, in this 
 case, scarcely needs any assistance. But 
 more than this she positively rejects 
 this particular assistance, by enacting 
 laws against it." 
 
 "Why is this?" 
 
 " Because the state is ill satisfied, that 
 two of her citizens shall be (exposed for 
 
01 
 
 an offence which only one can have com- 
 mitted ; that life should be endangered 
 for an offence which, perhaps, scarcely 
 merited a frown; that individuals should 
 snatch the sword of justice from public 
 hands. This last objection is paramount 
 to every other. Admit (which is the 
 principle of duelling), that every one 
 may revenge what he deems his own 
 wrongs, every man's hand might be 
 raised against his brother revenge and 
 murder stalk abroad and the world 
 would be too narrow for any two of its 
 inhabitants." 
 
 " But granting this," said Custavus, 
 " do you not imagine that much of the 
 delicacy of honour, and courtesy of 
 manner, the polish and forbearance of O. 
 are owing to this practice of duelling?'' 
 
 " It has been affirmed, but I question 
 it. In the first place, if it were true, 
 this influence is of little importance, as 
 it extends to few, and those only of the 
 higher classes, whom other circum- 
 
 K 5 
 
202 
 
 stances would tend to polish. Again, 
 duelling has plainly an opposite tendency 
 a tendency to barbarize states, by sub- 
 stituting brute courage for every other 
 virtue." 
 
 " Why, I must confess," said Gusta- 
 vus, " it seems extraordinary to be at 
 once satisfied of the virtue of a man 
 who had used false dice, destroyed^ my 
 reputation, or seduced my sister, by 
 simply his telling me, ' Sir, I carry 
 'pistols.'" 
 
 " But to proceed," said M. ; " if duel- 
 ling contributed to refine a people, its 
 progress would be hand in hand with their 
 civilization. Whereas it cannot be ques- 
 tioned that the science of quarrelling is 
 now less studied, the grounds of con- 
 tention less multiplied, and duels less 
 abundant in O. than two centuries since ; 
 when every sigh of her Princesses Was 
 tainted with Geneva, and each Maid of 
 Honour had a court allowance of beef 
 and brown stout for her breakfast. This 
 
 3 
 
203 
 
 is not all Duelling is to be considered 
 as a penalty to which any man is subject 
 who wounds the honour of another. It 
 therefore supposes that delicacy of mind 
 which you say it creates ; for without 
 this the offence would not have been 
 felt, and therefore the penalty not incur- 
 red. Judges and hangmen enforce laws, 
 but they do not make them : in like 
 manner duelling may enforce the laws of 
 good breeding, but it cannot make them." 
 
 " But still," said G. " you allow that 
 duelling diminishes the number of offences 
 which one man of O. would commit 
 against another?" 
 
 " Even that is doubtful. By giving 
 them an apparent method of vindicating 
 their rights, it makes them more absurdly 
 jealous of them ; and they guard their 
 dogs from insult with as much anxiety 
 as their persons. Besides, as, amongst 
 Christians, those who abstain from 
 crimes rather on account of their conse- 
 quences than from a hatred towards the 
 
crimes themselves, acquire dishonourable 
 apd mercenery views of religion ; so 
 those shapes of O. who do not insult 
 other shapes of O. only because they 
 inust afterwards fight them, are likely 
 soon to become destitute of all kind and 
 generous feelings, and therefore to quar- 
 rel more than ever." 
 
 " But perhaps," said G. " I have con- 
 sidered duelling upon improper grounds 
 the men of O. do not seek * repara- 
 4 tion' from it." 
 
 " You are right/' answered M. " Even 
 they are not generally so absurd. Nor, 
 whatever Monboddo's theory may give 
 you reason to suspect, is revenge, which, 
 as Lord Bacon says, is * wild justice' 
 the justice of rnonkies always their 
 object; but it is the good opinion of the 
 world which they thus seek * even in the 
 1 cannon's mouth.' ' 
 
 " Is there no test," said G. " but 
 being bullet-proof, to which characters 
 
 ould be brought?" 
 
