ments, second only to their own, with an unconsciousness almost
worthy of spirits of light. While they complacently conclude themselves
the victims of others, or pronounce, inwardly or aloud, that they are
too singular, or too refined, for common appreciation, they are putting
in motion an enginery of torture whose aspect will one day blast their
minds' sight. The dumb groans of their victims will sooner or later
return upon their ears from the depths of the heaven, to which the
sorrows of men daily ascend. The spirit sinks under the prospect of the
retribution of the unamiable, if all that happens be indeed for
eternity, if there be indeed a record--an impress on some one or other
human spirit--of every chilling frown, of every querulous tone, of every
bitter jest, of every insulting word--of all abuses of that tremendous
power which mind has over mind. The throbbing pulses, the quivering
nerves, the wrung hearts, that surround the unamiable--what a cloud of
witnesses is here! and what plea shall avail against them? The terror
of innocents who should know no fear--the vindictive emotions of
dependants who dare not complain--the faintness of heart of life-long
companions--the anguish of those who love--the unholy exultation of
those who hate,--what an array of judges is here! and where can appeal
be lodged against their sentence? Is pride of singularity a rational
plea? Is super-refinement, or circumstance of God, or uncongeniality in
man, a sufficient ground of appeal, when the refinement of one is a
grace granted for the luxury of all, when circumstance is given to be
conquered, and uncongeniality is appointed for discipline? The
sensualist has brutified the seraphic nature with which he was endowed.
The depredator has intercepted the rewards of toil, and marred the image
of justice, and dimmed the lustre of faith in men's minds. The imperial
tyrant has invoked a whirlwind, to lay waste, for an hour of God's
eternal year, some region of society. But the unamiable--the domestic
torturer--has heaped wrong upon wrong, and woe upon woe, through the
whole portion of time which was given into his power, till it would be
rash to say that any others are more guilty than he. If there be hope
or solace for such, it is that there may have been tempers about him the
opposite of his own. It is matter of humiliating gratitude that there
were some which he could not ruin; and that he was the medium of
discipline by which t