as more rough-hewn than mine, I believed he was of a less
impenetrable material.'

'And so that is the way you go on--heartening each other up to mutiny,
and abusing each other's partners, and throwing out implications against
your own, to the mutual gratification of both!'

'According to your own account,' said I, 'my evil counsel has had but
little effect upon her. And as to abuse and aspersions, we are both of
us far too deeply ashamed of the errors and vices of our other halves, to
make them the common subject of our correspondence. Friends as we are,
we would willingly keep your failings to ourselves--even from ourselves
if we could, unless by knowing them we could deliver you from them.'

'Well, well! don't worry me about them: you'll never effect any good by
that. Have patience with me, and bear with my languor and crossness a
little while, till I get this cursed low fever out of my veins, and then
you'll find me cheerful and kind as ever. Why can't you be gentle and
good, as you were last time?--I'm sure I was very grateful for it.'

'And what good did your gratitude do? I deluded myself with the idea
that you were ashamed of your transgressions, and hoped you would never
repeat them again; but now you have left me nothing to hope!'

'My case is quite desperate, is it? A very blessed consideration, if it
will only secure me from the pain and worry of my dear anxious wife's
efforts to convert me, and her from the toil and trouble of such
exertions, and her sweet face and silver accents from the ruinous effects
of the same. A burst of passion is a fine rousing thing upon occasion,
Helen, and a flood of tears is marvellously affecting, but, when indulged
too often, they are both deuced plaguy things for spoiling one's beauty
and tiring out one's friends.'

Thenceforth I restrained my tears and passions as much as I could. I
spared him my exhortations and fruitless efforts at conversion too, for I
saw it was all in vain: God might awaken that heart, supine and stupefied
with self-indulgence, and remove the film of sensual darkness from his
eyes, but I could not. His injustice and ill-humour towards his
inferiors, who could not defend themselves, I still resented and
withstood; but when I alone was their object, as was frequently the case,
I endured it with calm forbearance, except at times, when my temper, worn
out by repeated annoyances, or stung to distraction by some new instance
of irrationality, g