 4 
 
205 
 
 41 The best expedient," replied M. 
 14 which could be employed would be, 
 for the laws to give every aggrieved per- 
 son a power of summoning a fixed num- 
 ber of unbiassed persons to decide upon 
 his case, and to award the compensation 
 which would best repair his wrongs. 
 My honour is blemished by you ; but it 
 is not in the power of gunpowder to re- 
 store it; for if it give me the reputation 
 of courage, it cannot, perhaps, do away 
 the imputation you have thrown upon 
 me. But persons selected from the pub- 
 lic would represent the public: their 
 voice would be the voice of the commu- 
 nity ; and their opinion would decide a 
 case which in general is only matter of 
 opinion. If, however, these people had 
 souls, you see that no desire of the ap- 
 plause of others could arm them with 
 pistols." 
 
 " No," answered Gustavus; " for such 
 beings to fight, would be to brave God 
 
 * 
 
 through fear of man." 
 
206 
 
 " These, therefore," said M. " would 
 be the most criminal ; but can any thing* 
 be so absurd as the duellist of O. ? He 
 who thinks only of the body, exposes it 
 to a contest in which every chance may 
 be against him. He who calculates upon 
 no life beyond this, yet stakes his only 
 existence to procure the applause of & 
 few shadows like himself.' 
 
07 
 
 CHAP. XVII. 
 
 OUR travellers had now searched almost 
 every corner in O. for subjects of won- 
 der, or for illustrations of their theory. 
 But there is something in the contem- 
 plation of folly and vice which distresses 
 a good mind. If men loved them less 
 themselves, they would be more affected 
 by them in others. Gustavus gave them 
 successively a tear or a frown, as pity 
 or disgust prevailed in his bosom. In 
 addition to this as the storm which 
 bruises the flower nourishes the tree so 
 absence, which starves a weak affection, 
 had strengthened a strong one, and Gus- 
 tavus felt every day a more anxious de- 
 sire to return to Switzerland and Emilv. 
 
208 
 
 M. found him one day with these 
 verses in his hand : 
 
 *T is memory says, that round thine eye 
 In liquid lustre circling fly 
 
 A thousand living rays ; 
 lake as when round the pointed lance, 
 In harmless eye-deceiving dance, 
 
 The summer lightning idly plays *, 
 
 And memory says, that on thy brow 
 Is penclPd such a peaceful bow 
 
 As oft bestrides the sky ; 
 Prophetic too it seems to say, 
 That many a holy happy day 
 
 Is promis'd to my Emily. 
 
 f see thee, a the moon's pale beam 
 Silvers the scarcely heaving stream, 
 
 Count the slow waves which sullen break ; 
 Or steal along the chequer'd isle, 
 While meek Devotion's sainted snnile 
 
 Sits calmly on thine angel cheek. 
 
 I see thee climb the rugged steep, 
 Where poor Valette forgets to weepj 
 Cheer'd by thy pitying eye ; 
 
 * This .phenomenon is said tt> occur in some 
 southern cmnates. 
 
20$ 
 
 But never see that eye severe, 
 To frown on woe, or chide the tear 
 Of helpless, hopeless misery. 
 
 But why are these but memory 's themes, 
 Of joys expir'd, but lingering dreams, 
 
 The ghosts of what were mine ? 
 In each low bell that strikes mine ear, 
 A mournful voice I seem to hear, 
 
 " Those joys no more are thine." 
 
 But yield me to my native oaks, 
 
 To laughing vallies bleach'd with flocks, 
 
 To nature's ribs of stone ; 
 Another touch shall wake the string, 
 And sweetly Emily shall sing, 
 
 " Those joys are thine alone." 
 
