ecause it was proper to feel
it; and deceived herself probably more than she deceived any one
about her.

A curious phase of human nature is that same play-acting, effect-
studying, temperament, which ends, if indulged in too much, in
hopeless self-deception, and 'the hypocrisy which,' as Mr. Carlyle
says, 'is honestly indignant that you should think it hypocritical.'
It is common enough among Negresses, and among coloured people too:
but is it so very uncommon among whites? Is it not the bane of too
many Irish? of too many modern French? of certain English, for that
matter, whom I have known, who probably had no drop of French or
Irish blood in their veins? But it is all the more baneful the
higher the organisation is; because, the more brilliant the
intellect, the more noble the instincts, the more able its victim is
to say--'See: I feel what I ought, I say what I ought, I do what I
ought: and what more would you have? Why do you Philistines
persist in regarding me with distrust and ridicule? What is this
common honesty, and what is this "single eye," which you suspect me
of not possessing?'

Very beautiful was that harbour of George Town, seen by day. In the
centre an entrance some two hundred yards across: on the right, a
cliff of volcanic sand, interspersed with large boulders hurled from
some volcano now silent, where black women, with baskets on their
heads, were filling a barge with gravel. On the left, rocks of hard
lava, surmounted by a well-lined old fort, strong enough in the days
of 32-pounders. Beyond it, still on the left, the little city,
scrambling up the hillside, with its red roofs and church spires,
among coconut and bread-fruit trees, looking just like a German toy
town. In front, at the bottom of the harbour, villa over villa,
garden over garden, up to the large and handsome Government House,
one of the most delectable spots of all this delectable land; and
piled above it, green hill upon green hill, which, the eye soon
discovers, are the Sommas of old craters, one inside the other
towards the central peak of Mount Maitland, 1700 feet high. On the
right bow, low sharp cliff-points of volcanic ash; and on the right
again, a circular lake a quarter of a mile across and 40 feet in
depth, with a coral reef, almost awash, stretching from it to the
ash-cliff on the south side of the harbour mouth. A glance shows
that this is none other than an old crat