 " I once remarked," said M. " that it 
 was not only sorrow which made a poet, 
 But let me add, that poetry had some 
 obligations to you for not prostituting it 
 to any base employments. Love, when 
 it borrows the aid of numbers, sometimes 
 sfngs in strains fit only for the seraglio. 
 We are not, however, to consider re- 
 ligion as an enemy to chaste affections ; 
 
it is not meant to destroy love, but to 
 sanctify it. And the influence of modest 
 love is reciprocal it does not wound re- 
 ligion, but adorns it." 
 
 " If," said Gustavus, " my poetry had 
 taken a more questionable shape, you 
 ought not to have wondered at it ; for 
 who can breathe the air of O. for sixty 
 days, arid not be corrupted by it ? Who 
 knows, indeed, but with a longer stay I 
 may become a subject from which future 
 Monboddo's may maintain the theory of 
 their ancestors ?" 
 
 * Do you then desire to go ?" said M. 
 
 " Ah ! yield me," he answered, " to 
 my native oaks, To laughing vallies 
 bleached" 
 
 " We will go," said M. " to-morrow. 
 You cannot love St. Foy better than I 
 do." 
 
211 
 
 CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 IF I marry Gustavus and Emily, it will 
 be objected to me, that it is incredible a 
 tale of truth like mine should terminate 
 like a novel. But it is to be observed, 
 that Nature will sometimes clash with 
 Jhe novellist, whatever industry the lat- 
 ter may employ to keep her at a distance. 
 If my readers, however, are offended 
 at my thus treading in the iron rail-way 
 of the writers of fiction, I am about to 
 take a flight, which will convince them 
 I am as eccentric as they could wish me 
 to be. I request then all those who have 
 followed me thus far, at once to quit 
 every thought of the voyage, the meet- 
 ing, and the altar ; and to hurry onward 
 with me to that point in the vale of life 
 where Gustavus and Emily found them- 
 selves after some years. 
 
I have seen this little circle ; and I 
 never saw a happier. The life of the 
 older couple was like one of those days 
 in which the sun is brightest at its set- 
 ting." Man is born to sorrow as the 
 sparks fly upward." True ; but, though 
 nursed in sorrow, this child of woe may 
 know a manhood and old age of peace 
 and joy. I do not, however, say, that 
 sorrow never came near their dwelling, 
 but it always seemed, in their case, to 
 be employed upon some new and mild 
 errand. It met them without a frown ; 
 and was meant, therefore, not so much 
 to chastise, as to improve them. I know 
 no man who like M. could thus sanctify 
 misfortune. " There are," he would say, 
 " trees which we bruise to obtain a bal- 
 sam : the wound is here inflicted, it is 
 ours to extract the medicine." 
 
 Gustavus and Emily were not of an 
 age to make the most even of real misfor- 
 tune. And their wants and wishes were 
 so few, that there was scarcely what may 
 
213 
 
 be called a "joint in their armour" where 
 disappointment could hit them. 
 
 Let it not be thought that the inha- 
 bitants of a mountain must of necessity 
 be idle; for, if so, they must be mise- 
 rable. The mind that is hungry of duties 
 will find them every where. The circle, 
 indeed, is small, but he runs the whole 
 of it the sphere of example is narrow, 
 but he shines through every point of it * 
 and, in a single subject of woe, he finds 
 employment for a charity wide as the 
 world he treads on, and active as the air 
 he breathes. 
 
 But Fortune now undertook herself to 
 teach the lesson in which M. was begin- 
 
 o 
 
 ning to instruct Gustavus that those 
 who have powers fitted to the discharge 
 of public duties, must not shrink from 
 them to the shades of oaks, and the feli- 
 cities of solitude. That calm sunshine 
 which had settled on the rocks of Swit- 
 zerland was not to last for ever. One of 
 these fiery spirits, which Heaven let* 
 
214 
 
 loose to scourge mankind, had marked 
 her for his prey. Could the natives of 
 these rocks, free as the winds which roar 
 around them, tamely crouch to the de* 
 stroyer? It needs a sterner heart than 
 mine to watch the sword as it fleshes it- 
 self with human victims to count the 
 groans of the wounded, or the shouts of 
 victory and it needs a more ambitious 
 pen to record them. I snatch, however, 
 one wreath from the hand of the histo- 
 rian, to bind it on brows which will adorn 
 it. Gustavus taught the invaders, that 
 the best Christian is ever the best Pa- 
 triot; and St. Foy wrote in blood the 
 solemn truth, that there is no rampart 
 like the breasts of a free people. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 NOTE A, Page 105. 
 
 THIS, and some other affirmations that follow, 
 may appear so questionable to those who are not 
 well acquainted with this subject, that it has been 
 thought necessary to produce some of the autho- 
 rities on which they are founded. The important 
 facts belonging to this traffic, may be found clearly 
 and ably stated in a pamphlet entitled, " The 
 State of the Question/ 1 Printed for Hatchard, 
 Piccadilly. 
 
 NOTE B, Page 105. 
 
 THE capital employed in the Slave Trade does 
 not, at the utmost, amount to more than 1 , 128,625/. 
 " which is not one thirty-fourth part of the average 
 capital employed in the exports of the country." 
 State of the Question, page 34, ad edition. 
 
NOTE C, Page 10J. 
 
 " THE profits of the negro traffic are universally 
 allowed to be extremely uncertain. But the re- 
 turns, even in the most advantageous transactions, 
 are more slow than those of the most distant 
 branches of foreign trade. The Slave Trade, 
 therefore, draws that part of the national capital 
 which it employs to the occupation of all others 
 most uncertain and productive of most remote be- 
 nefits. The other branches of our traffic are infi- 
 nitely more sure, and possess the advantage, most 
 of all conducive to the public good, that of much 
 quicker returns." State of the Question, page 34. 
 ^-To this it might be added, that the capital 
 employed in the Jamaica trade does not in its 
 average profits produce more than four per cent. 
 Jam. Report, for 1805. 
 
 NOTE D, Page 105. 
 
 THESE facts are unquestionable: 1. That the 
 African trade does not employ one sixtieth of our 
 tonnage. 2. That it does not employ one twenty- 
 third part of our seamen. 3. That the average 
 foreign trade of Great Britain employs more ton- 
 
C17 
 
 nage in the proportion of 50 to 30 according to 
 ihe capital employed, than the Slave Trade. 
 4. That the mortality of Loamen employed in the 
 African commerce is greater in the proportion of 
 8 to 1 than that in the direct West India trade, 
 which next to the Slave Trade is the most unwhole- 
 some in the universe. And yet this trade is the 
 nursery of the British navy. Vide State of the 
 Question, p. 39, 40, &c. ; Report of Committee, 
 
 1789 ; Clarkson's Letters, Part II. 
 
 i 
 
 NOTE E, Page 105. 
 
 IT is plain, from a consideration of the returns 
 ef deaths, births, and importations, in the islands 
 of Jamaica, Barbadoes, &c. that there is in all 
 an excess of births above the deaths at this present 
 moment ; so that if the trade were to cease im- 
 mediately, the stock of the islands would not only 
 maintain itself, but increase. How much greater 
 would be the increase, if the proportion of fe- 
 males were greater to that of males (which would 
 soon be the case if no fresh importations took 
 place); and if, by an inability to purchase, it- 
 should become the interest of the planters to 
 breed ! 
 
218 
 
 *' Some islands, even now, are well known to 
 require no supply whatever, and to trust entirely 
 to the natural means of increasing their stock/* 
 Vide State of the Question, p. 44, 46, 
 
 THE END, 
 
 S. Goswfiit, Punter, Little Queen Street. London, 
 

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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELE N 
 BERKELEY, CA94720-60CX 
 
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